Sky Sports fantasy football - potential bargains part 1

With quality over all the premier league this season and the likes of Rooney and  Aguero  looking near must haves in our Sky Sports Fantasy Football team, finding value elsewhere is going to be essential.  Here's the first of a series of articles  identifying  value in a player (ie a potential bargain)  after looking through all  teams in the Sky Sports fantasy Football format.  I'm doing them in the best fixture order in my article  "fantasy premier league - analysing the opening 6 rounds of fixtures".  See at bottom of page.






Generally players will be value for the following reasons:  

(1)  Injuries to another player or a transfer of another player from the club has given them unexpected game time

(2)  Sky Sports Fantasy Football believes they may not be first choice for their position

(3)  They have transferred in from a lower ranked team.

With no reserves and limited transfers in the Sky Sports Fantasy Football format its vital that value is weighed up against the risk of the player not playing.  Therefore,  value players in your team should be thought about carefully and I wouldn't start with 8 but a well chosen sprinkle may be necessary.

Rest assured we at fantasy football geek  will be keeping an eye out in pre-season for their prospects.  By the way for this article I will ignore out of position players as I will be doing a separate piece on these players.  Out of position is a player who plays, say, as a forward but is classified as a midfielder in the Sky Sports Fantasy Football game.

A theme you will notice is that Sky Sports Fantasy Football seem to give a discount to new players.  Evidence shows that this is not as necessary as it once was.  New transfers to the premier league have adapted far better than years gone by. See my piece "fantasy premier league -  new kids on the block are they the right stuff"

Here goes then. Remember it goes from best opening 6 fixtures to the worst.

Swansea

Chico  - defender (£5.0m)

My initial view is that new signing Flores (known as Chico) has to be a strong candidate to play in central defence next to Ashely Williams rather than Gary monk.  At 5.0 compared to Ashley Williams at 6.9m, this is a good potential bargain.  For those wanting a bit more safety Angel Rangel at 5.7 is a decent alternative.

Jonthan De Guzman - Midfielder (£4.7m)

Compared to Sinclair at 7.0m and Dyer at 6.3 he looks a bargain.  He's an attacking midfielder who was involved in set pieces at Mallorca and has strong links to the manager.   This looks  real potential bargain.  Should play 

West Ham

Kevin Nolan - Midfielder (£4,9m)

For someone who in his last 2 premier league seasons scored 29 goals and 6 assists in 74 games £4.7m seems a real bargain.  Should play

Aston Villa

Too much rotation risk with the tinkerman himself Paul Lambert in charge for any value players to be feasible in Sky Sports Fantasy Football

Tottenham

Rafael Van der Vaart - Midfielder(£8.0m)

I know £8m hardly represents a bargain but the 10th most expensive midfielder and cheaper than Ya Ya Toure sounds good to me.  This is a player who returned 11 goals and 7 assists in 28 starts last season following on from 13 goals and 8 assists in 28 games the season before.  Total quality, plus the manager has been talking him up alot recently.  With Modric destined to leave this also will surely  make more places available in midfield as well. Euro 2012 time and injury record are only doubts.

Chelsea

Eden Hazard  - Midfielder  (£7.7m)

Same theme here as VDV but the 15th most expensive midfielder seems a real bargain to me especially compared to Mata at £8.9m.  Lets not forget this is the French league player of the season last year and returned 20 goals plus 16 assists in 35 starts for Lille. He will probably play in the advanced midfield position in 4-2-3-1 and crucially is classified as a midfielder in Sky Sports Fantasy Football and not a striker

Sunderland

Craig Gardner - Midfielder (£5.2m)

You've got to think that Larsson, Mclean and Cattermole are nailed on to play with Sessegnon behind the striker which means there's value there if you can pick the 4th midfielder.  Although last year was disappointing with only 3 goals and no assists from 22 starts and 8 as sub, the previous season with Birmingham yielded 8 goals from 25 starts plus 4 as sub.  He's a bit of a risky play with Colback and Vaughan in the wings but worth monitoring in pre-season  

That's it for the first part of the article.  Tomorrow should see the 2nd part in the series of value players for Sky Sports Fantasy football 

Stats from Soccernet

http://www.fantasyfootballgeek.co.uk/fantasy-premier-league-analysing-the-opening-fixtures/

http://www.fantasyfootballgeek.co.uk/fantasy-premier-league-new-kids-on-the-block-are-they-the-right-stuff/

  

 

 

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