The Community Round Up

The post festive schedule hangover proved hard to shrug off this week, particularly among those who benched one of the undisputed star of Gameweek, 20 Harry Kane. Our community articles, members tables and hot topics over the past week offer key advice on dealing with the festive fall out as well as tackling the Fantasy Premier League January wildcard. We look back on the last seven days, whilst discovering just how crucial benching or playing Kane was to the standings in our community leagues.

The Community Articles

The New Year ensures that Fantasy Premier League managers are gripped by Wildcard fever, as we eagerly plan how to dust off the festive blues and create the perfect squad to take on the second half of the season. Following on from Saata’s analysis of budget goalkeeper rotation, Triggerlips was on hand to provided his own quick start guide to Wildcarding, outlining the pitfalls to watch out for when contemplating the January surgery.

With the Wildcard likely to dominate community activity throughout the month, we’ll be starting a new series of articles from next week. The Rate My Wildcard Team (RMWCT) community articles will feature the thoughts of one of our contributors on their own wildcard plans, helping to kickstart the discussion and offer the community a chance to submit their own RMWCT.

Don’t forget, if you’ve got some analysis, scout reports or features brewing, be sure to visit our community section to submit your article.

Each month we offer a £25 Amazon voucher to your favourite community article. The vote for December’s best article launched this week and closes on Tuesday January 6. Please do show your appreciation for our writers and take some time to look through last month’s articles and vote here.

The Hottest Topics

Harry Kane is inevitably going to find his way into thousands of squads in January. His 18 points in Gameweek 20 against Chelsea was arguably the most surprising story of the festive schedule list, judging by the number of Fantasy managers who benched the Tottenham striker. Granville posted shortly after the final kick of Gameweek 20 to reveal he was one of the devastated unfortunates, setting up an impromptu discussion to support those who shared his pain.

Inspired by those events, we started this discussion on the lessons learned from the festive schedule, including reference to the dangers of benching players like Kane and having too many options over Christmas period, anticipating rotation that never really arrived.

With winter Wildcards active, Kane has already seen an unprecedented rise in ownership, with 146,000 drafting him in within 12 hours of his Gameweek 20 heroics. A 0.3 price rise is almost a certainty before Gameweek 21, but O’Shaunessy offered a note of caution. According to his analysis Kane is lagging behind other strikers when it comes to shots in the box, indicating that he may find it tougher in coming weeks to notch up high returns.

Eden Hazard was another hero of the festive schedule who, according to KTK Interiesta, has now well and truly scotched the theory he is ineffective away from Stamford Bridge. Hazard’s 24-points across his last three away games certainly back up his argument. With solid home form as well, it was no surprise to see Hazard mentioned in Black Knights discussion on early captaincy thoughts for Gameweek 21.

The community aren’t feeling quite so enthusiastic about Raheem Sterling. The Liverpool midfielder had mixed fortunes over Christman, despite being fielded as a striker. Despite having a continued run of favourable fixtures, Bull was among those wondering whether Sterling is worth drafting in after poor returns across his last two Premier League outings.

While Sterling failed to deliver on expectations, he was unlikely to feature in Saniul’s discussion that prompted the community to name their worst single transfer move of the season so far. Kickit probably claimed the prize for the most disastrous decision, transferring out both Dusan Tadic and Graziano Pelle ahead of their epic Gameweek 8 hauls: hari-kari stuff.

Finally, with news of Steven Gerrard’s departure from Liverpool and his impending move to a Major League Soccer franchise, Henzrd prompted the community to take a step back from Fantasy Football and consider the growth of the beautiful game in the US. This discussion led to some fascinating analysis of the commercials involved, with Mata-Is-The-Juan and RVP is Essential providing some great insight on how the MLS operates.

The Members Tables

Rdowy08’s latest table focuses on form midfielders. Based on their last four appearances this table has a number of minimum criteria to ensure only the best options are included.

My assist imminent table also focuses on midfielders, this time those who have been racking up a high number of chances that hopefully will be converted into points in the coming Gameweeks.

If you’re a member and are yet to get to grips with the custom statistics tables, you can view this movie for an explanation of how they work. Also, remember to tag them so that people can find the tables with ease.

The Community Leagues

The Harry Kane factor proved decisive in our community leagues during Gameweek 20. Greenwindmill was one of those who owned and started the Tottenham striker and takes a commanding 27-point lead in the FFScout moderators and contributors league as a result. Ciaran Lamont, the new leader of the Puffinboy Memorial Cup was another to ensure Kane was in his starting XI, as did Dan Clark, who retains top spot in the FFS Dead Zone league.

Sarnab Das may have benched Kane, but his tally of 47 in Gameweek 20 was still enough to maintain his lead in the “Long and Winding Road” main league.