math(s)! 2020/2021 RMT Covidiot Edition

[math!]

Friend at work coaxed me into joining his cash league. I have up to now avoided fantasy football but you can't run forever I guess

[Mav3rick]

Cash league? Uh-oh - you'll be addicted soon!

Aguero in at the start? Presumably you're not serious about captaining him though?

[math!]

For Captain I was thinking Hazard GW1 then Rooney GW2.

[math!]

If I were to use my WC early this is my currently preferred draft. What does FISO think?

[Mav3rick]

Could you summarise your changes and the reasons? It would make it easier to comment.

[math!]

It mostly comes down to a lack of faith in Ozil, Henderson, and Wilson.

Defoe is a proven premier league striker and will have plenty more chances to score in the next 5 weeks. Bournemouth didn't hit the ground running as I had hoped.

Ozil has a tendency to become invisible, added to Giroud's concussion problem and Walcott not being so good when he is played up front, so I want to upgrade him to Silva.

Henderson seems to be stuck playing deeper or there could be issues with both him and Milner being similar players. If they had someone like Lucas (who looks to be on the way out) behind them then they could have license to go forward. I think Tadic would be an improvement for the same price since he is playing in the three behind Pelle and is also on set pieces like Hendo.

I was sold on Payet before the opening game and would have included him from the start if not for the 'Arsenal always smash West Ham' talk turning my head.

To get these players in I had to downgrade Rooney to Benteke, Azpi to Morgan and Koscielny to Darmian. Frankly I've never trusted Arsenal defenders, signing Cech had me believe they may be better, and think Darmian is a top RB. Benteke seems more VFM than Rooney if he gets going.

[zerinot]

i think the WC team looks fine, but your team scored really well week 1, and by starting with agüero it seems like you wanted to hold on to the wildcard longer.
My opinion would be to save the WC atleast until you have more than 1 game from each team to base it on, especially since you are doing well and started with agüero, which gives you extra free transfers for the rest of the team, that others would use to get him in.

[Mav3rick]

Sounds like almost all your decisions are based on reactions to the GW1 performance. Given that you already have Mahrez and Aguero I'd just sit back and relax. None of the reasons you gave are good enough to wildcard IMO, they are all just 'I'd like to' rather than 'I have to'.

You've got a free transfer now to swap Wilson to Defoe. The rest I think can wait.

[math!]

I prefer Darmian over Kos long term and threw him in before his price went up to 5.6.

I have a bit more faith that Wilson might score against Liverpool after reading about how their defending was a bit over-rated last weekend. Sakho has apparently been arrested for assault so that may or may not make Payet's chances to get something next weekend a bit harder if Billic feels like he has to leave Sakho out.

[math!]

My WC team at the minute. Going for the 3-5-2 strategy. I have 0.2 in the bank and plan to bank my next transfer and keep it for safety. I want to cash in on Gomez and change him to Moreno at some point when he is replaced.

[gallus]

great team

[math!]

thanks

[Mav3rick]

As a 3-5-2 its a strong starting XI. I don't know if Whatmore will keep his place in the team (long term, once AJ is back he almost certainly won't) and they have been linked with loans for players like Januzaj.

I think it's dangerous to only have one playing sub, who in most cases is going to be your worst 4.5 defender in the week. This situation will get significantly worse for you if Gomez loses his place and you have to rotate a fairly uninspring bunch of 4.5 defenders.

While you are injury and ban free though, I think that team will do as well as any.

[math!]

I'm expecting Gomez to lose his place to Moreno but by then hopefully he will have gone up in price and i can cash in and make a straight swap. Moreno is currently 4.9. I could also downgrade a midfielder and up Watmore to someone like Jerome or even Sakho. Hopefully my team will do what Chelsea did last year and stay in one piece for the most part (including at striker).

EDIT: Also I think Lovren might turn out to be worth a punt at 5.0 if his improvement continues.

[Mav3rick]

Gomez would have to rise a lot to be a straight swap - don't forget that you only keep half the rise when you sell a player.

[math!]

I mean straight swap in position and club. Right now there is a .3 difference between the two and I have .2 in the bank so I'm hoping for at least one change in price for either.

