Really brief post as it’s a like for like change:
Out: Baines (1.7m)
In: Keane (1.5m)
Baines doesn’t look like recovering from his injury any time soon as a result with two transfers to spare I thought it would be useful to make a like for like change. I wish I’d done this last week with Keane being cheaper then and he had a decent game week. Everton do have tricky fixtures coming up but he was the only viable option at 1.7m or less.
As always, share your thoughts/ideas in the comments below.
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I have 3 transfers, same team expect Smalling instead of Walker.
Any advice sorting defence out please
Could you have swapped Baines for Keane. Then Smalling for Rojo if he is starting later?
Or, not sure if it’s mathematically possible but Smalling for Walker and Baines for Keane. Then we have the same defence.
Sums up our season this year… Sane booked for kicking the ball away and Aguero booked for needlessly obstructing a free kick… -2 pts!
That’s not luck…that’s the player’s stupidity. Needless yellow cards.
I think what Dean meant was bad luck that it was our players who got the needless bookings. On any other day that could have been a game they both picked up a good amount of points.
“On any other day that could have been a game they both picked up a good amount of points”….
Whilst I slightly agree given City’s dominance this season, I don’t think it can be overlooked that Palace seem to have turned a corner having lost just 1 in their last 10. I expected a City win, but I didn’t think it would be a walk over.
I mean’t one of them may have grabbed at least a goal rather than both getting -1 points.
fosuh mensah, 0.5m. great performance today. pieters out for TFM?
Could definitely be worth looking at
Morata for lukaku last transfer?
Give us some funds ….
Also looking at next weeks fresh 3
I think dele will start scoring soon
I’d take a look at bringing him for out of sorts sane
Any other suggestions ?
Jesus long term injury only good news for sergio long run in the team
Looking at the options over the next couple of days but Morata looks like the obvious option.
DTT, what do u c as the better option moving 4ward.
Sane
A. Sanchez
Alonso
Keane
Option B
Sane
Aguerro
Azpilcueta
Keane
Option C
D. Silva
Lukaku
D. Sanchez
Cahill
Thanx.
Option B looks fairly solid to me, especially with Jesus being out injured.
Kaku out for at least two games, Salah out for at least two weeks
Hears to segio and harry scoring tommorow night
Could be a profitable evening !
DTT are we going to use our lasy transfer before fri ?
With chelsea having a double headed league cup with arsenal
And the fact lukaku injured
This a viable option ?
And would release much needed funds
Definitely be using the final transfer before Friday with the injuries to Salah and Lukaku
Lukaku for morata ?
Any midfield suggestions at £7M and below? Happy with Pogba and taken a look at Dele Ali but Spurs have a tough run in Feb so don’t really know who to go for here
Sane with the additional upcoming fixtures in January?
That’s a good shout I see he’s only about £5M. I wonder if Shaw will hold down the left back also a good price
I think Shaw will probably be rotated quite a bit.
I would just like to say….
There has been a lot of talk over the course of the season on this blog about the 3 strikers that DTT has stuck with all season. Lots of talk about Aguero’s gametime and Lukaku’s form – however, these are 3 of the top 4 strikers in the game in terms of points (with only Firmino breaking in), and all in the top 9 performers in the game (Salah also being in the 9 which we have had since the start of the season!)
The tactic from the outset was to ensure that these big hitters were in the team, and concentrating on the positions that score the big points. The top 10 point scorers consist of 5 midfielders, 4 strikers and 1 defender. Based on those facts, the logic seems to be right.
So why are we falling so far behind and what can we change going into the second half of the season? Unfortunately I think that we are too far behind, and the value of our squad is too low (56.8m vs. 71.4m in 1st place). However, is this the learning? Do we need to throw caution to the wind and try and find the player expected to raise in value vs. picking the most valuable players in the game. Our hand may be forced this month with Lukaku and Salah, two big ticket players being injured. However, instead of replacing with Morata or Sterling, do we try and find the players who are going to rise in value? Take a gamble, try and make the game work for us. Admittedly, it might go against us big time, but what have we got to lose!
We all started with the same budget, and these teams at the top have amassed a team value somehow! Our team has not gone down overall in value, so it is deemed better than at the start of the season…
Thoughts?
