MaziOmenuko:

Next on Nairaland Fantasy Tabloid: Manager of the week, Gameweek6 review and many more ... Stay tuned....

MaziOmenuko:

Next on Nairaland Fantasy Tabloid: Manager of the week, Gameweek6 review and many more ... Stay tuned....

MaziOmenuko:

Next on Nairaland Fantasy Tabloid: Manager of the week, Gameweek6 review and many more ... Stay tuned....

OAM4J:

I mean how unlucky can one get?

We took those por.nstars for sissies and they us rap.ed us brutally...

In Arnold voice... We will be back cos we are....The Brutal Bruttallion.

mukina2:


I yam suing!

MaziOmenuko:

Unlucky is when one loses by a single point margin; I'm sure you will certainly be back with a bang. And there's always a 2nd leg to get your pound of flesh.



You need to first sue those managers thumping your team without regards! I'm in full support, this is abuse of huWOman rights!

Nairaland Fantasy Tabloid pg2

Team of the Week: Gbongan FC

With 25 points from the defense line and choice of captain in the in-form Di Maria, Gbongan leaped to the 2nd position on the table to win our team of the week with a massive 74pts. When our reporter caught up with the manager of the week, mhuyil had this to say:

Reporter: how do you feel about being the manager of the week?

mhuyil:


I am Happy to feature on the Tabloid! My target is to finish first 10 in Nigeria and around Top 2000 in the world.

Reporter: what is your target for this year's fantasy league?

mhuyil:



My target is to finish first 10 in Nigeria and around Top 2000 in the world.

Reporter: What advice do you have for managers aspiring to be like you?

mhuyil:

My advice for those drilling down: Believe in your feelings. Though your love for your EPL team may be the major cause of poor runs but opportunity abounds in the team you support.

We sincerely hope he keeps maintains the tempo which none of the previous managers of the week had been able to do so far.

Head-2-Head Fixtures

Interesting features at the FA cup this weekend. Azpekuliar's Az hosts debosky's AvantGarde in a promising mouth-watering fixture. Librans are playing host to the worst performing club so far at the FA, skywalker. Hopefully, both managers will not set the record as the worst cumulative points ever recorded in a fixture.

After making a miserly 28pts apiece, Ipukulu Marines and Mykaliz Destroyers will be squaring against each other while Brutalion FC will be flying down to Lagos in a morale boosting fixture against Lagos FC. Hopefully, he took a lesson home after the thumping por'nstars delivered last week.

The conference cup fixtures promises to be entertaining as well.

Standard FC recorded their first win of the season last week after accumulating an impressive 63pts. They will be hoping to consolidate the win when they host karma's kiss.

Mourinho FC returned 19pts last week, making their ever verbal manager, tolu to avoid all form of media interaction, including posting on this board this week. We are praying he returns to make his weekly press briefings as usual as he hosts da'perfectos. Last week manager of the week, OsvaldoGang will play host to SirQuadri FC while teeo's Devils will be playing in the Dragon den.

At the carling cup, league leaders Penguins will strive to maintain their 100% record this season when they host skillbag FC. Pharoh's Army will play host to the team of the week, Gbongan FC[/] while [b]PE.N.is of Mesi will travel down for the late kick-off against Goldberg FC.


GameWeek 6 Preview

This week's gameweek preview will be done by distinguished managers of the Nairaland fantasy league. I humbly invite the following to do a review for us:

1. Current league leader, seyi42k of Intelligesia.

2. Current manager of the week, myuhil of Gbongan FC

3. Newcomer, Nwikys of Nwikys Victors

The two areas expected to briefly discuss are:

A. Captain choice
B. Potential cleansheets

Let's sit back and read the thoughts of these fine managers.

Finally, the league hasn't been fair to many talented managers so far this season but a single week can turn a loosing team to an indomitable one. Hopefully, this week will put smiles on all faces. See you at the top.

OAM4J:

I mean how unlucky can one get?

We took those por.nstars for sissies and they rap.ed us brutally...

In Arnold voice... We will be back cos we are....The Brutal Bruttallion.

MaziOmenuko:
GameWeek 6 Review

This week's gameweek review will be done by distinguished managers of the Nairaland fantasy league. I humbly invite the following to do a review for us:

1. Current league leader, seyi42k of Intelligesia.

2. Current manager of the week, myuhil of Gbongan FC

3. Newcomer, Nwikys of Nwikys Victors

The two areas expected to briefly discuss are:

A. Captain choice
B. Potential cleansheets

seyi42k:

Well, thanks for the honour. I will suggest that you allow nominated managers write their thoughts on each gameweek rather choose the areas of discussion as it might not be their main strength. Also, I believe it should be called a preview and not a review.

