Gameweek 14 review

We’re now just one gameweek shy of the half-way point of the season, and the European qualifiers (for Champions League and Europa League) are kicking off for AIK, Norrköping, Häcken and Malmö. We’ll take a look at some of the implications of that in the preview but first, the gameweek 14 review!

You’ll see some new stats like “Effective Ownership” (EO) sprinkled in and that’s very much thanks to GoktugErce who’s been kind enough to provide us with the figures. He’s @poohdini59 on Twitter and worth a follow for these kinds of stats.

If you haven’t come across the term previously, Effective Ownership is essentially what you get when you take a players ownership and add on the amount that has him captained for a GW (as they will get double the points from him). Say Muamer Tankovic (9.2m) is owned by 80% of the top 1000 players in the game. Half of them (40% of the top 1k) captain him for a GW so his EO in the top 1k then becomes 120% (80+40). What that means is essentially, if you’re in the top 1k and you haven’t captained him, every point he scores means you drop in rank. If he scores 10 points, the average score in the top 1k goes up by 12 points. It is something to keep in mind when you choose your captain, albeit it’s hard to know before the gameweek kicks off what the EO’s will be, we can only speculate.

In gameweek 14 we saw AIK take another routine win away to Kalmar, with a few tweaks to the line-up ahead of the Champions League-qualifiers. In came Daniel Granli (4.4m), Bilal Hussein (4.4m) and Kolbeinn Sigthorsson (9.3m) for Panajotis Dimitriadis (5.5m), Tarik Elyounoussi (9.4m) and Henok Goitom (9.7m). Line-ups were announced by AIK’s Twitter a few minutes before the deadline which made for some frantic last-minute changes for a few of us! Per Karlsson (6.6m) went off injured so we’ll have to monitor how that develops during the week, he missed out on AIK’s loss against Ararat on Tuesday. In Malmö’s 2-1 victory over Örebro, Sören Rieks (9.8m) started on the bench and made an uninspiring 1-point cameo. Malmö have the squad depth to rotate during the European qualifiers so that’s something to keep in mind if they stay in the tournament. Anders Christiansen (10.0m) scored again and thanks to another round of bonus (2 offensive and 1 defensive) came away with his third double-digit return on the season.

Göteborg completely dominated at home to Sundsvall with their 17 shots (12 on target) comparing quite well to Sundsvall’s 5 (1 on target). Lack of proper finishing and a customary brilliant display from Sundsvall keeper William Eskelinen (5.5m) saw the end result become a flattering 2-1. Eskelinen was in fact so good that he, despite conceding twice, recorded the biggest haul of any keeper this year with 14 points courtesy of 10 saves, 2 defensive bonus, 1 penalty save and 1 assist! That’s also his third penalty-save in four attempts so far but before anyone gets too excited, he’s likely to leave quite soon. The missed spot-kick reflected worse on the taker, Giorgi Kharaishvili (8.6m) who had a very productive game but that six-point swing ensured his tally stayed at just 5 points, with 1 assist and 2 offensive bonus points. That was also his second penalty-miss from two attempts this season and his owners will be hoping that he stays on them (or maybe not, depending on your outlook on his potential for betterment).

Norrköping-Häcken was settled through a 79th-minute goal from Christoffer Nyman (9.7m) who now has 5 goals and 1 assist in the last 6 games played and is starting to hit a nice patch of form. He’s also a big differential in the top 1k, with only 4.1% sitting with the Norrköping striker in their squad. Jordan Larsson (7.6m) who in GW14 had an effective ownership of 78.2% in the top 1k scored his 9th goal of the season. The big talking point of the week still has to be Hammarby’s 6-2 win over Falkenberg and a certain Alexander Kacaniklic (8.3m) who went from having 18 points on the season to 40, through a magical 22 point showing! 3 goals, 1 assist, 2 offensive bonus points.

Before we all jump aboard the hype train, let’s have some caveats. Any midfielder scoring 22 fantasy points in a GW will undoubtedly turn a few heads but Kacanicklic actually hasn’t scored a single goal before this since the 29th of December, 2015! Back then he was playing for Fulham in the Championship. He’s struggled a lot with injuries throughout his career. Also, Falkenberg were truly awful on the night and as much as Hammarby put in a good shift, Falkenberg didn’t even really turn up in the first half. He hasn’t shown any real signs during the season to indicate that such an upturn in form was incoming.

