PlayON Gameweek 17 – One Team, 30 Fixtures, £1,000 Guaranteed

PlayON, the weekly Fantasy football game, is rolling out a Bumper Gameweek over the festive period, which hands Fantasy managers the chance to grab a share of a guaranteed £1,000 prize pot.

Rather than pick a team for a single weekend’s action, your selected XI must take into account the upcoming three Gameweeks – essentially, we have 30 Premier League matches to consider when assessing our festive selections. The deadline for picking your team and entering the £1,000 guaranteed game is this Saturday morning at 10.45.

While £1,000 is the guaranteed pot, once 200 people enter the pot will continue to rise above £1,000 for each additional entry, so be sure to share and tweet this article to your Fantasy Football friends to grow the prize pot to well above £1,000.

The Bumper Gameweek kicks off on Saturday December 21 at 12.45pm, where Liverpool host Cardiff at Anfield, and ends on Sunday December 29. By taking the upcoming three rounds of matches into consideration, PlayON have made matters intriguing for Fantasy managers. If you select Luis Suarez for Saturday’s clash with the Bluebirds, for example, the Liverpool forward is also on board for the next two, which sees Brendan Rodgers’ side face trips to City and Chelsea – clashes which will test his current form to the full.

Jose Mourinho’s side also have a game against Arsenal over the PlayON Bumper Gameweek and, according to our season ticker, their fixtures are rated second most difficult over those three games.

Indeed, looking at the ticker, the top four sides for favourable fixtures over the PlayON Gameweek are Aston Villa (sto, CPL, SWA), Man United (WHM, hul, nor), Tottenham (sot, WBA, STO) and Everton (swa, SUN, STO), which suggests it could be a worthwhile tactic to target some of their regulars.

Manchester City are also in the mix as they look to recover from the loss of Sergio Aguero. A trip to Fulham precedes back-to-back home games with Liverpool and Palace and indicates Manuel Pellegrini’s men may find themselves on PlayON radars.

What’s also worth bearing in mind here is the Suspension Tightrope. If you’re looking to invest in Roberto Martinez’ side, for example, it’s worth noting that three of their players – Tim Howard, Gareth Barry and Ross Barkley – are all one caution away from a single match ban. A booking in either of the first two games would lessen their availability to just a couple of matches.

City’s David Silva is the most high-profile player with four yellows to his name. The playmaker is sure to be considered by many in light of the above-mentioned schedule but he’ll need to be on his best behaviour in order to ensure he remains in contention for all three matches in the PlayON Gameweek.

If you’re new to PlayON and interested in getting involved, read this season’s introduction article for more information. As always, we’ll be publishing our recommended player picks for the Gameweek in our regular Friday lunchtime article tomorrow.

If you’re ready to starting selecting your XI, you can pick your team here.