Like I said above, the two areas of discussion are not really my main focus,i.e. if you go through my previous gameweeks, you will see that I do not get as much points from Captains as I ought be getting (bar the Costa gameweek) and my cleansheet record usually not significant.

However, why am I currently topping:
1. Have a wide range of forums to discuss FPL, i.e. through facebook, twitter, online forums etc. I am mostly a twitter person and follow a lot of good fpl accounts where I aggregate a lot of information for each gameweek.

2. Be prepared to make you own decisions. Even when big fpl twitter accounts suggested Hazard, Mata & Erikssen, I decided against them due to several reasons. For example like I stated before regardless of Hazards dazzling skills Fabregas will always rule the roost in Chelsea's midfield as he always dominates and/or creates problems for other midfielders in his team. I read an article where it was explained that Barca suffered when it tried to shoehorn Fabregas into its balanced midfield which led to problems for Iniesta and that was why he was sold and may also explain Wenger's reluctance to buy him.

Just like last week showed, Mata is usually the first scapegoat in ManU's midfield. Even when Rooney is sometimes out of form, he is often preferred to Mata. I would have expected LVG to bring in Mata for Di Maria yet he opted for Januzaj and only bring in Mata when it was too late.

As for Eriksen, He is blowing hot and cold. Maybe its the change of manager's, the second season syndrome or inbalance in the team, he is not effective so far this season.

These are my opinion based on my own analysis, they could change or be enriched further as football is not mathematics.

3. Try and read forums of rival teams where fans of the teams rate their own players, e.g. redcafe (ManU), redandwhitekop (Liverpool), spurscommunity (Tottenham) etc to get a feel of the fans especially how they see their players. If they do not like the player, you can be certain that it will bleed through to the fans in the stadium and often times. affect the player. If you are choose an unloved player, be sure he will not play well (e.g. Gervinho in Arsenal).

4. I use either of two formations, 3-4-3 or 3-5-2. This seems to be the optimal this season so far. This is due to the emergence of a lot of goal scoring midfielders and good cheap strikers.

5. Don't be overly concerned about a clean sheet, just choose defenders and keepers who would make saves, concede a max of 2 to 3 goals and can score. a 4.5m to 5.5m defender is enough so that you can load the middle to top positions with good fpl players. One more thing, try as much as possible not to captain a defender, it is too risky.

6. Have a balance team. My opinion of a balance team is two good keepers with home & away rotation (e.g Mannone & Krul/Forster) not more than 9.5m, five defenders Preferably fullbacks) with one or two medium priced from a defensive team or a team that allows it defenders to bomb forward, Heavy Midfield with enough gurus there and Heavy top with one small priced striker. Thank God for Naismith & Ulloa.

7. Offload non performing players or out of form players even though they seem important and play week in week out, for example, Yaya Toure. I removed Ramsey because I believe Wenger is going to play till he burns out and it is already showing.

These tips, among so many, are well known by the fpl gurus here but for the newbies amongst us (of which I am one has this is my 3rd season) these tips will improve our knowledge & rankings. I should also mention luck. If you check the no. 1 fpl managers every matchday, you will discover that no amount of analysis could have given you that perfect team where everybody's star aligned and they are usually middle table managers. For example on saturday, the no 1 mgr captained Ozil, had Welbeck, Ulloa, Costa, Dimaria, and a high scoring defence. It is almost hard to predict that team, I mean I would have thought anybody captaining Ozil was taking a big risk especially given his lack of form and the presence of Rooney, Costa & Ballotelli.

Lastly, as for my captain choice this week, I am considering Dimaria based on form, Pelle based on QPR's defence and Costa based on form & Stamford bridge.

Other choices includes Welbeck but care should be taken as Sanchez coming back into Arsenal's team may disrupt the Ozil-Welbeck flow we saw last week. Sanchez is also an option for people who have him. Fabregas the assist machine etc. Other mangers should chip in and advise us.

My apologies for rambling on. Mazi, you are doing a great job as I found your posts witty and refreshing but let us tone down the rape innuedos, we might have sensitive players who may not find it funny or have suffered in the past.

As for Intelligesia, we want to win the double this year. See you at the top. Please find below my team for the week, the captain band is still under discussion though. Thank you.