That said… Kacaniklic did play for Fulham between 2011-2016, getting a decent amount of playing time both in the Championship and in the Premier League, getting called up for the Swedish national squad for a while as well.  There is a player somewhere in there that’s a lot better than what he’s shown in the last couple of years, the biggest question marks surrounding him are consistency and fitness. If he can pull things together on a more frequent basis, we could be dealing with a player with capacity way beyond this league. I’ll have a word with the conductor but whether or not we’re heading towards Milano or straight into a brick wall, this is a train I’m going to have to jump on and just see where it takes me.

Nikola Djurdjic (10.0m) was brilliant as well with 2 goals, 1 assist and 2 offensive bonus points and he could get more game time up top depending on if Hammarby sign a new striker (I think they will). It will be very interesting to see how Hammarby functions now that Vidar Örn Kjartansson (10.0m) is leaving after GW15. Djurdjic finds himself in only about 10% of the teams in the top 1k so he, like Kacaniklic, is still a differential. A player that’s very much not in the differential category however is Muamer Tankovic who was the most captained player by far in the game, coming in at an Effective Ownership of 127.3% in the top 1k. He provided with a decent 8 pointer thanks to 1 assist, 1 CS point and 2 offensive bonus points. Given how central he’s been to Hammarby’s attack and since they scored six goals on the night, captainers will still be feeling a bit robbed of the celebration that could have been. In fact, just three minutes after he was subbed off, Hammarby got a penalty that he would have taken had he still been on the pitch. Instead, Djurdjic stepped up and scored it.

Gameweek 15 preview

AIK, Norrköping and Malmö all have European qualification-fixtures in midweek that needs to be monitored for injuries, lineups, and fatigue. AIK went to Armenia on Tuesday and lost 2-1, with Daniel Sundgren (7.1m) and Per Karlsson missing out, the former under suspicious circumstances. Sundgren has since been let go by the club and will not be playing any more games for AIK, missing out on his intended GW15 farewell. The causes stated by the club is Sundgren saying that he did not wish to be selected for the European qualifiers, and then pulling a sickie shortly before the trip.

Other than that, gameweek 15 sees second-placed Djurgården play at home to first placed Malmö, and Göteborg travel to a Falkenberg side that absolutely can not play this way if they want to stay up. AIK will try to wash away the taste of the CL-game at home to Elfsborg, a (potentially) rejuvenated Hammarby travels to Sundsvall and Häcken tries to climb up the table again at home to Örebro.

Players to target

Alexander Kacaniklic is at a nice price and still a big differential going into the gameweek. Assuming he stays healthy this could be the start of a nice patch of form to take advantage of! Hammarby’s upcoming fixture run is promising as well with Sundsvall (a), Elfsborg (H), AFC Eskilstuna (a), Kalmar (a), Helsingborg (H), Sundsvall (H) and Falkenberg (a) coming up in July-August, when a lot of the top teams will be dealing with European qualifiers which Hammarby won’t take part in.

Victor Wernersson has been gathering a lot of traction in the last couple of gameweeks and for good reasons. He’s got 3 assists, 6 clean sheets, 5 offensive bonus and 10 defensive bonus points on the season and looked great against Sundsvall. Göteborg also has a great schedule and no Europe with Falkenberg (a), AFC Eskilstuna (H), Norrköping (H), Örebro (a), Falkenberg (H), Helsingborg (a), Kalmar (H) and Sundsvall (A).

Captaincy thoughts

The gameweek isn’t filled with a bunch of great captaincy options but two strong candidates would be Giorgi Kharaishvili and Muamer Tankovic. The two players switch opposition as Tankovic now is faced with Sundsvall, and Kharaishvili travels to Falkenberg. Both players are in good form, on pens, and playing for an attacking side against two pretty terrible defences. Keep an eye out for potential transfer dealings with Sundsvall keeper William Eskelinen, as another masterclass from him could dent Tankovic appeal somewhat.

A third really solid option is Alexander Jeremejeff (9.7m) who plays at home to Örebro and besides having a good record overall this season (6 goals and 5 assists), he’s got very nice stats at home. In 7 home games he’s only blanked once and scored 4 goals, 3 assists. As always with the best players in Allsvenskan during the summer, monitor any and all transfer rumours as he’s said himself that Häcken is a springboard towards something bigger.

A bit of a long one this time but there was a lot to discuss!

Daniel Sundgren being cut loose earlier than expected will leave a lot of managers scrambling, along with potential rotation due to European games this could be the time to beef up the bench as well. Regardless, I hope you’ll have a good gameweek 15 and keep track of AIK’s twitter feed for (hopefully) some last-minute news yet again!

Meltens