THE FantasyYIRMA.com GAMEWEEK PREVIEW FOLLOWS THE END OF YEAR MENTION TO TheGafferTapes.com FOR THEIR ASSISTANCE THROUGH 2016

Since the start of the 2015/16 Season we’ve been fortunate to have @CraigHazell from TheGafferTapes.com as our Gameweek Preview writer, following on in the footsteps from YIRMA legend @Mark_Jones86.

This season Craig has continued providing his excellent take on the upcoming Fantasy fixtures.. until Ant and Dec got involved. You see, Craig farted off to the Jungle for a month to work on I’m a Celeb and whilst he performed admirably in maintaining his weekly preview, it was inevitable that the combination of the time difference to Australia and Vodka Croc Cock Shot hangovers would take it’s toll.

Step forward @The_Tom_Holmes. Tom accepted the challenge of providing the gameweek preview for GW11 and smashed it out of the park with his witty take on fantasy football all the while staying true to Craig’s style even writing the entire article whilst wearing skinny jeans, a cardigan and eating quinoa ironically.

Normal service resumed following Craig’s return to civilisation until his wonderful girlfriend (who has little to no regard for blog post time schedules) whisked Craig off for a surprise holiday as a Christmas Present – how very dare she! 😉

Never fear… Step forward, Lord Ashley @AshKernsworth. The sensible, logical, knowledgeable one from the “Award Winning” Gaffer Tapes..

The Gandalf in a room filled with Hobbits (Literally)

When Craig writes the preview I imagine him walking through Sainsbury’s thinking of something funny and saying to himself in the condiment aisle, “I must put that in the Preview.”

When Tom writes the preview, I imagine it’s typed up on his phone during work in the office bathroom.

It is somewhat fitting that in this – the final Gameweek of the Calendar year that Ash will step forward and provide the final preview of 2016.

With Ash, I can only imagine it was written by a roaring fireplace, pipe in hand and alongside a glass of something.. distinguished.

Sincere thanks to the Craig for all of the previews in 2016 and also to Tom and Ash for filling in when needed. Pleasure to have you involved with FY. Thanks for everything in 2016 and here’s to another “Award Winning” year in 2017.

Thanks,

Ryan @FantasyYIRMA

oh yeah – the Preview…

#FPL GAMEWEEK 19 PREVIEW

Written by @AshKernsworth

This harsh year of death and mayhem has claimed yet another victim. Unfortunately the American angel has been taken from us too soon. Clearly Premiership life wasn’t in his wheelhouse. RIP Bob Bradley, we hardly knew you. Sadly we aren’t out of the woods just yet, we’ve still got one game week left and no doubt it’ll be full of players turning red, missed captain opportunities and wasted wildcards. So buckle up, close your eyes, and maybe we can avoid being 2016ed for a few more days.

DEFENDER: Ben Foster, West Brom.

Just when we had a good thing going Jordan Pickford’s knee explodes. So the Heaton / Pickford fixture  switcheroo is out the window. Foster is the obvious replacement. Over the next 5 weeks Heaton / Foster have a good set of rotating fixtures: Sunderland, Hull, Southampton, Sunderland, Middlesbrough. You just need to find that extra 0.5 million.
Ed: Yes, the writer is allowed to pick a keeper in this section. This is not controversial. No need to tweet me about this! 😉

MIDFIELDER: Michail Antonio,West Ham

Assuming Alexis Sánchez is 237% picked lets look at someone else. West Ham’s powerhouse of a wing forward Antonio could be the answer to your midfield woes, with 20 points over his last 4 games plus Leicester, Palace and Middlesbrough all coming up in the next 5 weeks. Maybe it’s time to free up some Sigurdsson money?

FORWARD: Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Manchester United

It’s hard to look past the big man here. Admittedly Costa and Agüero will be coming back from Christmas nice and refreshed after a break in the sin bin, but I still think Zlatan has a little bit more to give. Scorpion kicks aside, United are still a one-man team and that man is THE man. There is no way on earth he’s not spent the last 3 days walking around Carrington thinking ‘OK that was a nice goal, if you like luck.

But the Zlatan,he will show them a REAL goal’.

CAPTAIN: Alexis Sánchez, Arsenal

This seems like the obvious pick for me, although Twitter, Reddit and Facebook all disagree. Zlatan is the popular pick this week and he’s certainly got a great chance of scoring, probably even more so than Alexis, but does he have the same potential? Middlesbrough never concede more than 1 goal a game, where as Fat Sam can F*** off. Sorry I mean, whereas Palace are definitely struggling at the back. Basically just pick Sánc’ as your captain for the next five weeks.

OUTSIDER: Jay Rodriguez, Southampton

Jay-Rod is a great long term pick. He’s only 0.6% selected and at £6.3 million isn’t the most expensive player of all time. Now game time is starting to come his way he could be a great partner for Agüero or Ibra. You just have to pray to Jesus, Jeff Stelling and the Cookie Monster he doesn’t get injured… again!

Ash is an app developer, FPL expert and West Ham fan who specialises in board games, quizzes and exaggeration. He is a former top 100 ranked FPL player and makes up one third of the popular FPL podcast The Gaffer Tapes as the teams resident number cruncher. His statistical approach to the game often puts Tom & Craig to shame and when he’s not ordering Bailey’s & Cherryade he’s taking 7 hours to do his lineup on a Saturday morning.

Check out The Gaffer Tapes Podcast Here