Once again it’s time for us to cast an eye over the Sky Sports game. As always, we assess the recent run of Man of the Match (MoTM) awards, bonus point beneficiaries, the transfer trends, the watchlist and a look at the Scout team and our future plans.
Gameweek 32 Man of the Match Awards
Listed below are the players that caught the eye of the Sky Sports reporters from last weekend’s fixtures achieving the Man of the Match award (worth an additional five points).
| Fixture | MoTM |
| Man City vs West Brom | David Silva |
| Aston Villa vs Swansea City | Jefferson Montero |
| Newcastle vs Arsenal | David Ospina |
| Southampton vs Burnley | Ryan Bertrand |
| Stoke vs Crystal Palace | Julian Speroni |
| Tottenham vs Leicester | Harry Kane |
| West Ham vs Sunderland | Connor Wickham |
| Liverpool vs Man United | Juan Mata |
| Hull vs Chelsea | Eden Hazard |
| QPR vs Everton | Aaron Lennon |
Two goalkeepers, one defender, five midfielders and two forwards picked up the awards this week. Many of these were highly owned with David Silva (8.3%), Harry Kane (19.3%), Ryan Bertrand (22.7%) and Eden Hazard (25.9%) the most popular. Kane and Silva now have seven MoTM awards for the season and sit in second place overall, three behind Hazard who breaks last season’s record, earning ten so far.
Gameweek 32 Bonus Points
Only two goalkeepers achieved bonus points from producing five or more saves. Thibaut Courtois and Boaz Myhill were the two in question and Myhill managed an astonishing 13 saves on his way to collecting two extra points. Robert Green is the busiest keeper in the league having racked up 26 bonus points over the season.
In defence, seven players grabbed bonus, six for tackles and one for passes completed. Pablo Zabaleta was the closest to earning both missing out by just one completed challenge – Zabaleta is still leading the way for defenders with 22 bonus points.
In midfield, there were 20 beneficiaries in total: ten for tackling and 11 for passes. Cesc Fabregas returned to form picking up both passing and tackling to go alongside his assist, earning a tidy nine points. Fabregas now joins Nemanja Matic as the game’s overall highest bonus point earners with 42.
Fantasy Football Scout members can access all information regarding bonus points using player stats and clicking the Sky Sports tab.
The Transfer Trends
Top Transfers Out
| Name | Team | Value | % of Managers |
| Forster | Southampton | 4.9 | 18.6% |
| Costa | Chelsea | 9.5 | 6.2% |
| Sterling | Liverpool | 7.8 | 5.7% |
| Sturridge | Liverpool | 9.8 | 3.4% |
| Tadic | Southampton | 6.7 | 2.9% |
A massive 18.6% shipped Fraser Forster after he was ruled out for the season with a knee injury. Diego Costa, Raheem Sterling and Daniel Sturridge were all injury doubts earlier in the international break but are all expected to feature. Nonetheless, Sterling’s current deployment as a right wing-back is also a concern. Dusan Tadic makes up the fifth spot somewhat surprisingly – I didn’t expect him to be so heavily owned by active players.
Top Transfers In
| Name | Team | Value | % of Managers |
| Fabianski | Swansea | 3.8 | 8.4% |
| Kane | Tottenham | 6.7 | 7.3% |
| Giroud | Arsenal | 8.9 | 5.2% |
| De Gea | Man United | 5.8 | 4.1% |
| Henderson | Liverpool | 7.3 | 3.4% |
After the mass Forster exodus, two goalkeepers crop up in the top five transferred in with Lukasz Fabianski and David de Gea the shot stoppers of choice – surprising more didn’t turn to Boaz Myhill or Kelvin Davis at 3.6m. In-form strike duo Harry Kane and Olivier Giroud are the top attackers drafted in this week whilst Jordan Henderson’s impressive run grabs the attention of an extra 3.4%
The average amount of transfers remaining amongst the top 1,000 currently is 5.15 – that’s about one less than last week.
Top Five Captains Picked
| Name | Team | Value | % of Managers |
| Costa | Chelsea | 9.5 | 15.9% |
| Rooney | Man United | 9.4 | 9.3% |
| Fabregas | Chelsea | 8.6 | 6.5% |
| Aguero | Man City | 9.8 | 6.5% |
| Hazard | Chelsea | 8.9 | 5.7% |
A minor tweak as Eden Hazard pops up in fifth position after Alexis Sanchez drops out. The rest stay the same % as last week bar Sergio Aguero, who drops 1%.
Watchlist
Here I aim to highlight a few differential players with sub-6% ownership that I think could be good options in the coming weeks to help you climb the rankings. These will be looked at in three specific price brackets to cater for our available budget. These names evolve with fixtures and form and offer Fantasy managers a nudge in hopefully the right direction.
| Budget | Mid-Price | Premium | |
| Defender | Jeffrey Schlupp, 5.0m, 0.6% | Kyle Naughton, 5.5m, 0.3% | Seamus Coleman, 7.1m, 4.3% |
| Midfielder | Ki Sung-Yeung 5.0m, 3.9% | Sadio Mane, 5.8m, 3.2% | Oscar, 8.2m, 4% |
| Forward | Diafra Sakho, 6.9m, 1.1% | Bafetimbi Gomis, 7.0m, 0.6% | Olivier Giroud, 8.9m, 5.6% |
My Team
Fabianski
Lescott Bertrand Dawson
Hazard Sigurdsson Fabregas Mane
Aguero Kane© Costa
ITB: 0.2m
Transfers remaining: 8/40
Last week’s points: 115
Overall points: 1795
Rank: 159
Notes
A good week for me, with Saturday’s captain Harry Kane earning 44 points before Eden Hazard chipped in with 24 armband points the following day. Ryan Bertrand’s 15 and a further ten from my new acquisition Diego Costa also helped towards a 115-point week, boosting me to 159th Overall. There’s now eight Gameweeks remaining for me to get into the top 100 and with eight transfers still up my sleeve, I’m fairly confident of achieving it. Concerns moving forward are Costa’s potential pitch time – despite being passed fit today – after only just drafting him in and Craig Dawson’s suspension this weekend. In the near future, I’ll be drafting in a Liverpool player for Cesc Fabregas, giving me some funds to look at doubling up on Saints defence instead of West Brom.
Captain plan
Eden Hazard is a no-brainer for Saturday – he’s the game’s highest scorer and is at home to Stoke, which is arguably the pick of the fixtures on that match day. United’s home match with Villa is also another option to look at – with Juan Mata in form, he could be a cheeky differential.
For Sunday, I’ll give the armband to Harry Kane for Tottenham’s trip to Turf Moor – fresh off the back of his hat-trick against Leicester, this again looks the obvious move.
There is also a Monday and Tuesday night match this week which presents the option for multiple captains if you choose to use transfers. I’ll be avoiding these personally as they would require too much restructuring of my team to be worthwhile.
The Fantasy Football Scout League
Once again, we’re running our own Fantasy Football Scout League this season and we’re currently topping the Private League rankings. With a £1000 prize to the winner, you’d be mad not to get involved. To join, visit Sky Sports Fantasy Football and key in League Name: FFScout, League Code: 8009000.
The Fantasy Football Club
This Friday The Fantasy Football Club show, where you can catch Fenners and Merse at 18:30 SkySports One HD where they will be discussing the upcoming week’s Fantasy Football, quizzing former Everton and Arsenal striker Francis Jeffers and asking former Spurs man Colin Todd for his #One2Eleven.
