Although my experiment with Costa failed last week after he managed a miserable 4 points, and even though the negative part of my experiment continues as he’s spending week 27 playing the league cup final, I did have two positive things to shout about this week.
Firstly that my predictions regarding Hart (That he offered great value for money) and Howard (That he can’t help but return negative points) came to pass. There were only two goalkeepers who outscored Hart, Mignolet and Adrian, and as they faced Southampton and Tottenham, both away, I think that mine was the pick of the bunch! Howard achieved the dubious honour of making two saves and allowing 2 goals in. Regular readers of the Rotoworld team will have heard this phrase before but usually from Neal and Nik – He’s dead to me.
The second point came completely by surprise when I was reviewing the twitter notifications for my @funtasyfootball account. My Twitter app proclaimed that a user, named John Mann, had added me to the excellently named Twitter list “Reliable Soccer Writers”. Now I don’t know John Mann, and I can definitely confirm that I didn’t bribe him to place me on his list, but it’s good to know that you have at least one fan out there!
So, on to this week’s selections:
Goalkeepers
As you can see, there’s actually four goalkeepers to choose from this week; Ospina, De Gea, Begovic and Krul. Yes, Krul. I’ll admit that it’s odd when a goalkeeper who concedes 5 makes the list the very next week but in this case it’s justified. The bookies make De Gea the best choice, with a 48% chance of winning to nil and a 57% chance of keeping a clean sheet. Personally, I like the idea of Krul. If you ignore the last match, he’s conceded 6 goals in the previous 5 games but more importantly Aston Villa have scored 0 goals in their last five away games. In a week where managers will be looking for ways of saving money so they can bench their Chelsea and Spurs players, this could be the chance you need.
Predictor
Well, I don’t think that we’ve had a weekend where every single match is predicted as being a home win so far this season! Even West Brom, who are the lowest favourites, still have a good percentage probability of 46%. As usual, I have to suggest strikers from the three largest favourites so by all means jump on Sanchez or Giroud, Falcao and Rooney (assuming RvP’s injury lasts) and finally…..Cisse? Whilst he’s hardly prolific it’s worth noting that he’s managed some good scores this season – 23 points against Chelsea, 23 points against Swansea, 21 points against Hull. Can Aston Villa finally put up a fight? Personally I doubt it.
Poisson
So first of all the Poisson predictions show that Newcastle are the team most likely to keep a clean sheet so I definitely stand by my goalkeeper prediction. Arsenal and United are well supported as well which is in line with the predictor table. The only other thing that really stands out is that goals shouldn’t really be plentiful in any of the games so maybe a 4-4-2 or a 3-5-2 formation may serve you best.
That’s it for this week, I’ll see you next time.
