Pre-Match Analysis: Gameweek 5

Hiya! After a long international break GW5 will come back into action this Saturday. Now lets see my predictions:

Home vs Away	PR	Justification	Predicted Fantasy Hero
Blackburn vs Wolves	1-0	Both are in bad form. My vote goes to the Rovers due to their home advantage.	Chimbonda
Liverpool vs Burnley	2-0	Burnley must face this reality: This is Anfield. Not Turf Moor.	Torres
Man City vs Arsenal	1-2	Sadly, City lost Tevez and perhaps even Robinho at their first real test to prove their status as a big club.	Van Persie Fabregas
Portsmouth vs Bolton	0-2	Portsmouth=Derby? This match will give you more clue. Still, I don't think they can withstand Bolton's strong attacking squad.	Matt Taylor
Stoke City vs Chelsea	0-2	They can rely on toughman Drogba to collide through Stoke's defenses. Still, beware of Britannia's surprises, especially from Rory Delap.	Drogba
Sunderland vs Hull City	2-0	Sunderland is always one level higher than Hull, regardless of what.	Cattermole
Wigan vs West Ham	0-1	No chance for Wigan, but still a draw is possible.	Carlton Cole
Tottenham vs Man Utd	2-1	Quickly Redknapp brought in Kranjcar, and quickly Tottenham restored their advantage in their midlane.	Kranjcar
Birmingham vs Aston Villa	1-2	Villa is back on form. No reason to lose this.	Ashley Young
Fulham vs Everton	0-0	Fulham's fortress can't be easily pierced through.	Schwarzer

Note: PR stands for Prediction.

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My Predicted Dream Team of the Week

Schwarzer

G Johnson Turner Cahill

A Young M Taylor Cattermole Kranjcar

Torres Drogba Bent

Value: £78.9m

1. Schwarzer - I am looking forward to see him performing at his best again.
2. G Johnson - Always a must when he's playing against the underdogs. High probability of clean sheet against Burnley, not to be forgotten his ability to get goals and assists.
3. Turner - He is capable of bringing something special.
4. Cahill - Hopefully he can keep a clean sheet against Pompey.
5. A Young - An ace is always an ace.
6. M Taylor - He almost scored one on last game, this should be the time to forget about the term "almost".
7. Cattermole - A game with Hull should be an open game. With that he should give you more than 2 points.
8. Kranjcar - Redknapp knew well enough about him, so he should have no problem fitting Modric's position.
9. Torres - He didn't score in the internationals, so he must be hungry. Moreover, he's facing Burnley at Anfield.
10. Drogba - He will make Stoke's defenders having a hard time with his strong physiques. He is the best player of Chelsea at the moment afterall.
11. Bent - Same reason as Cattermole.

Captain Picks: Torres/Drogba/G Johnson

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Highlights

Adebayor to get another?

Well, if he can score, it'll be an ultimate annoyance to Wenger, and an ultimate success for him. The Togolese had already scored 3 goals, whereby each of them helped City to grab 3 points. With his determination to prove something to the gunners' coach, I'm not surprised if Ade can score against his former team.

Taylor and co to bounce back?

It's surprising that none of points that Matthew Taylor earned came from goals and assists, but hopefully this embarassing record will end at Fratton Park. It will be a clash of bottom two, somewhere Bolton certainly don't deserve to be in. And this match shall be a good foundation for them to regain their form and thus free them away from relegation zone.

Kranjcar super debut?

Well I don't know, but this is fairly possible. Redknapp had known him fairly enough since his days at Portsmouth, and he isn't valued at £6.9m for nothing. With Man Utd poorly performing center midfielders, I do think he can dictate the game and help Tottenham to win just like what Modric did.

Glenny strikes again?

2 goals in 4 games from a defender is totally crazy. Unlike Gallas who's somehow seasonal, Glen Johnson is predicted to be a season long scorer. His free up and down role in Liverpool has given him the biggest authority to dribble upfront and do some big contributions in offense. So it's rational to say that he's one of the best captain choice this week in Liverpool's attempt to steal 3 points from Burnley.

Arshavin Out

What a bad news for gunners who will have an important match this week. The fans will miss Arshavin's great ability on the pitch for around 3 games. While a lot of people think that Arsenal will not be able to endure the game against Manchester Blues in the absence of Andrei, I believe on the opposite - Cesc is the king of all gunners after all.

Topic of the Fortnight: The Next Derby

I guess nobody can ever forget about Derby County Football Club do you? They produced a record that is as great as Usain Bolt's 9.58s run -THE LOWEST POINTS OF ANY PREMIER LEAGUE SEASON SO FAR!

So what does it have to do with fantasy premier league? Now I will introduce to you the Derby theory. Lets see Derby statistics when they were last in the premier league:

Club History
	LC	GP	W	L	D	PT	GD	POS
2007/2008	P	38	1	29	8	11	-69	20

You see it don't you? Least wins, most losses, least goals scored, most goals conceded, least points - basically a feeder club. So the best tactics of FPL on that season was to buy the key players of the team who play against Derby on that gameweek, and most of the time it would be rewarding. An example was Liverpool's 6-0 against them where Torres scored a hattrick. Obvious isn't it? Note that they ate 6 goals for four times, 5 goals twice and 4 goals thrice in that single season.

Of course it's a rare case to find clubs like Derby to gain advantage of, but this season I see a Derby-wannabe.I guess you all can see it as well don't you? Yes, yes, yes. It's Portsmouth aka Pompey aka Your Perfect Dessert!

Just a year ago, Pompey was a promising squad capable of breaking into the Europa Cup with the likes like Lassana Diarra, Jermaine Defoe, Peter Crouch, Glen Johnson, Niko Kranjcar etc, led by a great coach Harry Redknapp. Indeed they had a relishing start last season, but an incident changed the destiny of the club - Redknapp went to Spurs to cover up the terrible start of the team! Ever since then disasters came. They just finished 14, players gone one by one, from Defoe the first to Kranjcar the last. The squad was totally different now, even though it's not even a year.

As you can see, 90% of Pompey players are strangers for us, and the rest like Finnan and Kanu are those aging uncles who are at big disadvantages in the fast pace EPL. So I can't really expect this team to do anything big this year.

So as a smart FPL player you should apply the Derby theory and take in any important players in offense and defense to gain the points advantage, especially when Portsmouth are fighting big and ambitious clubs, and this can be continuously applied until Paul Hart was sacked and replaced by manager by good calibre or Al-Fahim opened up his chequebook to bring in some big players, whichever occurs first.

Hope that you got something here. Good luck.

... and hope that he won't get a heart attack when he is sacked...