The Homeless SZS fantasy league thread

[Jimmy McNulty]

Benteke almost certainly out. Bye bye, Christian.

[Jimmy McNulty]

I can see his price just rising and rising.

After the Sunderland game, Man U have 3 tough fixtures, but it's Man U we're talking about here Jimmy, not Watford.

And after those 3 games Man U have probably the easiest run in to Xmas of any team and his price will be over 9 mill by then I reckon.

All aboard the New Henry train. Choo choo choo choo

He's young though. LVG has stated that he'll be treating him as such. We'll see what he's made of in those games though. So far he's had three shots and three goals. I think I'll wait and see on him.

[cyrille]

Thing is though what else has lvg got up front?

He'll be protecting Martial by picking...?

The more persuasive arguments against are that they have difficult fixtures and, oh, yeah, they are playing utter shite.

[Dillinger]

If he was gonna treat him with kid gloves, he wouldn't have brought him on last night. H e can't be dropped until his form drops now IMO.

19 is not too young, when you remember Giggs and Rooney starting out. Ronaldo was a regular at 19.

[cyrille]

Like I said - lvg's got fuck all options.

His captain and striker has basically died. Capital One Cup specialist.

He sold off all the other options.

Everything else is just skirting around the point.

[Jofrey]

Martial captain.

[Jimmy McNulty]

That wasn't predictable at all.

[cyrille]

[cyrille]

Newcastle actually managed to not win that game.

[Jofrey]

Sanchez....what a man.

[Jimmy McNulty]

He done 'sploded. Wonder how many people dropped him this week.

Will the same happen with Aguero? With the Targett and Gomez bandwagons coming to a crunching halt, I think Ags has got a few more weeks to underwhelm.

It's going to get hard to actually spend your money this season. Fancy going very mid-range all over the squad to play the fixtures no bench dross to accommodate underwhelming elite fucks.

[cyrille]

It's going to get hard to actually spend your money this season.

I want points from Pedro next week or he's on his bike.

Was thinking of getting Begovic in, but that first half performance was an absolute shambles from the whole team, with Mourinho apparently telling them at half time that he wished he could make six substitutions.

Difficult to know what good and bad fixtures are this season.

[Jimmy McNulty]

Yes. Lolarov has given me 0 points in two weeks since getting him in as well so Citeh appear to not be the safe bet they were. ManYoo are still looking sound at the back though they've got fixtures coming up that don't look like clean sheet bankers.

Even with Sanchez's haul last night, with all the creative outlets at clubs like Citeh and Arsenal, it could be 4 or 5 weeks before he produces again. I'm not sure that these players are worth it over cheaper creative players with less competition to get the assists and the goals like Mahrez, Payet, Redmond when they're taken in and out according to fixture ease.

Your front 8 could conceivably be

Redmond Mahrez Payet Ayew Mata

Sakho Ighalo Martial

all for...what maybe 55m. Even if you spend 5m each on your defenders and your goalkeepers, you've got 11 or 12m to spare.

and then bring in players like Gomis, Walters, Shaqiri, Hoolahan, Sako, Wilson, etc. based on fixture ease in blocks. With all that cash, you'll always have the flexibility.

I can't help but imagine that based on this season, where the fixtures are so hard to call and the playing field seems much more even that this strategy would be better than the traditional static, stuffing your team with as many elite twats as you can while looking for cheap bench fodder that'll play when you're in a pinch. Not to mention the fact that it seems that just about every team is playing some form of 4-5-1 or a 4-4-1-1 with lone strikers and far-advanced creative midfielders which gives you the cheap and consistent options we're seeing.

Dunno. Verbal diarrhoea perhaps, but it feels like the league has changed, so the game that simulates the sport would change too.

[cyrille]

I'm certainly thinking along those lines - more circa 8 million m/f and forwards, 5.5 million defenders and keepers and a stronger bench.

Such fine lines though isn't it...I mean if just sturridge, aguero and hazz start producing it'll seem far more like business as usual.

Still a little early to say the league has changed, imo, at least over this last couple of years. Very different from those early days of the premier league, though. Remember those fairly regular victories by seven goals or so? Now it's 'get 2-0 up and drag the stars off because it's champions league on Tuesday'.

[Jimmy McNulty]

Still a little early to say the league has changed, imo, at least over this last couple of years.

Yeah, you're probably right.

[cyrille]

I've risen a million over the last five game weeks.
Problem is that I went into game week three placed at 2.3 million.
With the more aggressive pricing this year, clearly the right strategy was to wildcard unless you hit gold in week 1.
It's taken me five weeks to get halfway to fixing what went wrong in gw1+2.

[Jofrey]

Your front 8 could conceivably be

Redmond Mahrez Payet Ayew Mata

Sakho Ighalo Martial

the top players will kill you though if/when they get going........like Sanchez..

[Jimmy McNulty]

Yeah, that one gameweek but my point was 'Even with Sanchez's haul last night, with all the creative outlets at clubs like Citeh and Arsenal, it could be 4 or 5 weeks before he produces again. I'm not sure that these players are worth it over cheaper creative players with less competition to get the assists and the goals like Mahrez, Payet, Redmond when they're taken in and out according to fixture ease. '

You know, the pertinent contextual bit above the list of players. There was some other stuff below it as well.

[cyrille]

Hard to generalise though.

I mean Sanchez just shoots on sight, so the wealth of talent in arsenal's midfield doesn't really change that.

Think it's a good point about players like KdB, Pedro or Walcott though - they may be more affected by the wealth of scoring or assisting options they are surrounded by, and the likes of Payet and Vardy may be better options for the whole season.

Particularly since as Jimmy notes, it means you don't have to get 4.5m padding to cover their cost.

The downside is having 6m+ rated players on the bench, of course. Even the 5.5 Kouyate has cost me a few painful points by being benched.

[cyrille]

And then who do you captain? If you don't have Sanchez then I guess next week you can go for aguero and hope it works out.

It would take nerves of steel to look at hauls like that of Sanchez last weekend and decide to be picking your captain from the likes of Payet, Sakho and Mahrez for the rest of the season. Then if you change that policy you probably need at least two subs to trade up from Mahrez to Sanchez, while going in the other direction only takes one, of course.

[Jimmy McNulty]

All good points. See that, Joffers? That's how you do it.

[Jofrey]

Quality shines through.

Might be later than usual this season but will happen eventually.

Once the majority have spunked off all their tokens (esp come dgw time) the game will begin in earnest.

[Jimmy McNulty]

Quality shines through.

Might be later than usual this season but will happen eventually.

So eventually they'll have scored more points than most. So who are the quality this year, Joffers apart from Sanchez and, I presume, Aguero? Will Hazard be making a reappearance in your team soon? The mighty Ivanovic?

[cyrille]

The mighty Ivanovic?

Or how about JT - last season's outstanding defender?

Quality shines through ... except when it doesn't.

Indicative in many ways of how the league has dropped off in genuinely exceptional quality over the last couple of years.

[Jofrey]

Will Hazard be making a reappearance in your team soon?

i think so. he'll come good soon..