By Jeremy Spitzberg & Neal Thurman
Welcome to week three. I'm on the road today having traveled to lovely Pittsburgh, PA last night to attend a retirement party for my father-in-law. Which left me thinking how nice it would be to
be retired and able to actually devote more time to knowing obscure things like who the heck "the Dutch Hargreaves" is and tracking down YouTube clips of Rovers' new midfielder. Anyway, given that today holds a trip from Pittsburgh to Toledo, OH (you're jealous, I can tell), I'm going to keep this relatively brief (now you're not jealous so much as thankful).
The observations from the season's first two weeks that I'm applying to my selections are as follows:
- Villa's defence is terrible (maybe Bouma is better than I gave him credit for);
- Stoke and Hull aren't going to be complete push-overs - especially at home;
- Rovers' defence isn't going to be the same without Sparky;
- Citeh, despite their win last weekend, are still a mess;
- The Hammers are rotten on the road;
- Liverpool will work it out - just not sure when so I'm certain to miss a week of big points from Torres and Keane (somehow Gerrard just keeps killing it); and
- Fulham, Boro, and NUFC have quietly looked very competent which is a step up for each (only mid-table competent but given last year's performance, that's an improvement).
With those general observations out of the way, the most interesting match-ups of the week are Boro v. Stoke; Chelsea v. Spurs; and Villa v. Liverpool. The latter of the three is interesting because I'm very curious to see what a decidedly movable object (Villa's defence) does against an extremely resistible force (Pool's attack).
Just a note, ManYoo and Fulham are not playing this weekend so make sure you act accordingly.
Strikers
I think this is the weekend that Torres breaks out and scores his first brace of the season. People have been getting healthy against the Villa defence.
Anelka is the other "premium" striker that I'm tracking. I'm waiting to see what happens with Drogba's health but if "the Elk" is going to play, I'm in against Spurs' defence.
Elsewhere, Zaki and Giovanni (the one from Hull) are squaring off in a match-up of what appears to be good fantasy players on mediocre-to-bad teams. Both are cheap and worth a consideration if you're looking to channel your money elsewhere.
Hard to figure how to place your bets if you're looking to get in on Boro v. Stoke at striker. Mido has been doing all the scoring but hasn't been starting. Just odd. And for that reason, I'm staying away.
With WBA coming to town, this might be the time to give Elmander a try as well.
Midfielders
For me, Downing, Lamps and Deco are the three guys that should be at the center of your thinking this week. Downing and Lamps are expensive but the match-ups are good ones and they're both at home. Hard to ignore Gerrard so far this season but if you don't have him already, his price is high enough that its tough to justify buying him this week.
Nas-goal is still cheap and, well, he scored his second so while I don't see Arsenal being too prolific vs. NUFC he's still worth a look, even more so with Cesc back.
I'm not a huge fan of Sunderland's wing defence so I'm going to suggest that MPet might be a good pick-up in the middle price tier. Ditto Matty Taylor who is facing WBA at home.
Despite the fact that I'm generally high on the MGP redemption tour this season, I think he'll have his hands full trying to get past Pantsil/Paintsil who has looked strong so far this season.
Finally, I'm thinking that this is the weekend that Valencia reminds us why his name was being associated with so many top-of-the-table teams over the summer.
Defenders
Wheater, Hoyte, Bosingwa, Dossena, Figueroa, and Steinnson (if you're going to spend on your D). If you really want to go out on a limb, go with Sam Ricketts from Hull who has been getting some good, solid Phantom Points and has Wigan at home.
Keepers
Jussi? Turnbull? Gordon? Well, if you're looking for the as-close-as-possible-to-guaranteed Clean Sheet then Cech is your man but he's really expensive after the clean sheet vs. Wigan. Of the cheapies, I have to say Turnbull is probably the strongest option assuming that he is still the starter this week at home to Stoke.
Good luck - Neal (someone asked that we identify ourselves since Yahoo isn't automatically identifying the author of each post).
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