From now on, we’re shifting our Captain Sensible article to a Thursday evening slot, giving you more time to assess the data on offer. Once again, we roll out a three-part approach, which takes in the weekly poll standings, the Opta statistics and our Rate My Team projections to help steer your thoughts on the Captain conundrum.

For the second section, we’ve reverted back to the formula from the end of last season, creating our own custom tables from the Members area and looking at player and team statistics over the last four matches as a gauge of form.
Captain Poll

Unsurprisingly, it’s one-way traffic in this week’s Captain Poll as Chelsea prepare for a home encounter with Villa. After serving up a 17-point return in his previous appearance at the Bridge, Diego Costa has been nominated by 55% of the voters so far, with Eden Hazard and Cesc Fabregas persuading just 1% of Fantasy managers that they’re worthy of the armband.

A goal and assist in each of his last two appearances makes United’s Angel di Maria second only to Costa – 11% have given the Argentine the nod, with 2% opting for Wayne Rooney and Radamel Falcao. Despite netting against Leicester last weekend, Robin van Persie has been selected by less than 1% ahead of the home clash against West Ham – an indication, if ever, of our collective loss of faith in the Dutchman’s capabilities.

Southampton’s Graziano Pelle is also highly fancied, with over 7% giving him the nod. The Italian, who has delivered three goals and an assist in his last three, entertains a QPR side that has conceded four goals in both away matches under Harry Redknapp so far. Five goals in as many matches brings Leicester’s Leonardo Ulloa into consideration as he travels to Palace – the Argentine has been selected by 3%, the same as compatriot Sergio Aguero, for City’s visit to Hull.

Player Statistics Over Last Four Matches

First up, we take the top five in this week’s Captain Poll as our starting point and construct a members table based around a number of their key statistics in order to flag up any other players offering a similar sort of threat in recent matches.



It’s easy to see why Costa is so highly regarded. Compared to his main contenders in this week’s poll, the Blues frontman leads the way for big chances (seven, which is more than double any other player in the league), shots on target (10) and touches in the box (34) and has subsequently scored six times over that period.

Furthermore, Costa (eight) is only third to Alexis Sanchez (11) and Di Maria (nine) in terms of total chances created. Given he has only played 228 minutes over that period, Di Maria’s creativity is all the more impressive – that equates to an average of 25.3 minutes per key pass, easily the quickest on show, with Sanchez next in line on 30.2.

In terms of goal threat, though, Di Maria’s stats underline how little he sees the ball in the danger area – he’s managed just four touches in the box, with two attempts from close-range. Given that he’s also scored with both his efforts on target, it’s fair to assume he may struggle to maintain his recent scoring standards. Compare that to Sanchez who over his last four matches has registered 24 touches in the box and fired five shots from inside the penalty area, and the Arsenal man is clearly one to monitor.

Pelle’s prospects are highlighted by a total of 17 attempts on goal over his last four appearances – more than any player in our analysis. The Saints frontman also betters Costa for efforts in the area by 15 to 13 but has managed just seven on target. Ulloa matches Pelle for touches in the box (32) and big chances (three), though while he’s outscored the Italian by four goals to three, it’s interesting to see that the Leicester man has only managed four shots on target during that period.

Aguero sits fourth for touches in the box (28) and third for attempts on target (six), despite playing just 285 minutes. An average of 21.9 minutes per effort is the quickest here and has led to a couple of goals, though his creativity has been very poor, with just a single key pass to his name.
Team Statistics over the Last Four Matches

Next up, we turn to team statistics. We take a look at the most impressive attacks and also highlight the defences that have shown a weakness over their last four matches – the idea being to pinpoint any potential weekend match-ups between in-form attacks and weakening backlines.



Listed above are the attacks that have averaged at least a couple of big chances over their last four, whilst the defences that have afforded their opponents at least two big chances per match are highlighted below.

Perhaps surprisingly, given that they’ve only scored eight times in their last four, Arsenal lead the way for big chances, with a total of 13. Despite firing 61 attempts, they’ve managed only 18 on target, though, with just 33 of those efforts arriving inside the box.

Everton and Chelsea have both produced 10 big chances apiece over their last four, two more than City and United. Jose Mourinho’s side have the most goals (13), highest shot accuracy (38.7%) and shot conversion (17.3%), though the Toffees have netted an impressive 17% of their 53 attempts.

In defence, only four teams have been particularly porous in terms of big chances conceded. QPR and Leicester are the most culpable with 10 apiece – the R’s are second only to United for errors leading to a chance (four to six) and have resultantly shipped 10 goals – only Everton, another of our featured quartet, have been beaten more often.

