After an international break that hit us hard both FPL and FA-wise, we’re now gearing up towards another round of Fantasy Allsvenskan, Gameweek 23 to be precise. It’s another Friday night deadline at 17.00 CET so make sure you have your team set up by then!

Gameweek 22 review

GW22 feels like an eternity ago but here are some highlights from a fantasy perspective:

Djurgården had a tough game against local rivals and title chasers AIK, which they lost 1-0 thanks to a first-half penalty goal by Sebastian Larsson (8.7m). That was the first loss for Djurgården since GW8 against – guess who – AIK! In fact, Djurgården’s only other loss of the season besides the two versus AIK, was against Hammarby in GW6. Thus continues Djurgårdens horrible derby statistics of recent years and it begs the question, can they do better at home to Hammarby in GW27? Aslak Fonn Witry (5.4m) managed to shake off concerns of an injury to get a 4-pointer, while Marcus Danielsson (6.2m) got his second yellow card of the season and wound up with just one point. Elliot Käck (5.8m) served his one game-suspension and is back against Helsingborg this on Monday with a clean slate. Mohamed Buya Turay (9.8m) failed to extend his goal-scoring run to four games in a row and while you’d still expect him to remain first-choice, one cannot ignore the fact that Emir Kujovic (9.4m) could start eating into his pitch-time more and more, as he regains fitness. Maybe they’ll play with two strikers up top, it’s definitely something to monitor.

Hammarby travelled to Norrköping and didn’t have a particularly good game, only mustering 5 shots (2 on target) to Norrköping’s 10 (4 on target). Norrköping won the game two goals to none, making it the first game in which Hammarby failed to score since GW13 away to Häcken. It was also the first game in which Muamer Tankovic (9.6m) blanked since missing out on that particular match against Häcken. Alexander Kačaniklić (8.8m) went off injured once again, this time after just 19 minutes played. Meanwhile, Nikola Djurdjic (10.4m) got himself a red card and misses out on GW23 as a result, while Darijan Bojanic (6.9m) will be back from his suspension assuming he’s fit. For Norrköping there were a lot of positive signs though, as they recorded their fourth successive win and now have a goal difference of 14-0 in their last six games! Sead Haksabanovic (8.8m) popped up with another goal, making it three goals and five assists in his last four games. Still just in 8.2% of the squads, he looks primed for a late-season push into our squads.

Carlos Strandberg was the talk of the town ahead of GW22, on the back of a hattrick against Sirius in GW21. As he was being bought in by plenty of managers, the news broke on Thursday that he was going to be leaving for Saudi Arabia, seemingly confirmed by the club Al-Hazem on Twitter. Malmö, Örebro and the player himself remained silent though, which made it all the more strange when the people in charge of Fantasy Allsvenskan made the call to completely remove him from the game, causing a lot of uproar on Twitter. On Friday, as Örebro released the match squad Carlos Strandberg was named as one of the selected players, prompting the powers that be to swiftly throw him back into the game. As fate would have it, he wound up not even featuring on the bench for Örebro, and has since left.

Finally, here are some gameweek 22 stats, courtesy of GoktugErce;

The three most popular captains in the top 1k were:

Muamer Tankovic; Captained by 21.1%, Effective Ownership of 117.6%, scored 3 points.

Robin Söder; Captained by 20.6%, Effective Ownership of 74.6%, scored 2 points.

Daleho Irandust; Captained by 8.2%, Effective Ownership of 31.3%, scored 8 points.

Top 1k average points for the gameweek was 52.07, compared to the overall average of 44 points.

Gameweek 23 preview

As mentioned in the opening paragraph, it’s a Friday night deadline, 17.00 CET. Don’t get caught out!

On Friday, Sirius host Falkenberg in a game of huge importance in the fight to avoid relegation. Fantasy options are few and far between for these sides but Sirius striker Philip Haglund (7.7m) deserves a mention. It’s proving hard for previous fantasy favourite Jacob Ericsson (4.8m) to justify the continued investment when they keep getting pummelled… But this could be one of those games he shines in from an attacking point of view.

