GW Points: 103
Overall Points: 588
Overall Rank: 6,965
Game week 5 wasn’t a great game week, with a drop on the leaderboard and the first time this season my transfers have cost me points. Ultimately though it was only 11 points that I dropped so it could have been much worse. I’m still reasonably happy with my start but it’s frustrating after coming out of the blocks quickly to have hit a bump in the road so early on. The team was nicely climbing the overall leaderboard until this week but these things happen. I don’t think it helped that Rashford was on the bench for the Premier League fixture as he would have almost certainly got close to matching Smith-Rowe for points across two fixtures. It was certainly fairly unfortunate that both players I took out got 3 goals between them.
Here is my breakdown of each player:
McCarthy – he’s got to come out but not sure when, seem to have other fires to put out first and no obvious choice for a replacement.
Robinson – only 2 points for Robinson, he would be coming out this week if I didn’t have other priorities.
Gvardiol – 5 points not great from a double game week but happy to hold for now.
Digne – poor return with 1 point this week, also went off with a knock. Tempted to move him on if I’m unsure on his fitness for the week ahead.
Alexander-Arnold – stays in my team now he’s in. Good initial return of 14 points.
Saka – decent 12 points, stays in my team.
Eze – more consistent points from Eze, stays in my team for at least another week.
Rogers – happy with 9 points from Rogers. Stays in my team.
Rashford – awful 4 points but at least he grew my team value. May remove this week.
Haaland – stays in my team and probably captain every week.
Salah – thought I’d made the wrong call on the captain choice until Salah came on in the EFL Cup. Good choice and he stays in my team.
Player watchlist
Tielemans – should go up in value again and has been performing well. Tempted to bring him in this week with Villa playing Ipswich.
Diaz – I didn’t really take him out last week because I thought he was a bad choice it was more for team value. He’s going to go up by the full amount again and Liverpool have a decent fixture. Could put him straight back in.
Maddison – had he played in the Europa League I’d almost certainly be putting him in. He didn’t so I’m less keen now.
Watkins – difficult to overlook with Villa playing Ipswich but he’s a little pricey considering they play Bayern in the week.
Solanke – might be an option in the future but probably not this week. Keeping an eye on him.
Dalot – another high scoring game week despite Man Utd not being great. Did well last season as well and I did say he would probably repeat this earlier in the season.
Mazraoui – going slightly under the radar as the 5th highest scoring defender at only 3.9m. One to watch but probably not bring in this week with Man Utd playing Spurs.
Onana – still a good option but would probably only swap him for Rogers. Which isn’t a transfer I’m going to be able to make this week.
Johnson – had a great game week but I do worry about his game time.
Son – would be a good pick if he plays in the Europa League every week but as Spurs rotated so much I’m not sure he will.
Martinez – I’m going to need a new keeper at some point. Martinez is the cheapest who will be starting in Europe.
Henderson – the highest scoring cheap goalkeeper. Should go up in value this week as well.
Plan for game week 6
Another tricky week for transfers. There are a lot of options and 4 players that I’d remove given the choice. I’d obviously take out McCarthy, but I’d also be happy to lose Digne, Robinson and Rashford. Given my budget, players I’d realistically be happy to bring in are Henderson, Tielemans, Diaz, Maddison, Watkins or Son. Here’s the options I’m currently looking at:
A: McCarthy, Robinson out,
Henderson, Tielemans in
B: McCarthy, Digne out,
Henderson, Tielemans in
C: McCarthy, Rashford out,
Henderson, Tielemans in
D: Rashford, Digne out,
Diaz, Tielemans in
E: Robinson, Digne out,
Dalot, Tielemans in
F: Rashford, Robinson out,
Maddison, Tielemans in
As there are so many options I’m going to ponder it until the morning. It’s going to be one of those weeks it could go either way so it’s a tricky call.