How can you not love the Christmas fixture list?
It feels like we’ve only just put our Fantasy Football changes into action and, boom, another gameweek falls straight in our laps.
The time has come once more to use your free transfer after a frankly mental St. Stephens’ round of fixtures that saw Arsenal slaughtered 4-0, Manchester United battered 2-0 and Oscar brilliantly fall on his arse.
Here are our recommendations for the 19th gameweek of an altogether bonkers season but we’re not promising any repeat of the Jordan Ayew and Harry Kane heroics that we pulled off two days ago.
Three players to sign
Is it really an intelligent move bringing an Arsenal player in after Southampton’s demolition job on them at the weekend?
Probably not but we’re big fans of the phenomenon known as bouncebackability and have the sneaking suspicion that the Gunners are going to take out every bit of frustration on a very open Bournemouth side.
The Cherries are set up perfectly for an Arsenal victory as Eddie Howe employs an expansive, fearless style of football but, put quite simply, Bournemouth don’t have the quality of player that Arsene Wenger has at his disposal.
Only once this season has Olivier Giroud gone two games without scoring and we don’t see that happening this time around.
The Frenchman is quietly going about his business up top for the Gunners and has 10 Premier League goals to his name but is in very few FF teams.
With Arsenal at home against Bournemouth and Newcastle over the next fortnight, this is probably a wise choice.
To our bloodshot-from-all-the-wine eyes, Spurs are playing the best football in the league at the minute and as well as Watford are doing in the top flight, they are far too reliant on Troy Deeney and Odion Ighalo.
Goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes is made to work much too often for our liking and we can’t see the Hornets keeping a red-hot Spurs side at bay on Monday.
While Spurs’ biggest threat will come through Harry Kane, young Dele Alli’s contribution to the team has not gone unnoticed by us.
He’s got more points to his name than expensive alternatives like Raheem Sterling, Willian and Christian Eriksen and not many people have him in their team.
With four goals and five assists in the Premier League this season, Alli will definitely earn you some points in the coming gameweeks.
It’s not the trendiest thing in the world to pick a West Brom player but Boaz Myhill has quickly become one of the more reliable shot-stoppers in the league.
In terms of goalkeepers, he’s fifth in the points-scoring standings and has kept six clean sheets all season.
With Newcastle travelling to the Hawthorns on Monday, we think that the Magpies are going to be Pulised to within an inch of their lives.
Newcastle never really looked like scoring against Everton on St. Stephen’s Day and we reckon that the Baggies are going to be able to keep a spotlessly clean sheet. But, hey, what do we know?
Three players to sell
It’s not exactly breaking news that Bafetimbi Gomis has come off the boil but, still, 6.7% of you are persisting with the Frenchman.
We’d recommend you drop him, as Snoop D-O-Double G would say, like he’s hot as there doesn’t seem to be any hope remaining for him.
After scoring in four games in a row at the start of the season, Gomis found the net just once in his last fourteen games. Think of him like the anti-Vardy.
Crystal Palace are admittedly better on the road but they should have enough to see off a predictable Swansea side this week.
The narrative would be perfect for Pedro to run riot against a Manchester United side who almost bought him in the summer.
But the Spaniard has had such an abject start to Premier League life that you’d almost forget that he left Barcelona at all.
Two goals and three assists don’t justify his ludicrous pricetag and you’d be better off getting Pedro out of your team and looking at the likes of a Dele Alli as a more inexpensive replacement.
A wonderfully dull 0-0 classic is expected at Old Trafford and it’s the perfect time to sell.
It always feel like sacrilege when we take a Leicester player out of our team because the Foxes are indisputably the greatest football team of all time.
But as thrilling as Claudio Ranieri’s men are going forward, their defence is dodgier than Lionel Messi’s tax books.
Leicester are top of the table but they’ve conceded more goals than any of the top 13 sides in the league.
They come up against a ruthless Manchester City side who could have reached double-digits against Sunderland but settled for the four.
Don’t tell Peter but we don’t have faith in Kasper Schmeichel keeping his former side quiet at the KP.
