By now you may have noticed that the good folk at FootballFancast.com (FFC) have asked myself at FantasyYIRMA.com to look over their Fantasy team and help steer them in the right direction. In fairness it’s a bit like trying to upgrade the Titanic to power steering on short notice using only cooking utensils, but alas it’s the situation we are in. Being from Belfast, it’s also mandatory to get the word “situation†in at least once every three articles.So let’s start with some interesting information. (Whether or not it’s actually interesting is irrelevant as it took me bloody ages to find so it’s going in…)The Gameweek Average over the past two weeks has been a recurring 51 points. Witchcraft I hear you cry… well no just simple coincidence. The FFC team in Gameweek 16 scored.. yep you guessed it 51pts… I sh*t you not, folks.Anyway, I digress as usual (And I genuinely have a point here) I’ve trawled through leagues to find some impressive scores and in doing so uncovered something quite unique…wait for it…#BenchYIRMA!!So with an average of 51 over the past 2 weeks I’ve uncovered live teams with a BENCH score of 52 for Gameweek 15 and 38 for Gameweek 16 respectively.GW 15                       ÂGW16This got me thinking two things.Firstly, these folk must have contemplated Olympic Style Long Jump attempts off tall cliffs when they realised how many points they missed out on.Secondly, does the FFC team even have enough active players to create points on the bench??The answer to that question is yes… just about. This week the FFC team had a total of 2 points on the bench from McCarthy (0), Wanyama (2), Aguero (0), Richards (0).Now Aguero is back in training and Richards is expected back in time for GW17/18. Great news about Aguero but unfortunately Richards still plays for Aston Villa so even when he does return I am still of the opinion that he has to go.Wanyama is a great player with bags of ability, but like other defensive minded midfielders like Nemanja Matic, Francis Coquelin, Lucas Leiva and the GROSSLY UNDERRATED Mathieu Flamini, he will never be strongly considered as a consistent Fantasy scoring player.Alex McCarthy hasn’t played since GW6 so whilst admittedly making the Goalkeeper selection relatively straight forward for the FFC team it’s essentially dead wood on the bench.The entire point to this is the need to try and find some middle ground here. I would genuinely have cried buckets had my bench scored 52 points, but you also want to have the option of rotation for active players should any unexpected team selections throw you off guard – ala Aleksandar Kolarov or Kevin De Bruyne last week.Now the good news is that FFC have the Holy Grail of Fantasy Football emergency manouvers – a WILDCARD and this is where you can get involved.Over the next Festive Period FootballFancast.com will be looking for YOUR input to decide who stays and who goes in the Wildcard team.Players for up for debate are yet to be 100% finalised but I can tell you that when I get back from stuffing myself stupid with Festive Turkey my hope… no… my dream is that you lot will have helped upgrade the team.Priorities… McCarthy, Richards, Wanyama need to go. Cech could almost be downgraded and a combo of Butland/Gomez could be utilised and rotated based on fixtures. Importantly there would be two first team goalkeepers available for the same cost £9.7m.I’ll let FFC come up with a Poll for this week but Firmino on the Bench for Liverpool last week concerned me… Does he still merit a place in the team…If we are going to play the wildcard soon we can then roll the dice this week. Newcastle have a couple of good festive fixtures and should be buoyed by actually picking up 3 points last week. They may even manage what at some points of this season seemed inconceivable and put consecutive wins on the board. Meanwhile Everton have looked good also…OVER TO YOU
Written by Ryan
For his sins, Founder of FantasyYIRMA.com
FantasyYIRMA.com established in 2012, is a niche Fantasy Football site focused on providing news, views and insight for the English Premier League. Solid gameweek articles and Club features in addition to a top ranked free to play mini-league makes #FY a must read Fantasy source!
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