Premier League: GW17 Retrospect

As I bring my GW17 report to life Everton and Liverpool are taking to the pitch for the Merseyside Derby. Fingers are crossed that Everton can’t find the back of the net and Lovren and company pick up a clean sheet, as it would go far for the defensive showing moving forward. Currently at 43 points (weekly avg. 39) with all green arrows but still at 1.1m, gaining just 25k spots. Value is good at 103.6m, which sees 1.0m ITB and 1 FT to use for GW18. I know many owners are in a quandary as it relates to Costa.

Up front, Costa continued his torrid pace of scoring picking up his 12th, which leads the EPL. Unfortunately he FINALLY picked up that 5th yellow card and will miss the clash with Bournemouth this coming weekend. I was left scratching my head with Kane, who wore the captain’s band and didn’t return. How does a premier forward not return against Hull City and Burnley? It has me questioning Kane and his form going forward. My FT was spent on Carroll, returning from injury for West Ham. Some tasty match ups, even though the Hammers hadn’t been playing very well. The prospects of Valencia and Payet feeding the big forward had me seeing a great differential. Like Kane, he didn’t return against Hull City.

Just once I would like to put forwards, midfielders and defenders on the same page and see a triple digit score. Much like the forwards my midfielders under performed. Allen for Stoke picked up 7 points with a goal, while Sanchez returned just 5 points with an assist. Where have Hazard and Sigurdsson been? Missing, that’s where. I watched both matches and Sigurdsson had some good attempts but couldn’t convert. Looks like I will give him 3 more weeks before Swansea’s schedule gets more difficult. I don’t want to keep moving template players like Hazard. Like Aguero, Sanchez, Costa, De Buryne are template players and must be on your squad in some combination. Regardless of fixture I am not considering moving Hazard.

Defensively this was the best showing of the year, 14 points with Lovren and a potential CS playing right now. Courtois was a great pickup a few weeks back finished with 6 points. Jones of Man U was introduced last week with their favorable schedule and rewarded me with 6 points. I took a chance on Cédric after missing the last 2 games and Southampton gave up 1 goal. After the GW17 with Spurs, Southampton has a strong schedule, which should feed the CS numbers.

As mentioned, Costa picked up that 5th yellow card and will miss GW17. Kane has been ineffective, while Zlatan returned a brace for 7 goals in his last 7 EPL matches, currently the second highest scoring forward behind Costa. Initially I was considering picking up Zaha this week Allen, but with 1.0m ITB, Capoue could be on the chopping block. For GW18 I would sit Costa on the bench and roll the dice with Kane visting Southampton. While it doesn’t look all that inviting, the other move would be sit Costa, drop Kane and bring Zlatan back into the mix, while playing Capoue and Allen in a 3-5-2 this weekend.

Overall I am still not happy with how this season is playing out. Been very frustrated with players not returning only to drop them and see them perform the following week. It feels like walking the razor’s edge when it comes to success or failure from week to week. The pundits I follow haven’t been spot on the captain’s armband for a few weeks now, but I continue returning to those sites to gain further insight. Not sure how well it’s helping sitting at 1.0m. However my team is better than where they are ranked. The goal from here on out is to break 75k, where I finished in 2015-2016. Currently I am only a pace to scoring 1800, which is 200 off last year’s pace. Something needs to change.