After their thrashing in the Tyne-Wear derby at the tail end of October, Sunderland stunned Chelsea and probably themselves with a fantastic 3-0 victory at Stamford Bridge last Sunday. Perhaps this signals the start of a rejuvenated drive in the coming weeks for Steve Bruce’s men and a great time for Fantasy Football managers to draft in some of his revitalised stars? If so, who could be better to shore-up your defence than the Black Cats’ ever-dependable Mr Bramble?
The madcaps out there might be tempted to take a risk and bring in a more offensive option, but Sunderland have not been the most prolific goal-scorers so far this season, racking up just 15 all term. Having only conceded 13 goals, the fourth least in the Premier League, and staunchly keeping five clean sheets in the process, opting for a defender might be a safer bet.
The man whose captain recently backed him for an England call-up and declared him “the signing of the summer” is probably a wiser option when compared with some of his teammates. Ahmed Elmohamady, for example, has an ownership of 20.1% in the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) game and isn’t even a guaranteed starter, having only come on for the last few minutes against Chelsea at the weekend. In comparison, Bramble is owned by just 5.9% of FPL teams and has been ever-present apart from a one-game suspension which saw him skip the home game with Stoke City.
Once poetically labelled a “Shambles”, in recent years Titus has proved to be anything but. In the company of other bargain basement defenders, with a current FPL value of £4.7million, Bramble stands out from the crowd with an impressive 40 FPL points, claiming 6 bonus points along the way too. An increase in Sunderland’s momentum and a manageable run of fixtures (EVE, wol, WHM, ful, BOL, mun), now could prove to be the perfect time to invest in the in-form centre-back.