It’s an interesting thought. I can’t help but stick by the logic followed when it came to selecting the team. As you say the players at the top of the point scoring chart do tend to be those who we would have all picked at the start of the season. I think where things have gone wrong for us is the crucial decisions. Taking De Bruyne out for example, maybe it was done too early but he didn’t look like going on to achieve the points he’s achieved to date. This instantly changed and he became impossible to recapture. We also had the decision between Sterling and Sane at one point. Sane hasn’t scored since and Sterling has gone on to score in every other game. At the point the decision was made everyone agreed Sane was the better option but it just went against us. I think there’s been a lot of times over the season where we’ve made a decision and it’s just not panned out despite it being the right decision. The whole Morata incident is another good example – he was bought in for the Champions League group game and got rested. Chelsea then went on to destroy their opponents in that game. We then swapped him for Aguero (who we really wanted). Morata then grabs a hat trick and Aguero gets injured in a car crash. I know many believe blaming bad luck is an excuse but for me, that’s what it comes down to. Morata didn’t go on to achieve much after his hat trick and I still believe Aguero was the right choice but it cost us massively.
I also think the change in game week timings hasn’t helped us. Last season when the game week ran from Mon-Sun. I was constantly looking to make changes for midweek games to pick up points from players who weren’t expected to start. This season we can’t look at these squads before kick off as players are already locked out from the weekend.
In terms of player values, I agree the poor start we had has put us too far behind to catch up. It seems if you don’t get off to a good start you’re doomed as it becomes so much easier for people who have all the best performing players to simply swap them when other players go on a run of form. I must admit I don’t focus on buying playing to try and grow the value of the squad. I tend only to look at points, I pick the players who I think will score the most points and this should go hand in hand with players who rise in value. Despite other people having a bigger squad value, I still think we have established a strong position. If all players were fit the only player I’d be concerned about in our front 6 is Sane. I’d prefer De Bruyne or Sterling in his place. Other than that I’d change nothing about these 6. If we forget the goalkeeping position, definitely we’ve got cover from Man City and Chelsea which is a good thing. Then a slight weakness in Keane and a big weakness in Pieters. However every team must have a weakness otherwise the game would be too easy.
In terms of what we do going forward. It makes perfect sense to try and do something different to play catch up. However I personally think we aren’t far off having the perfect front 6 in the game. We will be forced into some transfers but I think going for players who are currently low in value and hoping they get on a run of form will put us further behind in the long run. Unless we have a massive slice of luck. The players who are cheaper at the moment tend to be because they’ve not scored well so far this season, to me this suggests it’s unlikely to change for the second half. I’m out of ideas in terms of the next transfers to make so any thoughts would be appreciated. But if we are forced into swapping Lukaku and Salah. I think the only options are Morata and Sterling/De Bruyne. This does however still follow the same principles which have got us in the position we are in (bringing in the best players we can afford at the time, rather than going for value).
I don’t understand DTT’s statement ‘I think the change in game week timings hasn’t helped. Last season the game week ran from Mon-Sun.’ I don’t see why this should hinder DTT’s progress as the same rules apply to everyone and it just needed adjustment of strategy to fit with the rules. I find the best players I follow are adaptable, they see change and quickly adjust and respond to it. Fantasy football has dramatically changed in the last few years, if we don’t quickly adapt we are in danger of being left behind.
Of course the same applies to everyone. What I was getting as was that you’re left down to chance when it comes to who is going to start in the mid week games as there is nothing you can do once the weekend games have been played. There’s nothing to adapt to, it’s just a different format. I still can’t get my head around how people think there can be “good players”, yes you can research and plan to a certain level and this will take you so far. The rest is down to luck, it’s not possible to predict football 100% accurately.
Aguero was up to now DTT’s best weapon and differential and a hope to get into the higher reaches of the rankings.
However, everyone will now be bringing him as City fixtures are good, no competition as Jesus is injured for a while and his price is not too bad as it has dropped from 8.0m. So his ownership will increase particularly from point rich, value rich teams that dominate mini leagues and are in top 1k.
Time for a new hope?
I can’t see any new hopes. When you look at players and the points they are on now, there aren’t any where you think “he’s a player that everyone has overlooked”. I’ll probably need to take Lukaku out, I can’t afford Sterling so this leaves me with someone like Morata. It’s hardly inspiring after his performance last night.