So here we are, less than 24 hours away from the Premier League kick off! If you haven’t seen our draft game week 1 team justification, check it out here. The draft team from that article can be seen below:
With everyone tinkering and making last minute changes, here is our final game week 1 team:
Changes:
De Gea (OUT) > Green (IN)
Cahill (OUT) > Debuchy (IN)
Ward (OUT) > Davies (IN)
Barkley (OUT) > Young (IN)
Ramsey (OUT) > Fabregas (IN)
Silva (OUT) > Nasri (IN)
Bojan (OUT) > Costa (IN)
Starting XI: Green (QPR), Wisdom (WBA), Debuchy (ARS), Davies (TOT), Young (MUN), Sterling (LIV), Nasri (MCI), Fabregas (CHE), Giroud (ARS), Costa (CHE), Rooney (MUN)
Bench: Krul (NEW), Sigurdsson (SWA), Trippier (BUR), Rosenior (HUL)
So yes, we have tinkered a little… but we are all guilty of it!
Goalkeepers
De Gea was a tough one to remove due to his favourable fixtures but as we discussed in our last article, a pair of rotational keepers can be achieved with 9.0m. That extra 1.0m we had spent on De Gea proved crucial so we have replaced De Gea with Green. Rob Green and Tim Krul make up a good pairing as when one has a seemingly difficult game, the other has a somewhat easier one up until game-week 10.
Defenders
As reliable as Gary Cahill may be, 6.5m is a steep asking price for him to feature in an FPL team. Debuchy put in a great performance against Manchester City in the Community Shield, darting up the wing to swing balls into the box. Being at a team that usually finishes higher than his previous club Newcastle, he may be able to achieve more of those clean sheet bonus points too and therefore obtain a higher points tally for the season.
With Tony Pulis’ sudden exit from his position as manager of Crystal Palace just two days before the BPL kick-off, we felt the team dynamic may be in jeopardy and therefore we have opted to switch Ward for Davies, a newcomer at Spurs from Swansea, who we feel will do very well with Tottenham.
Midfielders
In order to save money and because we feel Manchester United will hit the ground running with a brand new manager and generally a good feel factor around the team, we have replaced Ross Barkley with Ashley Young. Barkley was prone to rotation last season and at 1.5m more than Young, we feel it may be a gamble worth taking in order to place more money elsewhere. Young has been favoured throughout pre-season in Louis van Gaal’s new 3-5-2 formation and may prove to be a good, cheap midfielder. Of course, Young has had the rotation risk label attached to his name recently too but we feel he will feature a lot more this season than last.
Aaron Ramsey being transferred out seems an odd choice but having Debuchy in would mean a huge reliance on an Arsenal trio (Debuchy, Ramsey, Giroud). If Arsenal were to have a bad game, our team would suffer as a consequence. In order to minimise the risk of this, but still cash in when they do perform, we have removed an Arsenal midfield presence from our squad as we feel Giroud may benefit from the majority of Arsenal’s midfield play, whether it is an assist or a goal. Ramsey’s replacement is Fabregas, who already knows what is required of him in the Premier League and who has had a great pre-season. We are sure Jose will be turning to Fabregas more often than not when picking his starting XI.
Our final transfer is a minimal change, opting for Nasri over Silva. With a lower ownership percentage and at a slightly lower price, he could prove a great differential. We have seen a lot of teams without a Manchester City presence which is quite surprising. In fact, only 3 of their players have an ownership percentage of over 10% (Kompany, Toure, Dzeko) which is quite surprising for the current champions of the Premier League.
Strikers
With the additional money accumulated from our transfers, and his great pre-season performances, we have included the newly made Chelsea player, Diego Costa. His movement and solo goals throughout his pre-season matches have caught the eye of 33.4% of you FPL managers and he could go down a storm. Unfortunately, this means Bojan suffers as a consequence within our team.
As a result, we are opting for a 3-4-3 formation, making use of our fire-power up top. Be sure to check back next week where we will analyse how well we did and submit our transfer(s) for the week!
