Can you seriously look yourself in the mirror as a fantasy football manager if you’re planning to sell the highest-scoring player in the game this season for a replacement who’s managed just 29 points so far and is 31st equal on the list of midfielders?
Particularly if you’re the same manager who sold the same midfielder in gameweek two before he scored four goals at Southampton?
Put less cryptically I’m toying with the idea of replacing Son Heung-min with Kevin de Bruyne for gameweek 10. I imagine many of you are facing a similar dilemma and it boils down to the age-old question in this game of form against fixtures.
Son’s got the form, De Bruyne’s got the fixtures with three of Manchester City’s next four Premier League matches at home to Burnley, Fulham and West Brom, a run of games that has been eagerly awaited by fantasy managers.
But this is the same Manchester City team who have scored only 10 goals in eight Premier League games this season and the same De Bruyne who currently ranks 16th in Statman Dave’s xG + xA table (combined expected goals and expected assists) behind Patrick Bamford, Neal Maupay and Aleksandar Mitrovic, as discussed in this week’s episode of Fantasy 606. In other words, De Bruyne isn’t delivering much in terms of end product at the moment.
So Dave says he is going with form rather than fixtures and will hold on to Son until De Bruyne and City show signs again of consistently producing their brilliant best, but then there’s the niggling worry of missing the boat while your managerial rivals are cashing in.
Captain Kevin?
It’s also worth looking a little further ahead and considering your captaincy options for the next few weeks when making a decision like this – De Bruyne would be an obvious choice for the armband if you bring him in, but equally who would you go for if you don’t?
It doesn’t have to be De Bruyne of course, you could equally plump for Raheem Sterling, which would give you a bit of City differential as there are far fewer managers who own him at the moment.
Even fewer own Gabriel Jesus or Sergio Aguero, who has returned from injury, and either of them could cash in with plenty of points if City find form in the next few gameweeks, but then you’re back into that angst-ridden game of playing Pep roulette as you try to guess Guardiola’s selections.
The safest way to go, if you really feel the City fixtures are too good to ignore, could be investing in their defenders, banking on a few clean sheets and then the potential of an assist or two from Kyle Walker or Joao Cancelo, or maybe a set-piece goal from Ruben Dias who’s better value at £5.5m, £500,000 cheaper than his partner Aymeric Laporte.
Or alternatively you judge City on what we’ve seen from them so far this season and forget them.
- Watch 13 FA Cup second-round games on BBC iPlayer, the BBC Sport website and app this weekend. Find out more here.
Keep hold of your Liverpool assets
So if we look elsewhere for our potential transfer moves this week it seems Mohamed Salah could be back in action for Liverpool away to Brighton, which would be great news for those managers who decided to hold on to him.
Diogo Jota is the most transferred-in player this week at the time of writing and we’ve already seen in the champions’ 2-1 win against West Ham in gameweek seven that he can score goals coming off the bench if Jurgen Klopp decides to start with his familiar front three.
I even dared suggest in the Fantasy 606 podcast this week that James Milner could continue to be a good short-term bet at £5.3m with his versatility in Liverpool’s current injury crisis.
He scored 11 points with two assists from corners in the 3-0 win against Leicester and could potentially be on penalty duty if Salah is absent, but Chris Sutton and Statman Dave gave that pretty short shrift, feeling I was trying to be wise after the event.
One thing we did agree on was that the champions were sensational so hang on to your Liverpool assets if you’ve already got them.
How about a return for Richarlison then? He’s back in harness for Everton after his red card in the Merseyside derby and should easily have had more than five points for his early assist in the 3-2 win at Fulham in gameweek nine.
He could even be a captaincy option this week with Everton at home to Leeds, although I’m sure Jamie Vardy owners will be very tempted to give him the armband for Leicester’s home game against Fulham.
And I wonder if the performances of Donny van de Beek (£6.7m) and Edinson Cavani (£8m) in the Champions League this week have given fantasy managers any pause for thought, particularly Cavani were he to be given the regular starting role through the middle?
Whatever you do with your teams don’t forget it’s a 18:30 GMT deadline this Friday before the 20:00 Crystal Palace-Newcastle kick-off at Selhurst Park.
And the Fantasy 606 podcast now has its own email address, which is [email protected] so Chris, Dave and I would love to hear from you.
