Wow! What a midweek.
Lewandowski astonished Pep, Celta Vigo shocked Barcelona and Newcastle surprised absolutely no one as they went crashing out of the Capital One Cup.
But now back to the dreary ol’ Premier League where there’ll be no players scoring five goals in nine minutes, no ridiculous 4-1 upsets… but Newcastle are still going to lose.
Three players to sign
Dimitri Payet
Fixture: West Ham v Norwich
Value: £7.8m
Selected by: 18.4%
You can keep your flashy Eden Hazards and David Silvas. Dimitri’s the guy for us.
Payet is almost single-handedly keeping West Ham in the top four after the first six weeks of the season as he’s contributed three goals and an assist to Slaven Bilic’s plucky Hammers.
Since arriving from Marseille in the summer, Payet has looked a revelation and is an absolute bargain at £7.8m when you consider the fact that he’s streaks ahead of the likes of Alexis Sanchez (£11m), Yaya Toure (£9m) and Memphis Depay (£8.3m).
Granted, West Ham are much better away from home but Norwich have the third worst defence in the Premier League and have conceded in every away game since their promotion.
West Ham should win and Payet should get more points on the board. He’s got an eye for goal and, having been the assist leader in Ligue 1 last season, knows how to set up a goal. When Andy Carroll is back to full fitness, we can see that turning into a pretty fruitful relationship.
Daley Blind
Fixture: Manchester United v Sunderland
Value: £5.5m
Selected by: 1.8%
Remember when Sunderland were a decent side? Yeah, neither do we.
I don’t think it would be unfair to say that Dick Advocaat’s men are shit at everything, mainly football, and that’s clear by their run of three successive defeats, shipping 13 goals in 6 Premier League matches and deteriorating game by game.
They travel to Old Trafford to take on a reinvigorated Manchester United side and we genuinely can’t see them nicking anything even if they were allowed to field 15 men.
You can take your pick of United players to get on board for this gameweek but we’ve plumped for Daley Blind who is the cheapest guaranteed starter for Louis van Gaal.
He’s registered as a midfielder however will continue in defence but the Black Cats are more like kittens with the lack of threat they pose so expect a clean sheet bonus from Blind and, having seen his strike against Liverpool, he does have a goal in his arsenal.
Boaz Myhill
Fixture: West Brom v Everton
Value: £4.6m
Selected by: 7.3%
Here comes the glamour buy.
The decision to bring Myhill into our Fantasy Football team comes from the apparent lack of logic at play in overall goalkeeper selection.
The West Brom stopper is far and away the leading goalkeeper in the standings, having kept four clean sheets already this season, but is only 13th in terms of teams selected percentage and 19th most expensive.
That means you’re going to be guaranteed to get a jump on your FF rivals while saving some money which is great news for the parish.
Tony Pulis looks to have finally pulled his typical defensive solidity out of his grubby baseball cap at the Hawthorns and Everton have failed to score in both of their last away games.
We fear this has 0-0 written all over it so could be a dreadful game to watch but fantasy football is not about entertainment… It’s about the ruthless pursuit of points.
Three players to sell
Gylfi Sigurdsson
Fixture: Southampton v Swansea
Value: £7.3m
Selected by: 5%
Gylfi Sigurdsson is way off the pace he set for himself last season and we’ve lost patience with the Icelandic midfielder.
He’s only registered one assist all season and no goals which isn’t good enough when we’re talking about the Dimitri Payets of the world.
The Swans have now failed to score in each of their last three games in all competitions and we wouldn’t be surprised to see that stretch to four when they travel to Southampton who have kept a clean sheet in three of their last four Premier League games.
We recommend ditching the Gylf and jumping all over the Dimit (we need to work on his nickname).
Arouna Kone
Fixture: West Brom v Everton
Value: £5.1m
Selected by: 7.1%
Arouna Kone has already equalled the total FF score he accrued in the whole of last season, thanks primarily to his amazing season opener against Watford when he scored one and set up another.
But the Ivorian has very much come off the boil since that game and has only brought two points home in each of his last four games.
We highlighted the relative impenetrability of West Brom above and, if Everton can break the Baggies down, it’s unlikely to be Kone who does so.
Tim Krul
Fixture: Newcastle v Chelsea
Value: £4.5m
Selected by: 7.7%
To think that almost 8% of people are persevering with Tim Krul between the posts is enough to make me question the very point of existing.
There is an epidemic of shite-itis sweeping the North East of England and Newcastle are struggling with the same symptoms as Sunderland this season.
The Magpies are still seeking their first win of the Premier League season, scoring just the three goals in the process so you wouldn’t call it a perfect time to be welcoming the Premier League champions to St James Park.
Chelsea look to have finally clicked into gear after a somewhat stuttering start to the season and, even without the nuisance known as Diego Costa, they should be far too good for a dodgy Newcastle defence.
Expect Chelsea to score, expect Chelsea to win and expect Tim Krul to have his stupid haircut buried in his hands on more than one occasion.