Rodic and Strandberg have now left Örebro, so most (if not all) of Örebro’s attacking points will have to come from Jake Larsson (5.9m), Viktor Prodell (6.5m) and Martin Broberg (7.3m). Johan Bertilsson (6.7m) gets a mention as well if he remains on the pitch, along with assist merchant Nordin Gerzic (6.7m). Fixtures are pretty awful after GW23, but one of them could be a budget gem for the run-in and in GW23, they’re up against Sundsvall at home. Martin Broberg has 2 goals and 6 assists in his last 6 games, while Prodell has a tasty 1 goal in 999 minutes played so far…

Sunday is a big day for the top seven as we’ve got Häcken-AIK, Hammarby-Göteborg, and Malmö-Norrköping. Paulinho (11.8m) is perhaps making a late-season push for the golden boot, though Oscar Linnér (6.0m) might have other things in mind. Could we see supremely talented Nabil Bahoui (9.6m) start getting regular game time, perhaps even up top? He faces a lot of competition to lock down a starting spot though… Muamer Tankovic looks to regain his “never-blank”-status but has a tough task amidst Hammarby injuries, niggles and suspensions. Alexander Kačaniklić looks pretty likely to start on the bench, as he’s not looking to rush back this time and suffer another setback. Can Robin Söder (8.1m) poke a hole in Hammarby’s not especially tight defence? For Malmö, Anders Christiansen (10.0m) is back from his suspension and tends to do well at home this year, while Sead Haksabanovic will try to keep up his impressive recent form for Norrköping.

Monday has Djurgården face off against Helsingborg at home and Elfsborg travel to Eskilstuna. For Djurgården this is a game they are expected to win and keep a clean sheet, but “games are not won on paper” as they say. I’d feel pretty confident in backing Djurgården to do well here though. When will Emir Kujovic start getting more regular playing time, is he fit enough and who makes way in that case? For Elfsborg, budget-friendly striker Jesper Karlsson (6.2m) has three goals and two assists in his last three games and will be looking to add to that against a lacklustre Eskilstuna.

Players to target

Jesper Karlsson is a striker to look at, as his price makes him a potential prospect. Sitting in just 6.6% of the squads, he’s also not owned by many yet. If you get him in though, I’d suggest having some options to rotate with as after Eskilstuna, Elfsborg face Malmö (H), Häcken (a), and AIK (H) before it turns again with Falkenberg (H), Örebro (a), Göteborg (H), and finally Helsingborg (a).

Martin Broberg is posting some interesting stats from a shot and heat-map perspective. At home to Sundsvall, there are points to be had if Örebro are up for it. Hosam Aiesh (9.2m) has kick-started life at Göteborg and has one goal, two assists in his last two games. Göteborg’s fixtures are about to take a pretty serious turn for the worse, yet they still have some attacking potential even in the harder fixtures – a bit of a punt admittedly. Speaking of punts, another interesting one is midfielder Nabil Bahoui (9.6m) who will be getting time (not all of the time…) as a striker for AIK. Can we really resist? Yes, we really can. But should we…?

Captaincy thoughts

Muamer Tankovic will have his work cut out for him as Nikola Djurjic will miss out through suspension, and Kačaniklić seems pretty likely to not start at the very least. He can always work his magic at home to Göteborg, but I feel like there should be better options this week.

Enter Anders Christiansen, bonus point darling and a safe bet at home most of the time. Norrköping won’t be easy, but can they really keep AC out of the points? I don’t think so and I suspect he will be captained by quite a few players high up the ranks. Paulinho is looking increasingly like his old self and against Falkenberg he had three shots on target, two off and three shots blocked. Always privy to a goal or two against the Stockholm-based clubs, Paulinho is both a good captaincy shout and an intriguing option for the run-in (as always, if he stays fit).

Good luck this gameweek and if you want to chat about fantasy football either comment here below, or hit me up @FF_Meltens on Twitter!