Monday was a night to forget for Manchester City, but as they look to bounce back at the weekend they’ll be pretty pleased with who their opponents are. It was back in early November that City hammered Nowich 7-0 at the Etihad Stadium to record their biggest win of a season which has featured plenty […]
Blog Archives
Off the Mark: REVEALED: The two men who could define Manchester United’s next five years, and David Moyes isn’t one of them
Feb 5
Perhaps the most surprising thing about Manchester United’s 2-1 defeat at Stoke last Saturday was that it wasn’t that surprising. The Potters had already beaten Chelsea at home this season, as well as drawing with Manchester City and only losing out to Liverpool in a mad eight-goal shootout from which they were unfortunate not to […]
FantasyYIRMA.com Cup Round 3 Results (Sponsored by BetMcLean.com)
Feb 4
FantasyYIRMA.com Cup Round 3 Results (Sponsored by BetMcLean.com) Here are the results from Round 2 of the #FYCUP sponsored by BetMcLean Winners are below in GREEN MASE FC 43 46 Not One Nil Wizards Of Özil 37 55 Breaking Bad Sena’s 66 50 My Fox is Super No Need to Worry 55 53 Outkasts Martin Allen’s […]
West Brom vs Liverpool: Lineups and Preview
Feb 2
On the back of a pride-crushing derby defeat, things don’t get any easier for Pepe Mel and West Brom, as they prepare for Liverpool’s visit to the Hawthorns. By @BETFUZE. Albion team v @lfc: Foster, Jones, McAuley, Olsson, Ridgewell, Yacob, Mulumbu, Gera, Berahino, Vydra, Brunt (c). #wbaliv — West Bromwich Albion (@WBA) February 2, 2014 […]
FantasyYIRMA.com : Knockout Cup ROUND 2
Jan 26
Here are the results from Round 1 of the #FYCUP sponsored by BetMcLean Winners from Round 1 are below in GREEN MillyMOOSE vs Real Shotburn Botal Tollix vs Getitupyeeeee! Eat My Dust vs FatFrancsChipShop3 Come on Huey vs Soccer Novice DisneyJr vs Stroking Balls Modi’s midas vs Arsenalizer- Green Barmy Army vs Bumpkin Allstars The […]
Off the Mark: Samuel Eto’o is at Chelsea for a good time, not a long time
Jan 22
Perhaps it’s a Manchester United thing. Those of us who were at Anfield in early March 2011 will have noticed a stark resemblance between what happened to the Red Devils there and what occurred to them on Sunday at Stamford Bridge. The man in the dugout may have changed, but the damage inflicted to his […]
Round 1 Fixture List: #FYCUP
Jan 18
ALL 256 PLACES HAVE NOW BEEN FILLED NO MORE SPACES AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME Here are the fixtures for Round 1 Starting GW22 (NOT GW23 as originally planned) The cup will run for 8 gameweeks starting from GW22. Be warned – places are limited to 256 players only! To be eligible for any prizes you must […]
Fantasy Football KO Cup: ALL 256 PLACES NOW TAKEN
Jan 10
Announcement Friday 10th January 12:30pm ALL 256 PLACES HAVE NOW BEEN FILLED NO MORE SPACES AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME Announcement Friday 10th January 12:30pm ALL 256 PLACES HAVE NOW BEEN FILLED NO MORE SPACES AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME We are delighted to announce the return of the FantasyYIRMA KO Cup for 2014!! We have a […]
Off the Mark: Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho isn’t special enough to fool us this time
Jan 8
They say that getting older and getting wiser go hand in hand, but not a lot is made of the stubborn streak which also appears to grow as the years advance. This streak is particularly prevalent in football managers, men who spend their lives living on the edge and, in a work sense, living and […]
For the Fantasy Football enamored amongst us the New Year brings a late Christmas present…
THE JANUARY WILDCARD!!
To help you decide how to best approach the January Wildcard, FantasyYIRMA.com will be running a series of articles looking at different perspectives. You can follow us on twitter for #FPL chat at @FantasyYIRMA
WILDCARD SPECIAL
Play it your way Part 1: LINK
Play it your way Part 2: LINK
Play it your way Part 3: LINK
Next up we are delighted to feature a guest post from the 2012/13 FPL #6 in the World @JulianZip
Julian led the way in FPL last year including a 5 week consecutive run at #1 towards the end of the season!…Being from Australia and not getting to see as much of the Premier League as he’d like makes this even more impressive!!
Such is the feat of his achievement Julian actually featured in the National Press Down Under
Julian epitomizes the stat based approach to the game, a great guy to interact with on twitter – make sure and drop a follow to @JulianZip .
My January Wildcard approach…
While it depends on how you’re going, I’ve always thought that using wildcards early is a good idea. It gives you the chance to get a jump-start on your rivals who have to bring in the best performers bit-by-bit (or take hits) while juggling injuries. My logic is that it’s harder to chase a mini-league lead than it is to keep one. The January wildcard is a little different though, and I’d argue that patience is the way to go with it, if your current team is in reasonable enough shape to get you through a few more weeks…for many of us, niggles to players such as Rooney and yellow flags are making that a nerve-wracking proposition of course.
You can bet lots of people have been counting down until January 1st,desperate to get rid of players who have been causing them angst (Marc Wilson, get out of my life) or to bring in the ones who have been consistently hurting them (damn you Per Mertesacker!). At this time of year though, our squads start to look even more uniform. That means unless you’re in front, or you are really winning the team value part of the game, it’s tough to make real gains.
Big Per giving Julian the thumbs up 🙂
I’m hoping that by holding off until after gameweek 22 I’ll be able to utilise the break, and the few weeks, prior to work on my team value, and by then there could be a ready-to-go Aguero, and hopefully a few new signings that shake things up. You never know, Man United might bring in a creative midfielder, and Arsenal or Chelsea might find themselves a world class striker…well maybe not, but you get what I’m saying…
For defensive choices, I look at fixtures to make sure I have two relatively cheap keepers who rotate well with home games. McGregor and Speroni have worked well in that regard over the last few months, and looking ahead Marshall with Mannone/Speroni seem like options to do a similar job (Szczesny & Guzan look a decent pairing too). I’ll look at two premium defenders, and then three who rotate well for around the following 6-8 gameweeks. Hull and Palace look solid choices given their numbers as far as goals conceded at home go, and West Ham give a nice three way rotation alongside those two.
In the front half I’ll probably be able to afford a few of the fixture-proof heavy hitters…i.e. Suarez, Aguero, Walcott, Hazard… with a few mid-price guys like Lallana and Cabaye, and then budget options to make it all possible – the likes of Sterling, Whittingham, Januzaj, Redmond/Fer, Barkley. My usual formation preference is a 3-4-3, but if things keep going the way they have been striker-wise lately, I’m considering interchanging that with a 3-5-2 and 4-4-2 (so finding a cheap striker, mid and defender who rotate well together fixture-wise).
I like to make sure I have coverage from each of the big teams…but I’m careful not to load up too much on any one, as mid-week commitments mean rotation and fatigue is set to become even more of an issue going forward. In particular what I’ll spend time combing the stats looking for, are one or two options under 10% ownership who are creating chances or getting looks at goal (but who haven’t had huge scoring weeks yet)…they are the ones I’m hoping might provide a point of difference, and who others might be too busy looking in the direction of the current hot picks to notice.
Thanks to @FantasyYIRMA for the chance to contribute – as always, have been enjoying keeping up to speed with everything #FPL via your posts!
Julian has Guest Posted on the site previously – you can see his previous article here LINK
He also contributes to FourFourTwo in Australia and you can view his work here LINK
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