GAFFR Fantasy Championship – The Story of GW2 / GW3

It’s only been a week since the last one of these articles, but two action-packed gameweeks have been completed since then, so let’s dive right into the biggest stories and performers from gameweeks 2 and 3 of the GAFFR season!

The big hitters are hitting big

What a week it was for both West Brom and Fulham. West Brom beat Luton 3-2 (having been 3-0 up) on Saturday, before proceeding to beat Sheffield United 4-0 on Wednesday night. Was a big week as a result for the owners of a lot of the West Brom GAFFR assets. Across the two games, Callum Robinson (9.1) had 2 goals and an assist to further his case as one of the premier assets in the game, gathering 22 points in the process. Karlan Grant (9.5) had a goal and an assist across the two games, scoring 20 points. Dara O’Shea (6.0) with 18, Alex Mowatt (8.5) with 13, Darnell Furlong (6.0) with 12 and Matt Clarke (6.0) with 10 also all scored in double figures for a West Brom team that really seems to be hitting its stride now!

Fulham beat Huddersfield 5-1 at the weekend and followed that up by beating Millwall 2-1 in a result that was much more comfortable than it sounds. This was a big week to own a lot of the Fulham attacking assets, with one of the few exceptions being Harry Wilson (9.5) who got himself sent off at the weekend, meaning he scored -1 across the two games. Bobby Decordova-Reid (7.6) only played the game on Saturday, but scored a massive 17 points in the process with his hat-trick of assists. The real star of the show across the two games was 18 year old star Fabio Carvalho (5.1). The talented youngster, only 5.1 in the game, had two goals, one assist and a massive 8 bonus points to score 26 points across the two games. He is appearing in more and more teams and after this week, it’s easy to understand why. The other big scorer for Fulham was the big man up top, Aleksandar Mitrovic (11.0). Mitrovic scored two goals and added an assist to score 20 points across the week, showing what a good asset he’s likely to be throughout. Ivan Cavaleiro (8.0) was the other Fulham player to get into double digits for the week, helped significantly by his two goal appearance off the bench on Saturday, scoring 18 points across the two games.

The other two teams to have a really good week of results were Bournemouth, who beat Forest 2-1 and Birmingham 2-0, and QPR, who beat Hull 3-0 and Middlesbrough 3-2. For Bournemouth, the two standouts were Dominic Solanke (11.0) with 17 points and young forward Jaidon Anthony (6.2), another one of the young players to really shine early in the season, who scored 19 points across the two games, scoring his first league goal for the club in the process. Also hitting double figures across the two were Philip Billing (7.1) with 13, Mark Travers (5.0) with 12, Zeno Rossi (5.0) with 12 in only one game, and Lloyd Kelly (6.0) and Jordan Zemura (5.0) with 10 apiece. For QPR, the star of the week was undoubtedly Chris Willock (6.1) and his 25 points, nabbing 2 goals and an assist. Willock paired very well in attack with Lyndon Dykes (8.0), who scored two goals on his way to 18 points for the week. Over the two games, there were lots of avenues to points from QPR. Among those scoring in double digits were Lee Wallace (4.6) with 13, goal machine Rob Dickie (5.1) and Stefan Johansen (6.0) with 12, and Ilias Chair (7.5) with 10.

There were some other high scoring players over the course of the past week that are worth highlighting as well. Harrison Burrows (5.0) is one of the more surprising ones, but he gathered 20 points for Peterborough, while the initially popular Jonson Clarke-Harris (6.0) got 16 points and Siriki Dembele (5.5) scored 17. Tommy Smith (5.1) and new signing Leo Ostigard (5.0) scored well for Stoke, scoring 16 and 17 points respectively. From Middlesbrough, the pair of Matt Crooks (6.5) with 19 points and Uche Ikpeazu (6.5) with 21 points are definitely worth bearing in mind for Gaffr managers. The Reading pair of John Swift (6.6) with 19 points and Femi Azeez (5.5) with 16 points had good weeks and seem to be proving more and more popular with GAFFR managers. We even had the Bristol City attacking pairing of Chris Martin (6.5) and Andi Weimann (6.5) having good scores, with 15 and 18 points respectively. Finally, there were a few players who got into double points across the week for Cardiff, but the one we’re going to mention here is Aden Flint (5.0) who, after his heroics against Peterborough, took himself to 22 points for the week!

Popular issues

This section could probably have just been titled the “What Do We Do With Kieffer Moore (10.0)?” section, but there are a few similar questions confronting GAFFR managers at the moment. The answer on what to do with Moore seems to increasingly be a collective shrug. He came off the bench against Blackpool at the weekend, which was the cue for him to be back in the starting lineup. But come Tuesday against Peterborough, there he was on the bench again. He was the standout captain for that GW, leaving a lot of managers very frustrated and still scratching their heads on what to do with the big Welshman ahead of the game at home against Millwall this weekend. This would probably be far less frustrating if the man who had started the season up front for Cardiff, summer signing James Collins (7.5), had done much to keep Moore out of the team. He is yet to register an attacking return and managers who went for him from the start of the season also have a frustrating decision to make now. The biggest collective question mark of all for Gaffr managers, if it is not Kieffer Moore, follows the assets of Sheffield United. With Lys Mousset (8.0) already injured and the likes of McGoldrick (9.0), Brewster (8.0), Burke (7.5), Sharp (8.0) et al not providing much at all, they are all set to become the perfect embodiment of the “form vs fixtures” debate, with a team who look like they are struggling right now running into an absolutely fantastic set of fixtures. Finally, keep an eye on Forest. While the addition of Philip Zinckernagel (8.0) has clearly improved them right away, they are still on 0 points and there are growing murmurings about Chris Hughton’s job already.

Brief thoughts for GW4

Following on from this action-packed week, there are some great opportunities for GAFFR managers, with Fulham playing Hull, Bournemouth playing Blackpool, Middlesbrough playing Derby, Reading playing Coventry and West Brom playing Blackburn. The first thing this suggests is that there could be plenty of goals for some of the more popular assets this weekend. In terms of captaincy, the best options would appear to be Mitrovic and Solanke. Other good options this weekend could be Ikpeazu, Swift and Robinson. If you’re looking for more of a punt, then Carvalho, Brooks or Dykes are ones to look at.

Enjoy the weekend’s action, we’ll be recording Sunday night and we’ll see you back here with another article next week!

EFL Fantasy Podcast (@EFL_Fantasy)