2021/2022 Wildcard thread.

I don’t see Shaw as an assist attraction. I think DeGea + saves will cover Shaw & give you 1m to upgrade one of your 4.5m mids to ESR or Gray.

You can then get another 4mil defender but play Duffy over Sanchez if you want Brighton defence & not have to double up

Yeah thats spot on. I think relying on Bissouma, Gallagher & Dennis would get old very fast and you'd have itchy fingers to improve them which then means selling a premium player anyway.

Theres lots of ways of winning this game but my feeling with premiums is owning them at the right times and getting off them at the right times will pay dividends over the course of the season. I dont see the necessity to own as many of them as possible while weakening the rest of the team because premiums are going to blank in some games whereas theres a selection of a mid priced players that can provide consistent returns.

Then you also have to factor in the hot streak players that are important to be on at the right times. From last season those who were on Lingard early would have gotten just as many points out of owning him for 7 or 8 GWs than they did out of owning Kane or Salah over the same time period. Lingard was a 6.5m player who was delivering returns at the same rate as a 12m one for several GWs. It was pure gravy if you owned at the right time and then got off him as soon as the first signal that his hot streak had ended arrived. I think having that flexibility is important whereas locking in lots of premiums takes it away quite a bit, especially if the hot streak player is 6.5m-7m or over.

Its horses for courses really but its interesting how a lot of the WC chatter seems to be about packing their team with premiums. Im not convinced with the strategy but it'll will be interesting to see how it plays out in the coming weeks.

Latest draft

first 2 pics are my attempts at wc drafts. 3rd pic is my week 3 team. I’m just inside 160 k and made no transfers for wk 2 and brought in reguilon and son in wk 3. I had zero in bank after wk 3. I feel like I got carried away in cr7 hype at this stage with the amount of chopping and changing I’ve done in this wc team. Main motivation to wc was Martinez out, ings facing tough fixtures while villa don’t really look great and obviously cr7 came into it. In hindsight a -4 to Sanchez in goal and ings to dcl would have probably been better. I got lucky in wk 3 with the return from the 2 Spurs transfers. Barnes was another problem but might have held on to him for another week. But now with button hit my main questions are will Greenwood lose out to cr7 arrival. If not is him or jota the better pick. Will Torres hold his place. Are Arsenal worth considering with the fixtures. Is taa essential. Completely baffled at this stage.

* it’s the second pic that’s my latest draft

I'm coming around to that somewhat, I had a tem with TAA, Salah, Ronaldo, Lukaku but I'm beginning to think there's too many compropmises elsewhere. Only real way to do it was with a bench fodder forward, and a dud playing defender (Livramento) and a cheap midfielder (Gary, ESR).

Coming around to the idea of one of Ronaldo/Lukaku, starting with Ronaldo, Lukaku at GW7, the extra strength all over the field feels better

yeah thats similar to my own plan, Im holding off Lukaku till GW7 when his fixtures shift. He could very well score against Villa, Spurs, City but I fancy DCL/Antonio to match him over their fixtures. Chelease fixtures are so good from GW7 though that regardless of what Antonio/DCL are doing I think Lukaku is too good to ignore, its the double goal hauls or even a potential hat trick that I would fear missing out on.

Ha will he be this year's Vardy, where everyone rants and raves about him and then realise 7 weeks later than he still hasn't scored...

Speaking of Vardy 2 goals in 3 games but seems to have no love around here this season

How do you plan on jumping from DCL/Antonio to Lukaku, that will require an additional 3.5/4mil which I assume will be spread around the team?

Feedback please

It’s looking like Raphinha won’t be available for GW4 due to Brazil’s complaint to FIFA.

One to keep an eye on

It will involve two transfers but right now Im thinking Bruno out in GW7 is one of them. Even though he has better penalty stats than Ronaldo he is most likely going to be off them. That has to hit Brunos points ceiling over the season and for me he would no longer be worth the 12.0m.

Im not 100% I'll go to Lukaku yet but its very hard to look past that run of fixtures for Chelsea from GW7 onwards, Southampton, Brentford, Norwich, Newcastle, Burnley. Theres lots of captaincy options in those fixtures too. At a minimum I want a Chelsea defender for that run as you'd think they are getting a minimum of 3 clean sheets out of those 5 fixtures and possibly more. Chelsea to me look like they have the best defence in the PL this year, its early days but it seems really hard to score against them.

Wildcarding to get Ronaldo in.

Debating option A versus option B

A: Trent, Jota, Lukaku,

B: James, Salah, Calvert Lewin.

Any comments welcome.

Laporte injured for Spain last nite. A very easy swap for you to Stones, who has dropped to 5.3. That injury is making me consider a 4-3-3 formation

Guiata - 4m

TAA- Stones - Ayling - White - Regulion

Torres - Jota - Salah - Allan - 4.4

Ronaldo - DCL - Antonio

Lukaku & Recce James coming in from GW7. I’d love Sa but just can’t find the extra 0.5 with Jota in the team. If the news on Firmino is good I could be looking at Raphina over him

Guaita is a bonus point hoarder tho, anytime he keep a CS against a top team he's in 10-12 point territory.

It's a great team tbh! With Wolves fixtures it's probably worth considering Jimenez up top instead of DCL. 50-50 imo