GW1-6 fixture analysis

With the opening game of the Premier elague season just 3 days away, I will be taking a look at teams with the best fixtures for the first 6 gameweeks.To find the team with the best fixtures I used a simple method of rating every game of every game week from best to worst. The team with the worst fixture got a rating of 20 and the best fixture got 1.

Top 6 scores were the following: Swansea- 47, Aston Villa-49, West Ham-50, Manchester United-51, Manchester City-54, Newcastle United-54. 

Honorable mentions: Sunderland-58, Tottenham, WBA, Wigan and Chelsea with 59.

This creates a general picture and may help when you are struggling to fill some open spots on your team. Now to get a better idea of who to pick for GW1, lets add the rating off the first 3 game weeks  to the selected sides. Mostly because some of the players could be better used playing at the start of the 6 gw period and some at the end. This will help to plan transfers.

Scores for the first 3 fixtures in declining order: Swansea-19, Man City-20, Man Utd-21, West Ham-26, Wigan-27, Tottenham-30, Sunderland-31, Newcastle-32, Chelsea-32, West Brom-38

All this gives a pretty good idea of who to put in our teams to start the season. With 2 exceptions- Chelsea and Tottenham. Chelsea start off with a double game week with both games against weaker sides, I dont think you can not have less than 2 Chelsea players. Tottenham have 4 great fixtures in the middle of 2 very bad ones I would also recommend going with some Tottenham cover or at least get some in GW2.

Also Newcastle and West Brom deserve a special notice as they have poor first 2 fixtures but should be invested in after GW2.

Chelsea

I have always been a sucker for a DoubleGameWeek, and this time is no different. So no matter the ? marks surrounding many of the Chelsea players form and playing time I will have 3 of them. Defensive options are the safest as at least 3 of them are nailed on and will most likely play the most minutes of all the Chelsea players. Ivanovic and A.Cole are both 6.5m and nailed on while Terry 7m is the best attacking option. Many may even choose to double up on the defenders, because of the guaranteed playing time and that is not such a bad idea. 

There are also plenty of midfielders to choose from. Mata 9.5m, Lampard 9m, and Hazard 9.5 mil could all prove to be good options. Mata is the most likely option to play the full 180 minutes, with Hazard new to the premier league and Lampard being old and just playing 60min on wednesday for England. Than there is also Ramires 7m, the man rarely scores or assists and is not really a differential anymore with 18% owning him, so I own him at your own risk.

I don't quite believe I am saying this, but the main man is Fernando Torres 10m, as he is nailed on to start both games and is probably the best captain option around.

Swansea

Swansea with a 6 GW score of 47 and 3 GW score of 19 is by far the team with the best fixtures. I strongly recommend having at least 1 Swansea player in your team to start the season. Graham 6m is the obvious option after scoring 6 goals in pre- season, but if you cannot fit him into one of your 3 forward spots, that take a look at the proven Scott Sinclair 7m or take a risk with last seasons top scoring midfielder in La Liga Michu at 6.5 m. Nathan Dyer could also yet again prove to be a bargain with a much cheaper price of 5.5m. But the emergence of Wayne Routledge is making me wary of choosing him.

Many people believe that Swansea will fail to repeat their defensive output of 14 clean sheets from last season and the preseason has backed up that belief. But Mallorca- the team that Laudrup coached in La Liga was one of the 4th best defensive team conceding only 2 goals more than Valencia, so investing in one of the 5 million Swansea defenders is probably not the worst of ideas. I would recommend Rangel for his possible attacking returns.

Man City

Man United were actually the second best team in my system, but United have a very tough first fixture Away at Everton. And City face a questionable defensive side Southampton at home and also QPR at home in GW3. I fear that both these fixtures may be a bloodbath, with 3-4 goals in both games not impossible for City. With this reasoning I am recommending a minimum of 2 City players for game week 1. 

For defensive cover I recommend Zabaleta 6m- he is the cheapest option at the back and should be nailed on at least for a month(until Richards recovers from injury).Or if you are feeling lucky than try out Kolarov at 6mil, who will be playing as a midfielder if Mancini continues with his new found 3-5-2 formation.

But the attacking players is where the investment is most crucial as big teams tend to concede in the beginning of the season, but often rack up tons of goals especially against newly promoted sides. Midfielders present us with a fantasy managers a headache. Nasri 8.5 mil- seems like the best option as long as Silva is resting, as he plays furthest forward in the 3-5-2 and also high up on the flank in the 4-4-2, but he faces rotation from Silva who is very likely to replace him once he gets his legs under him. Silva 10mil- is clearly the best option when fit, but when that will happen, we dont know. Yaya Toure 8m is a great player but often sits deep and is very inconsistent. 

Because of those reasons I have decided to avoid the City midfield and look at the strikers for attacking returns. Aguero 11.5m is expensive but should be nailed on and taking penalties while Balotelli is not on the pitch. Tevez 9m on the other hand is too cheap to ignore for a top 3 side striker. After thinking about this issue for a few days I realized that both players are a must for GW1, especially as I dont see a midfielder we can count on. 

Manchester United 

The second best team in my rating system Man Utd is a tough nut to crack as the transfer rumors of RVP are muddying the water. And there is basically 1 nailed on attacking option and that is Wayne Rooney 12 mil. I am still undecided on how Robin van Persies 13m addition will affect him, but I am pretty sure that he will still be nailed on and will still take the penalties. If you are looking for United attacking cover than Rooney is who I recommend to get. RVP at 13 mil looks overpriced at united especially if he does not take the penalties. I recommend a wait and see approach with him.

