The concept of “essential” players and banana skin fixtures were among the subjects tackled by the Hot Topics and community articles this week. We cast an eye back to the chatter surrounding those areas, plus look back as the community considered tactical issues such as form, knee jerk decisions and placing eggs in baskets. As ever, we round things off by assessing the latest members tables and by taking a look at the ups and downs in our community leagues and tournaments.

The Community Articles

Stoke’s surprise victory over Manchester City and Aston Villa’s win over Liverpool this season provided Langrobbie with the inspiration for a new, regular community feature looking at similar potential banana skin fixtures. In his inaugural article, he analysed the potential for Villa to deliver another upset, against Arsenal, and for Manchester United to slip up against Leicester. Spooky.

The Puntmaster is already established as a regular provider of community contributions – his weekly trio of differentials is now a mainstay the community section. On a high after successfully predicting Graziano Pelle’s Gameweek 4 haul, he enjoyed further success this week by picking out Hull’s Nikica Jelavic. Pay attention if you’ve been missing this series up until now.

Elsewhere, Sticky Mockwell has spent the week having an in-depth look at knee-jerk decisions to assess whether patience is a virtue when it comes to the indifferent form of the game’s heavy-hitters.

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.

The Hottest Topics

Despite being just a month into the Premier League season, phrases like “essential player” and “season keeper” are being bandied around with growing regularity. Diego Costa is an obvious candidate for such status, according to Don the Special One in MJ6987’s discussion on players that seem set to remain in our squads all season.

Southampton defenders are another group that some believe are now essential. However, Giggs Boson stated this week that there are other, less fashionable defences that deserve our attention, such as the surprisingly robust Burnley and Aston Villa back-lines.

Few are currently considering Leicester’s rearguard: going into Gameweek 4 the east Midlands outfit had conceded the most shots in the box in the league. Their defensive frailties were among a range of issues Davies – Leicester Expert covered in the first of many regular question-and-answer sessions about his beloved club. We can only imagine how he’s feeling this evening.

Giggs Boson was back with a further hot topic later in the week, this time to suggest that Everton’s Leighton Baines may be on the cusp of essential status. He believes this could be his best season yet, due to manager Roberto Martinez’ focus on attack. Once again, this an example of the soothsaying powers on show in the past seven days.

Roscola was around to stress the need for caution when considering Sir Leighton – stating that he believed that Everton clean sheet points will be in short supply; he certainly has a case going on the evidence so far this term.

Angel Di Maria is rapidly emerging as a new contender for “essential” status – particularly after his 14-point haul against QPR in Gameweek 4. Triggerlips is among those to believe the Argentine’s assist potential and rapid price-hike make him among the most important players to own. Applebonkers rained on that parade, however – he remains unconvinced that Di Maria can join the elite scoring Fantasy Premier League (FPL) players without goals. We can only wonder if today’s supreme strike has him reconsidering that view.

Elsewhere, Kalix and Sarjeant took some time to examine long-term strategy. Sarjeant brought us a first in a regular series looking at form to assess the teams that, irrespective of fixtures, are notching goals and clean sheets with increasing regularity. Kalix, meanwhile, looked at the dilemma of either placing all your Fantasy eggs in the same basket or hedging your bets by selecting defenders and attackers from opposing sides.

Finally, Doosra emerged victorious in the search for a Scout Picks community champion for Gameweek 5. Watch out tomorrow morning when we will be asking for candidates and votes for Gameweek 6’s community champion.

The Members Tables

After seeing Manchester United’s more fluid attacking display against QPR, I decided to compile this members table looking at the Red Devils in more detail. My effort is sorted by shots in the box, one of the best indicators of goal-scoring potential.

Manchester United figured highly in Sarjeant’s look at the most attacking teams this season so far. His must-read table is sorted by touches in the final third.

Attacking attributes of midfielders have caught the eye of Arvin-ation who also favours shots in the box to assess goal-scoring threat.

Goalscoring defenders were the focus of MJ6987’s look at the season’s most attacking back-line stars. Going into Gameweek 5 there were some surprising entrants in his top 10. Venice Bean, meanwhile, has also been focussing on defenders, this time to assess those who are doing well in terms of FPL bonus point criteria.

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 Tournaments

In AZ’s Early Bird Cup, Costa progresses to the quarter finals after scoring 78 points, the highest in Gameweek 4’s round. Dusan Citizen, Acquafresca, AZ and Pundit of Punts are among the other quarter-finalists this weekend.

The safety score in TorresMagic‘s Last Man Standing was 38 in Gameweek 4. This meant 84 teams were eliminated and 1,326 progress.

FFS UEFA’s Hockey tournament kicked off this week. For all the latest visit our community article here.

Our resident physiotherapy expert Facer topped the FFScout moderators and contributors league going into Gameweek 5, closely followed by Greek Fan and Tinkerman.

Triggerlips was in first place in the Long and Winding Road main league after Gameweek 4, but had to settle for second in the Top 1,000 any season league behind Daniel Blackett.