top of page
Search

GW25. Raph in? Yeah



With less than 48 hours inbetween the end of Gameweek 24 and the deadline for 25, coupled with 4 PL teams playing in that span, there truly is no rest for the wicked.

Not the ideal time to start an intensely busy period at work, and moving house, but hopefully the planning I’ve put in place already, and a little bit of luck along the way will get me through.


i still can’t work out whether GW24 was a success or not, 99 points is always a good score, but leaves you feeling frustrated at not getting that one extra point to tip you into 3 figures... especially when 6 of your team outscore your captain!

But on the other hand, who would’ve expected a goal from Matt Lowton?

Unfortunately the rest of my transfers didn’t have such a return. 1 assist for captain Sterling whilst his team scored 6 goals across two games, along with blanks for Cavani and Kane make me feel as if the -8 was a failure last week, add in the fact that Gundogan would’ve been the stand out captain choice if I’d have not made the moves I made, and I’ve probably cost myself a lot of points!

Turning out attentions to GW25, and against we have another double to consider. Leeds look to bounce back from their defeat at the Emirates last week, with a tasty looking double as they take on Southampton and Wolves, both of whom have been leaking goals lately.

The other team with two fixtures this week are Southampton. Whilst I quite like the appeal of the Leeds fixture, their other game is against Chelsea, and I don’t see that offering much potential.

Going into the gameweek, I had two players from these clubs, Patrick Bamford and Alex McCarthy. Conscious of taking another points hit, and having reservations about loading up with players from either side, I’ve decided to just use one transfer and go into the gameweek with just three doublers.


id decided it was an extra Leeds asset I wanted, and with that in mind, I set about choosing from what I considered to be the three best assets (excluding Bamford) in Stuart Dallas, Jack Harrison and Raphinha.

Dallas has been an FPL bargain this season, often playing in midfield, whilst classed as a defender, he’s weighed in with 4 goals and 3 assists this season. However, I can’t bring myself to trust the Leeds defence, and their record without Kelvin Phillips leaves a lot to be desired.

With how popular Dallas is, I am concerned about the effect his score will have on my teams rank, but the fact that they’ve conceded at least 3 goals in 4 of the 5 games Phillips has missed this season means I’m not comfortable getting him in, especially as it’s a move thats unlikely to gain me much ground even if he does well.

And so it comes down to the midfielders, with both similarly priced (and handily a similar price to the outgoing Soucek), and both being secure in their position there isn’t much to choose from.

For most of the week I’ve been looking at bringing in Jack Harrison, especially with the Southampton game in mind. Without Kyle Walker-Peters, Southampton have conceded an obscene amount of chances from their right hand side, perfect for Harrison, on the left of Leeds attack, to add to his 6 goals and 4 assists for the season.

Harrison has caught my eye all season for Leeds, and after hearing about Southampton’s defensive frailties down his side, I thought my mind was set....


But then a little more research and I’ve decided to go back to Raphinha. Second to only Ilkay Gundogan in terms of form, and still only owned by 6.6% of teams (I expect that to increase before the deadline) he has the potential to be a nice differential, and if he continues his form then he could be an inspired choice.

Raphinha is someone I’ve mentioned to my dad a lot over recent weeks as I looked to bring him in, but I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of Soucek.


Having compared the two on fantasy football scouts comparison tool (members only) though, I’ve realised it’s a move I should’ve made a whilst back.



Looking at the Last 6 gameweeks, Raphinha (left) outperforms Soucek in pretty much everything.

The comparison to Harrison was a lot closer, but Raphinha just edged it, and has the added bonus of being on set-pieces.


I used the same tool to compare Bamford and Raphinha to try and decide on where to put my captains armband, and they were almost identical, and so I’ve decided to go with Bamford (due to the higher ownership).

Elsewhere in my team, I have nice looking fixtures for my Man Utd trio, as they take on Newcastle, Matt Lowton who takes on West Brom.

Big hitters Kane and Sterling both have form on their side. Kane’s record in London Derby’s is phenomenal, whilst Raheem Sterling loves a goal against Arsenal having scored 4 in his last 5 league games against them.

Emi Martinez has the potential to punish me by dropping him to the bench, but when McCarthy has two games I can’t not play him.



8 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
Post: Blog2_Post
bottom of page