Gameweek 5’s Bandwagons – The Verdict

We’re only five Gameweeks into the season but we’ve already seen plenty of bandwagons rolling past.  It’s one of the most satisfying feelings in the game when a transfer pays off immediately.  Likewise, a new signing blanking on debut for your team can be hugely frustrating.  Or, even more so, if the player you’ve just dumped finally breaks his barren run and scores big.

Here, I look at how Gameweek 5’s most popular transfers performed.  Listed below are the top five ins and outs ahead of the GW5 fixtures (excluding injured players). Remember, though, this is just for fun and there is plenty of time for any of the transfers below to pay off.

RESULTS

Rank / player / net transfers / GW5 pts

In

1. Deigo Costa / +310,165 / 1
2. Angel Di Maria / +293,409 / 11
3. Cesc Fabregas / +136,664 / 2
4. Morgan Schneiderlin / +134,253 / 2
5. Eric Dier / +124,815 / 2

Out

1. Yaya Toure / -86,061 / 1
2. Eden Hazard / -67,758 / 7
3. David Silva / -54,895 / 1
4. Andre Schürrle / -45,889 / 6
5. John Terry / -44,030 / 2

Honourable mentions

• Steven Naismith / +109,414 / 0
• Raheem Sterling / -42,781 / 10

For this admittedly tiny sample, only Manchester United’s Angel Di Maria’s haul at Leicester paid off last week for the top 5 players transferred in.  Overall, there’s not much difference in total Gameweek score (18) to the players people got rid of the most (17).  I must note that further down the rankings there were plenty of popular transfers which were successes last week.  Obviously this doesn’t mean that getting Chelsea’s Diego Costa or Cesc Fabregas in was a bad transfer, just that often it’s not so desperately urgent to do so as sometimes we may think.  The herd doesn’t necessarily know best.

GW6 BANDWAGONS

In 

The heady mix of form and fixtures has a seen a surge of people transferring in Leonardo Ulloa and Angel Di Maria. Can the Argentines maintain their incredible goal-scoring stats?

Out

Steven Naismith and Aaron Ramsey both blanked in GW5, leading to significant sales this week.  They both have derby matches against neighbours with defensive difficulties.  Will they reward their owners who keep the faith?