If anyone of the 3 wingers could nail down a starting role they will be in my team Nani 9mil, Valencia 9mil, Young 8.5mil could all be super options when nailed on. Than there is Kagawa 8.5 mil, many see him as the best option in the united midfield as Fergie usually buys people who will improve the current team and based on that logic he could be starting ahead of many current players. But with some adjustment time needed and his role still undecided I will comfortably wait and see weather he will become a good fantasy option or someone like Modric. 

One of the safest options to invest in united in my opinion is David de Gea 6m, he is the cheapest nailed on option in the united defense as we dont know who will play RB for united and Rio Ferdinand will be rotated as often as possible for Fergie. DDG could also face rotation from Lindegaard, but I feel that he will play much more minutes than last season. To be on the cautious side I would recommend pairing him with a 4.5 keeper to avoid 0pt game weeks. I have decided to go that route and mr De Gea goes streight in my team.

Tottenham Hotspur

As I noted before Tottenham has been treated unfairly by my rating system. And probably has the best looking fixtures starting GW2-GW5. But finding the right player to pick is not the easiest of jobs. Defensively there are 3 great attacking options- Walker, Assou-Ekotto and Verthongen all 6.5 mil, but personally I don't trust any of them to be worth their cost as AVB has proven so far to have a bad influence on defenses. Id much rather pay the extra 0.5 for Vermaelen, Vidic, Baines or Kompany. Other options include GK Friedel at 5.5m and Kaboul 5.5m, Dawson 5m and Gallas 5m. The cheap CB who get chosen for that remaining CB spot would be the player I would choose. But overall I think the Tottenham back line is overpriced. 

As defenders are not inviting me to invest we have to look at attacking players. Bale 9.5m is the boring and probably the best pick here as he is nailed on and should fit well into AVBs system. Than there is Siggurdson 9m the miracle man of last years second half of the season, there is a possibility that he could play a bit deeper especially with Modric probably leaving, so I am taking a wait and see approach with Siggy. VDV 9m on the other hand is someone who I interests me maybe it is just nostalgy but I feel that he is the best fantasy player for the spurs if he would manage to stay fit and the points per minute prove it. So as it is the beginning of the season I feel better investing in him, also because he is too lazy to be played defensively and too good to sit on the bench. So he will play either in the hole or on one of the wings. He will also take penalties unless Adebayor comes to town. 

I fully expect Tottenham to buy another striker, but if they dont than Defoe at 7.5 mil could be a super sleeper with a minimum of 15 goals to his name if he manages to stay fit.

Aston Villa

Aston Villas fixtures sure look tasty so investment looks like a must and they have a new coach in Paul Lambert who has a very offensive philosophy, but there is a catch as Lambert is well known for rotating his squad constantly and not paying too much attention on defending( this became very evident as Norwich(his previous team) only kept 2 clean sheets last term. This probably already made it clear that I dont see a point in buying Villa defenders. 

So lets look at the attacking players. There are 2 names that pop up and who will probably be less affected by rotation- Nzogbia and Darren Bent. Nzogbia 6.5 m is well remembered by many from his Wigan days and the best option from the current Villa midfield. Darren Bent 8.5m has always been a great striker should also take penalties and I dont think that 13-15 goals will be a problem for him this season. Bent is the man I would recommend if you believe that Villa will go nuts offensively.

West Ham

 West Ham probably have the best fixtures of the entire bunch, but they lack good options so I am not sure if I will find money to invest in them. Luckily their players don't cost too much, especially the defenders. Demel 4m and McCartney 4m should both be nailed on for now and one of them will find their way into my team. Especially with their investment in defensive players like Diarra who played great for France at the Euro 2012. 

Attacking options fill me with less optimism, best options so far seem to be Nolan at 6m who scored 12 goals for Newcastle in 10-11 season(some of them from the penalty spot dough) and Noble 5m who is on most set pieces and spot kicks. The striker situation is still murky as their coach big Sam is still desperately trying to find a new striker. I would not touch any of their current strikers with a large pole, at least for now.

Best of the rest

Investing in Newcastle and WBA can wait. But Sunderland and Wigan do have a couple of players who could be nice additions to our teams.

Defenders:

(SUN) Cuellar 4.5 mil- This guy is a fresh face in the Sunderland team, but is the cheaper starter in their backline, no further reasons needed.

(WIG) Boyce 5 mil- Is not the cheapest option but plays OOP, in the same position as Ramires does for chelsea, I may be a bit too high on him as he scored 2 goals for me at the end of last season and won me my H2H finale :). But positive OOP olayers are always good options.

Midfielders:

(SUN) Larsson, McLean both at 6.5 mil are the players I would look at in the Sunderland midfield. Larsson is on all set pieces unless Saha takes some off him, and McLean is just a fabulous player who could be a real steal if he continues last seasons form. There is also Sessegnon at 8m- but I feel that he is just a bit overpriced for me.

(WIG) Victor Moses 7mil who first comes to mind, but without any set-pieces I dont see a way that I am picking him at that price. Maloney 5 mil seems like a much better choice dough he carries a risk of rotation, but the spot kick duty more than makes up for that. There is also Miyachy the loanee from Arsenal, but I am still undecided on how he will fit into the team.

Strikers:

(SUN) Louis Saha(price undecided) is the best striker at Sunderland if he manages to stay fit, which is a big if, he can even take spot kicks as he has done before, playing at Man Utd for an example.

(WIG) Wigan have now got 3 strikers so I suggest to avoid that situation completely.

NB!!! Remember people, set up your teams today. There is a big chance FPL may crash tomorrow morning :)