January Wildcard

Am I right in thinking this is the first season where the wildcard has been available that late into February?

Looking at my squad:

Hart
Terry Naylor Hutton Wisdom Dummett
Yaya Eriksen Hazard Sanchez Marney
Austin Costa Bony

I'm in no rush to make any major changes. Yaya and Bony have to go in the next two GWs, Yaya for Silva and I'll see who for Bony.

Other than that, there are no immediate concerns I have. I'll be going for a cheaper keeper than Hart, who has been an unmitigated disaster, and will try to sneak Zab in if I can.

Players I have me eye on are:

Pantimillon
Phil Jones
Sterling
Jovetic until Kun is back

WBA have approached Pulis. 3 WBA defenders in the wildcard now:pac:

I feel like I could do a -4 next GW (Yaya, Benteke, Bony out for Cesc, Kane, RvP) and be happy with my front 8, but my defence would not be what I want. I'll have to think about it since I would need to save my FT this week and not go for the one week punt as I planned.

Obvious shortcomings but that front 3 has serious potential.

Does anyone have goalkeeper/defence rotation pairings from January onwards?

Is there any info out there regarding who has better home matches for the second half of the season? I read somewhere here that QPR remaining home matches are nearly all against current top 10 teams.

Currently I have 2 cheap inform strikers (Kane/Austin) who allow me to stockpile big hitters around the rest of the team. Their form will run out eventually and it's then that I could do with a wildcard.

Slowly gravitating towards not playing it immediately. This would be a first.

CSF wrote: »

Slowly gravitating towards not playing it immediately. This would be a first.

2 week break between GW22 and GW23 looks ideal time, with Aguero due back around then and new appointments like possibly Pulis settling in.

This is an early draft I came up with. The 0.4 left over would allow some wiggle room for price changes. I could downgrade De Gea and Gilks to a rotating keeper combo of say Panti and Green and upgrade the defence. Terry and Hutton are certs for the premium def and cheap def spots respectively. Haz, Sanchez and Fab are nailed on as my big hitters and Boyd is the ideal cheapie mid. Apart from Kun the two other forwards and the last remaining midfield spot are up in the air atm.

There are some questions I have to ask myself. Go with Downing, Siggy, Mirallas or Hendo for the mid range option or splash out on ADM when he's back fit? ADM would make for a dream midfield 4 or a mid range would give more balance. What do I do with Kun? Is he a must-have or are there other viable alternatives?

There's just so many flippin' options that we're spoilt for choice!

I don't think it would be crazy to go with 3 cheap forwards from the likes of Austin, Ings, Kane, Carroll, Ayoze etc. This would mean going without Aguero and opting for a 3-5-2 which is intriguing. Imagine a midfield of Hazard, Sanchez, Fabregas, Silva and Di Maria!

I think i'll be going Aguero 2 cheapish strikers and 4 premium mids.

jebforever wrote: »

This is an early draft I came up with. The 0.4 left over would allow some wiggle room for price changes. I could downgrade De Gea and Gilks to a rotating keeper combo of say Panti and Green and upgrade the defence. Terry and Hutton are certs for the premium def and cheap def spots respectively. Haz, Sanchez and Fab are nailed on as my big hitters and Boyd is the ideal cheapie mid. Apart from Kun the two other forwards and the last remaining midfield spot are up in the air atm.

There are some questions I have to ask myself. Go with Downing, Siggy, Mirallas or Hendo for the mid range option or splash out on ADM when he's back fit? ADM would make for a dream midfield 4 or a mid range would give more balance. What do I do with Kun? Is he a must-have or are there other viable alternatives?

There's just so many flippin' options that we're spoilt for choice!

I don't think it would be crazy to go with 3 cheap forwards from the likes of Austin, Ings, Kane, Carroll, Ayoze etc. This would mean going without Aguero and opting for a 3-5-2 which is intriguing. Imagine a midfield of Hazard, Sanchez, Fabregas, Silva and Di Maria!

Let's pretend you didn't mention going without Kun and move on.

I also did my draft WC team. Plan to play it maybe mid-Jan.

So my thoughts with this team are:

1. Team would look drastically different without Augero but he's a must. If he isn't fit soon, can also throw in someone else like Austin.

2. Would love a premium defender but have opted for a "premium" 4th choice midfielder instead. Sterling playing as a striker is too tempting for me and I think his points will come.

3. Defence isn't the best but I have plenty of variety for rotation. Davies and Taylor should be fairly solid at the back.

4. I know Krul and Duff are currently injured but Krul will regain his place soon and Duff is a 5th choice defender who will hopefully regain his place.

5. 0.2m in the bank so I could use this on a GK/Defender. (Just after thinking McNair in for Cameron...hmmm...)

Thoughts and advice is VERY much appreciated

Here's my messing around, draft attempt:



The front 3 and midfield 5 don't need any explanation really. If Austin starts to slacken off with his home fixtures getting more difficult, I would consider someone else but other than that I'm happy with that midfield and strike force. I don't really want 5 top options in midfield as you're likely to be faced with a tough decision every week and thus leave points on the bench. With 3-4-3 it's as handy to have Boyd who we all now by now can and will contribute, often when we need it most.

Terry in defence to play every week. Sunderland and Newcastle obviously rotate every week and offer some very, very tasty home fixtures. In fact far more than I actually thought initially. This would of course depend on who the new Newcastle manager fancies in his back four and how van Aanholt comes back from his serious shoulder injury, but the plan would be to have Sunderland and Newcastle defensive coverage to rotate in any case. I was a big fan of the Swansea/Stoke rotation at the start of the season (even though Stoke ended up giving me virtually nothing :pac:) and would be quite happy to go with that again to give me Terry + 2 home defenders every week at the back.

With the above I had £5.5m left for a goalkeeper. An extra £0.2m would have allowed me to get De Gea in which would have been perfect, but even though I'm not a big fan of Foster, Southampton kept plenty of clean sheets in their early run and the fixtures turn that way again from the start of February.

So, overall there's definitely a few things that need to become more clear cut but which should happen between now and late January when I plan on using the wildcard, but I'm pretty happy to have something like the above in mind. There's ways around the doubts too, e.g. downgrading Foster would allow to me to go for guaranteed defensive options from some of the aforementioned teams. As always, I'll probably have something completely different next week. :pac:

Any critique would be most welcomed.