Steem Fantasy Premier League - Gameweek 13 Review

Back from the third international break of the season and with the demanding and turbulent Christmas period coming up in a few gameweeks many fantasy managers will already now start to have one eye on the Christmas calendar. For example there will be “fixture swing” in gameweeks 15/16 and managers will have assess their squads squads. Those Fantasy Premier League managers who still have their wildcards left will have a great opportunity to clear out bench fodders and instead try to ensure they have 13 playing players when going to the hectic Christmas and New Year period where there usually are some rotation in almost every team. For those, like me, with no wildcard left it could be wise to already now start looking at players you want to have in your team over this period. This season the equivalent period will be in gameweeks 18-21 (Friday 21 December to Thursday 3 January).

International breaks usually means a bigger risk of injuries and his time it has been even more noteworthy than before. The flags on players in our FPL teams have gradually turn from green to yellow, orange and red. At the moment I for example, have got have 5 players with yellow or red flags going into gw 13. Hopefully some of the flags turns green before the weekend. One player owned by nearly 20 % of managers, Benjamin Mendy (6.4m), underwent an operation on his left knee last Wednesday and will definitely miss a few gameweeks. Some managers, including me, will now look to downgrade Mendy to a cheaper defender in order to upgrade a midfielder or forward. A midfielder many is looking to upgrade him to is Martial (7.6m) who has scored five goals in six matches. Manchester United have also got good fixtures coming up. But there’s a small problem, also Martial is yellowed flagged and not a sure starter for the weekend at the moment. As always, not only after international breaks, it could be well worth waiting with your transfers until managers have held their pre match press conferences on Friday afternoon.

Gameweek 13 fixtures

Match previews

West-Ham - Manchester City

Unbeaten leaders Manchester City are targeting their fifth straight Premier League win when they visit West Ham United who are also no an unbeaten streak, even though it is only three matches long. West Ham are sitting 13th in the league at the moment. West Ham haven’t managed to secure two consecutive home league wins since December 2016, when they beat Burnley and Hull City. The Hammers have had hard times against teams lying top of the table in recent years, having won only one of their last 15 matches against the leaders. However, the only victory came against Man City, in September 2015. Last season City were the better team in both meeting between the clubs, winning 2-1 at home before crushing The Hammers 4-1 away.

West Ham manager and former Manchester City manager Pellegrini hopes West Ham will be able to cause City problems this time, having already beaten Manchester United and drawn against Chelsea at the London Stadium this season. A player they will have to keep quiet is David Silva (8.6m) who has been directly involved in eight goals in his 11 PL matches against West Ham, with four strikes and four assists.

West Ham has many as eight players on injury list including the likes of Andriy Yarmolenko, Jack Wilshere, Manuel Lanzini and Winston Reid. Also City have important players on injury list with long-term absentee Kevin de Bruyne and Benjamin Mendy missing the match.

Possible starting lineups:

West-Ham: Fabianski; Zabaleta, Balbuena, Diop, Cresswell; Snodgrass, Rice, Noble; Diangana, Arnautovic, Felipe Anderson

Manchester City: Ederson; Walker, Laporte, Stones, Delph; Fernandinho, Gundogan, David Silva; Mahrez, Aguero, Sterling

Tottenham Hotspur - Chelsea

Fourth-placed Tottenham are targeting a seventh victory from eight Premier League matches as they host Chelsea, their London rivals. Chelsea, on third-place in the table, are still unbeaten in the league this season.There is little love love between the bitter rivals, and Saturday’s meeting could become another stormy clash with just one point separating the clubs in the table. A defeat for either club would by no means end either sides' respective title challenge but any dropped points will make it much harder to catch Manchester City.

Spurs have won just 22 per cent of their PL points in home matches this season, with six out of 27, the lowest ratio in the league. This is something Chelsea will try to take advantage of. The stand out player in recent meeting between the clubs is Dele Alli (8.9m) has scored five goals in his last four matches against Chelsea in all competitions.

For the home team Jan Vertonghen is out of action until December, while Davinson Sanchez and Danny Rose are also not ready to make a return. Dele Alli though should now be ready to start after his injury concerns in recent weeks. For the visitors Mateo Kovacic is the biggest injury concern after picking up a muscular injury on his international duties with Croatia.

Possible starting lineups:
Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris; Aurier, Alderweireld, Foyth, Davies; Sissoko, Dier; Lucas, Dele, Eriksen; Kane
Chelsea:Kepa; Azpilicueta, Rudiger, Luiz, Alonso; Kante, Jorginho, Barkley; Willian, Morata, Hazard

Bournemouth - Arsenal

Sixth-placed Bournemouth and fifth placed Arsenal have both had a great start to the 18/19 campaign. Recently though, both teams have found it hard to win. Bournemouth are trying to bounce back after successive defeats while Arsenal trying to win after a three-match winless streak. Arsenal are though on a 11 matches unbeaten run in the Premier League which shows their consistency this season. In their last meeting, back in January, Bournemouth were the winners but that is also the only win in six top-flight meetings with the Gunners. Callum Wilson, who has scored in all three of his top-flight appearances against Arsenal, can now match Charlie Austin's PL record of netting in each of his four matches against the Gunners.

Arsenal have doubts over their forwards fitness, but both Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette have been involved in trainings this week and should both be able to play some part in the game.
Nacho Monreal will be absent due to a hamstring injury, while Stephan Lichtsteiner and Konstantinos Mavropanos also remains on the sidelines.

Bournemouth will be without defender Adam Smith for the next three months after he sustained a knee injury against Newcastle earlier this month. However, King could play some part in the game after recovering from the ankle problem which has kept him out for a month.

Possible starting lineups:

Bournemouth:Begovic; Francis, S.Cook, Ake, Daniels; Cook, Lerma, Gosling; Brooks, Fraser, Wilson
Arsenal:Leno; Bellerin, Mustafi, Holding, Maitland-Niles; Torreira, Xhaka; Mkhitaryan, Ozil, Aubameyang; Lacazette

Steem-pick

My steem-pick for gameweek 13 is Everton’s Richarlison (£7.0m). Richarlison has recently played as a centre-forward and is believed to continue in that position also this weekend. Richarlison has averaged 6.6 points per match in his last five league matches and with Everton now hosting a Cardiff City side conceding 2.2 goals per away match this season we should expect Richarlison to be involved in on goal or two.

Disclaimer: This post is written by @matinho. The rewards of these posts are gathered in a pool to be rewarded to managers of the league and authors at the end of the season.

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