Each week, Sport360 will bring you tips for the English Premier League’s official fantasy football game. Fancy pitting your wits against us? You can join “Sport360 Fans League” using the code 2529004-595062.
Every week, our panel of Fantasy Premier League experts look back at the previous Gameweek and ahead to the next one.
Following the international break, here’s what they had to say.
Has to be that man Sergio Aguero. Hat trick and an assist in GW5 added to the goal and assist in GW4 and the Argentinian front man is looking formidable up front for City.
There have been question marks about accommodating both Aguero and Jesus but when City are on form they’ve proved they can work in tandem together well. His ownership since GW4 has since doubled to almost 21% and more than 500,000 managers have brought him in off the back of the Watford performance.
Matt Richie. Including the Scott in my team since the opening Gameweek was somewhat of a gamble. Despite being involved in 20 goals last season in the Championship (12 goals, 8 assists), rumblings of unrest at St. James and an early price fall after blanking in his opening two fixtures resulted in 81,000+ managers removing Richie from their teams.
Since GW3 he has gone from strength to strength, providing four assists in his last three matches, including two in GW5 against Stoke. Richie has averaged an assist every 112 minutes played so-far this season and at £5.9m is a very good fourth midfielder option.
Mohamed Salah was one of my standout players in GW5. What I find so impressive about him is that he’s consistently threatening the goal. Even with Liverpool being frustrated against Burnley, the Egyptian always posed the greatest threat and scored the equaliser as well.
He took his goal with aplomb and it’s worth noting that he’s scored double figures in the game every time he’s been played for longer than 45 minutes. It’s clear that he’s always creating chances and if he’s given enough time on the pitch, he looks almost certain to deliver. Roberto Firmino looked a bit lost with Daniel Sturridge coming and demanding the ball in areas he would’ve liked to have it, but Salah was completely unaffected.
Alexis Sanchez has been eased back into life in the Premier League so far this season. A full match run out against Doncaster in the EFL cup this week will no doubt have helped with his fitness and indeed it was a sublime assist provided to Theo Walcott for the only goal in that game.
With Arsenal not in action till Monday night he should be raring to go for GW6. Of course it would be typical of Arsene Wenger to start Alex Iwobi instead but my gut is Sanchez to get his first start of the season in the league and step up to perform against WBA
Sergio Aguero. Aguero is now the highest scoring FPL player so-far this season after his hat-trick against Watford in GW5. He has been involved in 8 goals in the opening five matches of this season (6 goals, 2 assists), equating to one every 54 minutes played. Having been rested for the midweek League Cup match against West Brom, Aguero is one to keep both eyes on for this weekend’s match against Crystal Palace.
This one’s a bit out of left field but with Everton finally turning the corner from a a terrible run of fixtures in which they played four top six sides in their opening five fixtures, Cuco Martina looks like he could be a bargain.
Ronald Koeman will have to instill some confidence in his defence first after the battering they’ve taken of late so I wouldn’t move for the wing-back just yet. Arsenal are the only top six side Everton face from now until GW16 so it’s definitely worth considering the defender who is priced at just 4.3m.
Barring the heavy defeat to free scoring Manchester United in GW2, Swansea have only conceded one goal in their other four matches.
Paul Clements side look limited moving forward but defensively have a lot to offer with a number of their defenders in the 4.5m bracket, particularly when looking at their upcoming three fixtures against Watford, West Ham and Huddersfield. There’s a decent opportunity to add to their three clean sheets from the opening five games.
Punt of the week: Joselu. Newcastle have won three matches on the bounce and are up against Brighton this weekend who have lost their last two matches in all competitions. Despite scoring just once in 267 minutes played, Joselu has registered 17 shots, 12 of which were inside the area, with a 67% shot accuracy.
Only three other Forwards have registered more shots and only Roberto Firmino has a better shot accuracy (71%). At 5.5m Joselu could be worth a punt in GW6.
One player who could prove to be great for a differential is Cesc Fabregas. He’s started every league game this season apart from Tottenham away for which he was suspended. Normally renowned for his regular assists, he’s inexplicably failed to provide any in four starts.
That has helped him fly under the radar but he does boast a creativity index of 193.1 and has managed 3.5 key passes per game, the second highest in the league so far. With only 6% ownership, and with a good spot of fixtures apart from hosting Manchester City next week, he’s one to consider bringing in.
FantasyYIRMA.com started in 2012 as one of the early Fantasy Football blog accounts focused primarily on news and previews for the Premier League. Now after providing coverage across 191 consecutive Fantasy Premier League gameweeks we still haven’t a clue what we’re talking about however feel we could’ve qualified as an astronaut if the time had been spent more productively.
Follow @FPLSecrets on Twitter for Fantasy Premier League tips and updates.
