Gameweek 22 seems like forever ago, but it was an unusually poor week for the FPL Updates XI. As a team they have usually been above average, however this week saw them drop 4 points below the average of 52 points. Here’s how the team looked:
So both Tim Krul and Rob Green lost their clean sheets, so nothing could have been gained here. In front of him we saw our new signing Jones keep a clean sheet and bring home a massive 8 points on his debut for the team. Meanwhile, Wisdom managed to keep another clean sheet, with Hutton just picking up a single point.
In midfield we saw all 4 of our players blank, most frustrating of all being Eden Hazard who watched Chelsea score 5 goals, and not even pick up an assist, let alone a goal. Need we say any more?
Up top we made the mistake of not obeying the rule: ‘Always captain Costa’. We gave the armband to Harry Kane who blanked, likewise did Rooney.
So, down to the business! This week we played the WILDCARD, which turened out to be perfect timing as Sanchez, Costa, Sigurdsson, Dummett and Young were all injured or unavailable in the squad. Anyway, here is how we line up:
So in goal we have gone with a cheap rotational partnership of Krul and Foster, We were tempted by the nice rotational partnership of Pantilimon and Heaton as they rotate very well, but with Tony Pulis joining West Brom, we expect more clean sheets to come with this. Out of the two we start Krul, as he has the slightly easier fixture on paper and we also have a West Brom defender playing this week, so we didn’t want all our eggs in one basket.
In defence we now have a back 5 of; Cameron, Wisdom, van Annholt, Hutton and Wasilewski. All are budget defenders, which allow us to spend a little more up top and in those players that hopefully will bring in the big points. This week we start Cameron, Wisdom and van Aanholt who face; QPR, Tottenham and Burnley respectively.
Our middle five now consist of; Downing, Walcott, Di Maria, Hazard and Lucas. We have kept hold of Downing for West Ham cover, and likewise we have also kept hold of Hazard. As Sanchez is very unlikely to play we have shipped him out and gambled with Walcott starting and grabbing a goal or two against Aston Villa, if he doesn’t play then then we have enough in the bank to bring Sanchez back in. Di Maria has been drafted in, with Manchester United having some good fixtures. Finally we brought Lucas in as a budget midfielder, who will most likely sit as our third sub, and once again it allows us to invest a little more money in our forwards.
Finally up top we keep both Rooney and Kane, but as Costa has been banned for three fixtures then we have swapped him out for Sergio Aguero. Hopefully the Argentine can find his form that saw him score plenty of goals at the start of the season. We have handed the captains armband to Wayne Rooney, as we expect him to be fired up for this fixture after the reverse fixture earlier in the season.
