Once again, it’s time for our pre-Gameweek Sky Sports Focus article this Thursday afternoon. As usual, 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 26 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 |
| Arsenal vs Southampton | Fraser Forster |
| Leicester vs Liverpool | Jame Vardy |
| Norwich vs Tottenham | Dele Alli |
| Sunderland vs Man City | Joe Hart |
| West Ham vs Aston Villa | Mark Noble |
| Crystal Palace vs Bournemouth | Benik Afobe |
| Man United vs Stoke> | Anthony Martial |
| West Brom vs Swansea | Gylfi Sigurdsson |
| Everton vs Newcastle | Ross Barkley |
| Watford vs Chelsea | Heurelho Gomes |
Three goalkeepers surprisingly claimed the MoTM gong, whilst the other awards were shared between four midfielders and a trio of forwards. Southampton’s Fraser Forster has been sensational since his return from injury – picking up 35 points in four appearances, he offers an intriguing differential at just 1.7% ownership.
Jamie Vardy’s brace earned him a seventh MoTM award of the season, equaling Odion Ighalo’s haul and placing him just two behind colleague Riyad Mahrez. Dele Alli also needs a mention here. The Spurs midfielder picked up his sixth award despite playing only 45 minutes against Norwich – we are witnessing one of the best value players to ever feature in the Sky game, given his 4.0m pricing.
Gameweek 26 Bonus Points
Three goalkeepers picked up bonus this week with Rob Elliot, Lukasz Fabianski and Fraser Forster the men in question. Forster, as already mentioned, was the highest-scoring player between the sticks with 11 saves helping him to bonus, a clean sheet and the MoTM award on his way to 14 points. Petr Cech is the game’s leading keeper in ownership (23%), overall points (112) and bonus (16).
In defence, seven players grabbed bonus – four for tackles and three for passes completed. Cesar Azpilicueta was the closest to picking up both after missing out on tackles by just one completed challenge. The Spaniard now joins Erik Pieters at the bonus summit with 18 points apiece.
In midfield, there were 17 beneficiaries in total: 11 for tackling and eight for passes. Lucas Leiva and Cesc Fabregas were the two to pick up both, with the latter on 44 bonus points overall – ten more than the second-placed Lucas.
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 |
| de Bruyne | Man City | 7.8 | 29.2% |
| Lukaku | Everton | 8.8 | 5.1% |
| Giroud | Arsenal | 9.2 | 4.2% |
| Arnautovic | Stoke | 5.5 | 3.1% |
| Vertonghen | Tottenham | 6.4 | 2.4% |
A massive 29.3% of transfers involved shipping Kevin de Bruyne this week, due to his likely eight-to-ten-week absence. Romelu Lukaku and Olivier Giroud also find themselves shipped in numbers after some recent poor form. Marko Arnautovic is also subject to 3% of transfers out although he has a decent upcoming schedule, whilst Jan Vertonghen’s knee injury has triggered an exodus.
Top Transfers In
| Name | Team | Value | % of Managers |
| Aguero | Man City | 10 | 6.6% |
| Alli | Tottenham | 4 | 6.2% |
| Payet | West Ham | 6.2 | 5.8% |
| Barkley | Everton | 6.7 | 5.3% |
| Ozil | Arsenal | 8.4 | 4.4% |
Sergio Aguero tops the pile once again after his midweek strike at Sunderland and, similar to last week, four attacking midfielders are also heavily fancied – Dele Alli and Ross Barkey’s new owners will be particularly happy with their instant returns.
The average amount of transfers remaining amongst the top 100 Sky managers currently is 8.03, whilst the top 1,000 average is 8.57 and the top 5,000 is 8.92.
Top Five Captains Picked
| Name | Team | Value | % of Managers |
| Aguero | Man City | 10 | 13.69% |
| Lukaku | Everton | 8.8 | 9.29% |
| Kane | Tottenham | 9.3 | 5.63% |
| Hazard | Chelsea | 9 | 5.46% |
| Sanchez | Arsenal | 9.7 | 5.4% |
Watchlist
Here I aim to highlight a few differential players with low 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 | Papa Souare, 4.6m, 1.9% | Virgil van Dijk, 6.1m, 5.2% | Cesar Azpilicueta, 7.5m, 3% |
| Midfielder | Marko Arnautovic, 5.5m, 6.5% | Christian Eriksen, 7.7m, 5.8% | Cesc Fabregas, 8.7m, 4.4% |
| Forward | Emmanuel Adebayor, 6.8m, 0.3% | Enner Valencia, 7.7m, 0.3% | Diego Costa, 9.8m, 6.5% |
My Team
Gomes
Cathcart Dawson Nyom
Ramsey Fabregas Mahrez Payet
Aguero Lukaku© Kane
ITB: 0.2m
Transfers remaining: 15/40
Last week’s points: 68
Overall points: 1397
Rank: 2,560
Notes
A Tuesday night of frustration made somewhat better after a fairly productive Wednesday. I earned 68 points in total, thanks in the main to Sergio Aguero as skipper (12), Harry Kane (12) and Heurelho Gomes (12). Unfortunately, I missed out on Dele Alli’s 15-point haul despite my best efforts to get him in my team before the deadline on Tuesday night. I expect many others will have suffered the same or similar fate in a rare outage from the Sky site. I also meant to bring in Nacho Monreal in place of the out-of-favor Allan Nyom, with the Gunners left-back going on to grab a clean sheet. The one saving grace was that I changed my decision to swap out Heurelho Gomes for Jack Butland.
Looking forward, I’m happy with my acquisition of Cesc Fabregas, who, despite no attacking returns, picked up double bonus and was again fielded in the number ten role – he has some decent fixtures coming up and looks a valid differential. As for future transfers, Dele Alli is still my top priority and will be coming in for Aaron Ramsey at some point, maybe this week. I’m also eyeing up a Romelu Lukaku to Alexis Sanchez move this week in order to get two captains and bank the armband change – hopefully Lukaku will be passed fit in order for me to do this.
Captain Plan
Unfortunately, I’m locked into Romelu Lukaku for my skipper on Saturday. With the Belgian in poor form and an injury doubt, I’ll be lucky to get any points out of this one. If you have the option, either Sergio Aguero or Harry Kane look far better bets.
For Sunday, I’ll likely draft in Alexis Sanchez for Arsenal’s trip to Dean Court and hope the Chilean can provide me with some differential points (he’s on 16% ownership but mostly dead teams). If you aren’t planning on using a transfer, then a Chelsea or Man United player works out better, as both play matchday one next Gameweek.
My transfer strategy means I’ll have my captain swap banked and then have A free choice for matchday one in Gameweek 28.
The Fantasy Football Scout League
Once again, we’re running our own Fantasy Football Scout League this season and are sitting in first place in the rankings at present. 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 new host Max Rushden and Paul Merson at 18:00 SkySports 1 HD where they will be discussing the upcoming week’s Fantasy Football, chatting to Burton Albion manager Nigel Clough and asking Saints defender Maya Yoshida for his #One2Eleven.
