The return of Sergio Aguero and the cruel departure of Dimitri Payet rattled around the heads of the Fantasy Football Scout community this week. As potential turning points in our seasons, they proved the inspiration for a number of community articles and Hot Topics, which also included analysis of Arsenal’s twin midfield threat, captaincy considerations and the revelation of a brand new celebrity Fantasy Football manager. We sift through some of your most notable contributions of the past seven days, whilst checking in on some of the community tournaments in progress.
The Community Articles
Jose’s Magic Omelette returned with yet another priceless community article – this time focusing on the appeal of doubling up on Arsenal’s heavy-hitting midfield duo – Alexis Sanchez and Mersut Ozil. Once again, Jose turned to some stats and bubble charts to illustrate his work which concluded that, while Sanchez’ explosive qualities make him almost indispensable, with Fantasy managers clearing funds for Sergio Aguero, the shift to Ozil may just make sense.
TM45 undoubtedly produced one of the week’s community highlights, as he delivered the first in a two-part series examining the weekly captain conundrum. Part one took a look back at the top performers over the first 12 Gameweeks of the season, assessing their consistency and ability to deliver big points hauls. He’ll follow this up with a look at the predictable nature of returns thus far – hopefully that article is in the works soon.
Elsewhere, DailyFootballPL chose to focus on Manchester United’s blossoming defence, analysing the potential targets on offer, whilst giving his view on spending big on David de Gea and doubling up on Louis van Gaal’s defence, with either Marcos Rojo or Chris Smalling.
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
The international break is always a disconcerting spell for any Fantasy Football manager but at least Parm is on hand to add clarity to the situation. His pair of Hot Topics, listing those Premier League players involved in European internationals and overseas encounters, provides essential reading for those intent on tracking the knocks over the week to come.
Arguably, the most potentially significant injury has already struck home. The community’s reaction to Del Monte’s post breaking the news that Dimiri Payet would be sidelined for up to three months was suitably explosive. Immediately, Greatescape was on hand to map out the potential price drops for the mercurial Frenchman, as we prepared to watch the Payet market collapse.
As Payet’s injury forced a midfield rethink, thoughts turned to team-mate Manuel Lansing as a potential replacement, although Triggerlips appeared skeptical, prompting this Hot Topic on the merits of swooping for the Argentine.
Meanwhile, with Aguero nearing a return for City, we covered off the main dilemma’s surrounding his re-introduction, providing the catalyst for discussion on the strategy and timing of a move for the striker. That was followed by Andy85SWM’s excellent Hot Topic on Aguero’s scoring history following injury, as he looked back on the Argentine’s previous spells of absence and just how quickly he restored himself to goalscoring form.
Arvination would have us believe that there is a very viable alternative to Aguero, as he took time out to question why we’re not elevating Harry Kane to essential status given his current form. Doolittle and AK were certainly in agreement and hoping that the Spurs striker would provide a handy differential amongst the squad surgery surrounding Aguero’s return.
With funds being cleared from our squads, this nudged RoysCallerAnne to offer up an update on the fifth midfielder scenario, promoting the likes of Scott Sinclair and Jesse Lingard as the latest viable options.
Ryan was setting his sights rather higher, laying the foundations for a discussion on the perils of doubling up on Ozil and Sanchez – a subject which was followed by Jose’s Magic Omelette’s aforementioned article later this week. While Ryan was clearly hesitant acquiring twin Gunners, the likes of Zasa el Weon and Rodallegabombaldinho came down on the side of the Arsenal duo – with West Brom’s fragile Hawthorns defence a factor stacked in their favour heading into Gameweek 13
Inspired by TM45’s article on the captaincy issue, Jaffalicious turned up to stir the pot with a timely Hot Topic, asking the community to reminisce on their most memorably armband decision. Clint Dempsey, Luis Suarez, Gareth Bale and, of course, Sergio Aguero all received a name drop, although we have to reserve a special mention for Kings of Lyon’s Kolarov tale.
On a similar comedic theme, an eagle-eyed Doolittle outed Karl Pilkington as the latest celebrity Fantasy Football manager. Ricky Gervais’ one-time sidekick was found revealing his hand on Facebook – he may even be out there lurking on these pages at this very moment.
Finally, we bring you news of the latest community younglings – as Daddy Pig announced the birth of his first born. We shall see if those sleepless night’s translate to some genius 3am transfers as the season progresses. Staying on theme – SKuqi also announced that he has a delivery on the way in the New Year. Congrats all round!
The Community Tournaments
Balders has a lot on his plate right now. He started the week off by bringing us a full breakdown of the first round of his Community Grand Play Offs, with 128 managers edging through to Round Two following a Gameweek 12 average of 46. He then returned with another catch-up, as we near the start of the FIFFSA Five-A-Side World Cup – tonight saw the draw for the Qualifying Rounds and we’ll bring you more on that next week.
Jaffalicious made another appearance this week as he offered an update on the latest results from FFS UEFA Champions League competition.
Finally, in TorresMagic’s Last Man Standing competition, the safety score was 34, which saw 120 players depart and 1511 remain. Entry is open during for the international break, for more details look here.
If you are running a community tournament and would like the latest scores included in future Community Round Ups please email me a brief summary of the current leaders and a link to your league, spread sheet or head to head competition, at jonty@fantasyfootballscout.co.uk.