[Mav3rick]

Ah ok I see. Fair enough then.

[math!]

Temporarily going for 4-4-2 for this weekend while banking my transfer. West Ham are too all over the place in their three games. Liverpool are killing me in the work league due to most of the teams having one or more defender/Mignolet but I'm still just 13 points off top (top player triple captained Benteke against Bournemouth). If Silva and Aguero had put away their chances it would be a different story. Then there was Ramsey's disallowed goal. Really disappointed in Depay last weekend too considering I picked him because Newcastle had a problem at RB. Now I see Sanchez has a similar proposition so if he were to emulate Depay I will cry.

[Mav3rick]

The image isn't loading for me, so I can't really pass any comment. Mind you, that's probably a good thing

[Notned]

Temporarily going for 4-4-2 for this weekend while banking my transfer. West Ham are too all over the place in their three games. Liverpool are killing me in the work league due to most of the teams having one or more defender/Mignolet but I'm still just 13 points off top (top player triple captained Benteke against Bournemouth). If Silva and Aguero had put away their chances it would be a different story. Then there was Ramsey's disallowed goal. Really disappointed in Depay last weekend too considering I picked him because Newcastle had a problem at RB. Now I see Sanchez has a similar proposition so if he were to emulate Depay I will cry.

Does no Chelsea attacking coverage not concern you? If you back Sanchez over Hazard (I prefer Haz myself, but there are merits in both players) I would probably look at getting Pedro in for Depay.

I think given fixtures, I would also prefer Shaqiri over Payet if you are set on 3-52/4-4-2, although personally I would probably look at downgrading him to a 4.5 and upgrade the non-playing striker to enable 3-4-3. Something like;

Payet Westwood
Depay Pedro
Watmore Wilson/Sakho.

(I really fancy Benteke for the next few, so have opted for him and Wilson over Gomis/Diouf myself)

Does something like that not tempt you?

Obviously if you are set on 3-5-2, then I probably haven't been at all helpful

[math!]

I used photobucket for the last pic due to imageshack being a paid service after a short trial.

I like Hazard and Pedro but they would require a hit (after GW4 whoever tops the league gets 70 euro) and I want to see how they do after at least one more game. Same goes for Wilson, Shaqiri, Bentekkers. Westwood has been in and out of my team since pre-season and is still in my plans if I need to go that low.

I've kneejerked a couple of times and boned myself (mostly with Azpi, Defoe, and Wilson) so I'd like to try holding and banking for once but I might consider Payet to Shaqiri.

[Notned]

Ah sorry, I assumed you were on a wildcard! The glut of changes, and the hits it would take to make them, probably aren't at all necessary then!

[math!]

Butland De Gea
Darmian Evans
Targett Francis
Payet Tadic

I would like to build to this team over the next few weeks. I would then have that £1.0m of breathing room should I need to upgrade a player like Wilson/Watmore.

[Mav3rick]

I suspect your priorities will change over 4 GWs so I doubt you'll end up making those moves exactly.

It's good to have a general plan though (freeing up 1.0 in your case).

[Beerfuelledman]

Just because De Gea didnt sell during the window doesnt mean he'll be ushered straight back into the side with open arms? I think you're planning to spend -8pts pretty foolishly there swapping a ManYo def for a ManYo GK that isnt guaranteed to start...Why not just go for Targett Francis & Payet Tadic if you must and wait & see?

[math!]

De Gea isn't going to be my first or second transfer. That's basically the direction i'm going over a few weeks if the players in do well. Whenever De Gea is back in the side is when he will be brought into my team. If that doesn't happen then I will just change Butland for another keeper if necessary. The only thing I'm concerned about is a potential price rise in Tadic or Evans.

[Ironfist]

FWIW I think that both Evans and Tadic are risks. Evans is not really in yet and Tadic' "stomach bug" is a dodgy thing.

[math!]

None of my targets are really rising at the minute so I might just see out the next GW and use 2 FT. Someone here said Tadic had a blood problem which is why he was dropped but is fine now.

[Stemania]

The one thing I reckon you're really missing is an 's' in your username.

[math!]

I would rather not anger the math demon or I will spend an eternity determining the root of random numbers in my head