RVP is world class
It’s been a great 2-week break for fans from Ireland, Portugal, Croatia, and the Czech Republic but let’s get back to club football – and our fantasy lineups…
I. Liverpool @ Chelsea: Both clubs have Champions League aspirations, and have spent big money to put themselves in a position to achieve those goals, but neither have looked like title contenders.
Liverpool’s Luis Suarez and Chelsea’s John Terry share something quite unfortunate in common – both have been accused of racism on the pitch in the past few weeks by Premier League colleagues. But both are set to start and that matchup could be the key to the result.
Fernando Torres and Raul Meireles should feature for Chelsea – though both played at Liverpool last season. Torres has only scored something like 3 goals in 22 Chelsea appearances -a miserable return for a formerly ‘world class’ striker, and that is just one of the superb sub-plots to this one.
Will Jose Bosingwa feature after his fallout with the Portugal national team and recent benching by Villas-Boas? The right back looked superb value to start the season at 5.5M but was dropped in the 1-0 win over Blackburn last time out and fantasy managers must be sweating…
Frank Lampard is too expensive from a fantasy perspective but in superb form, while Daniel Sturridge is so cheap (6.6M) but hasn’t put the ball in the back of the net his last few outings. Will he return to his early season form?
For Liverpool, it’s all Luis Suarez (9.5M). He’s in amazing form for Uruguay and will want to carry that back to England with him. He should shrug off the racism claims to produce against a shaky back four. I see a goal from him on the road.
Prediction: 1-1 draw
II. Arsenal @ Norwich: Can fantasy managers really turn their back on RVP? He’s absolutely world class and reminding me of Didier Drogba’s great 2009-2010 season where he racked up 29 goals and 13 assists and was an ‘automatic’ Captain’s Armband selection week in and week out.
Van Persie is like Drogba. Or a carwash. Automatic. 11 goals in 11 Premier League games this season.
Sure, Arsenal are away. Sure, Arsenal have more ‘tired’ international players while Norwich have fewer internationals. But I have to go with a comfortable Arsenal win – with Gervinho, Walcott, and RVP pulling the attacking strings.
Prediction: 1-3 Arsenal
III. Studs & Duds: Hernandez and Rooney are at Swansea so they’re studs despite the VORM-inator, a blog favorite, in goal for the Swans. Former FFF Bendtner is a stud at home to Fulham for Sunderland. Manchester City are studs at home to Newcastle but will it be Balotelli, Dzeko, Aguero or Silva racking up the points? Or Adam Johnson / James Milner? All are studs with 90 minutes of playing time, but all rotation risks…
Everton are home to Wolves so Leighton Baines is a stud. Expensive, but a stud. Tottenham are home to Aston Villa so Adebayor is a stud (as is Gareth Bale – in form) but Van der Vaart is just on the stud/dud fence for me – as he’s carrying a hamstring injury and may not make it.
Duds this week are the usually reliable Newcastle defenders – at Manchester City, and the usually decent Swansea and QPR backlines as well.
IV. Gameweek 12 Best Eleven:
GK: Begovic
D: Baines – Kompany – Kaboul
M: Silva – Van der Vaart – Walters – Ramsey – Brunt
F: RVP – Aguero
Subs: Westwood – Wes Brown – Bendtner – Wilkinson
Related posts:
It’s getting frustrating trying to predict the Manchester City lineup. Aguero/Dzeko/Balotelli are excellent plays should they start. I almost bought Aguero this week, but I was just to scared of the rotation.
Do you have any thoughts on Klasnic, both for this Gameweek and as a purchase for the future? He has 5 goals, 4 assists and 6 bonus points in 6 starts. With easier fixtures around the corner, would you consider him?
RvP is getting to that automatic captain status
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