The Foxes, meanwhile, are top for shots conceded inside the box (48) and from distance (46) – with that in mind, it’s somewhat surprising their opponents have only scored six times; the same number as Chelsea, for example.



As we can see, there are no examples of top attacks against weak defences this weekend but the tables nonetheless will strengthen confidence in a number of players. The Arsenal attacking stats surely bode well for Aaron Ramsey and Danny Welbeck – both have been handed three big chances apiece over their last four, with the Welshman also chipping in with 11 key passes. If there are goals in the north London derby, then, those two could well have a part to play. Similarly, Tottenham’s Emmanuel Adebayor and Nacer Chadli will be looking to take advantage of their hosts’ porous backline – the pair are equal for big chances (three) and shots in the box (nine) over the last four.

Romelu Lukaku and Steven Naismith have both been handed three big chances apiece over the last four as Everton roll up to Liverpool. Lukaku is second only to Pelle for shots in the players’ table, with a total of 15 – the big Belgian’s average of 22 minutes per shot is just edged into second by Aguero, though a mere four efforts on target illustrate why he can be such a frustrating Fantasy option.

Robin van Persie is top amongst United players for big chances (three) and efforts inside the box (seven) in the last four and could be set to benefit against the Hammers if Louis van Gaal’s side continue their free-scoring form.

QPR’s stats merely strengthen Pelle’s case for consideration. As mentioned, he’s had more shots inside the box than any player over his last four and now faces a side that have handed their opponents 10 big chances over the same period. The Italian is bound to get a few chances and will be looking to replicate the 13-point haul from his last match at St Mary’s, while Dusan Tadic owners will be hoping his chances created (10 key passes in the last four) can be turned into assists by his team-mates.

Finally, Leicester’s shots against will afford Neil Warnock’s Palace a degree of optimism this weekend. The Eagles have notched three times in two of their three matches under the new manager, and with Wilfried Zaha looking likely to be benched again after playing 120 minutes during the midweek cup defeat to Newcastle, Jason Puncheon – with nine shots and seven key passes – may well fancy his chances against a backline with a single clean sheet to their name so far.
Rate My Team

Obviously, the current RMT rankings are based on injury news as it stands – given that the likes of Chelsea and City have yet to host their weekly press conference, this data could be subject to change.



The Blues are strongly favoured by RMT, with four of their players finding a spot in our top ten. Hazard is number one on 5.91 and, combining that with his 1% in the Captain Poll, that suggests he could be a great armband differential this week.

Wayne Rooney, Van Persie and Di Maria are also looked upon favourably for the Hammers clash. Given that United have notched seven times in two matches since switching to a midfield diamond, the RMT has plenty of faith in Louis van Gaal’s side, making the Red Devils’ skipper top amongst non-Chelsea players for the Gameweek. Intriguingly, Ramsey – subject to significant sales this week – is the only player to feature from the north London derby, whilst the collective show of faith reflected by Aguero and Pelle’s places in the top five of the Captain Poll is also backed up by RMT here.

MaziOmenuko: @nihilist, does one have to read all that long article just to select a captain? Jeeezzz!!!! Never knew it was such a hard decision!

Omo! See charts and graphs!

Nihilist:

Mehn.......

Upon all that, I'm in 88th position...

I'll read all that long text....then go ahead and captain Guzan

lalaboi: I dont get how a chelsea clean sheet is sure. . . 1 clean sheet is 6 games. . .

Ibime: Why una dey spoil game with all these tips and websites? Allow the fumblers to keep fumbling jare so we can rise up the table.

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Ibime: Why una dey spoil game with all these tips and websites? Allow the fumblers to keep fumbling jare so we can rise up the table.

Ibime: Why una dey spoil game with all these tips and websites? Allow the fumblers to keep fumbling jare so we can rise up the table.

MaziOmenuko:

Lol...these are not spoilers. I view many manager's team and I assure you that the teams all look alike, with some minor differences here and there. The team-sheet seyi42k posted up there is almost same as mine, from mildfield to strikers, except the defense line that is different.

The differential will come mostly from choice of captain, starting 11 and may be 1 or 2 players you have that others don't have.

I believe that 90% of us will either chose Di Maria, Costa or Rooney as captain and the returns will certainly not be the same.

Nihilist:

I captained neither...and infact I suspect that I'm the only one on the planet without Costa in his team