Topic of the Fortnight: The Worrying Factors

Welcome dear readers, and it's time for the topic of the fortnight again. I think that it would be interesting to discover the worrying factors for the following clubs: Liverpool, Man Utd, Chelsea and Manchester City. So, lets get going...

Liverpool: The Lack of Spare Tyres

Well, you see it don't you? While the English FA gives each team seven places on the bench, I think Benitez only have one which he can totally rely on - Benayoun. Pathetically, the lack of funding combined with Benitez's experimental purchases over these years had made his squad's depth as shallow as rain puddles. Just look at the front line: Arsenal has Arshavin, Van Persie, Eduardo and Bendtner to rely; Chelsea has Anelka, Drogba and Kalou available; Robinho, Adebayor, Bellamy and Tevez are all available at Manchester City; Manchester United got Rooney, Berbatov and Owen. But when Torres is injured, Benitez is forced to push Kuyt upfront because he's his one and only one reliable player who can substitute El Nino as striker!

"Rafa needs us. Lets get rolling!"

Man Utd: Sir Chewie's Overconfidence

Sir Alex Ferguson is a man worthy to be both respected and hated. He levelled United's title credentials to Liverpool's, nurtured the likes like Beckham, Giggs, Scholes, Nevilles and much more, and also led United to become the first treble champions; yet he complained a lot about his defeats and pushed all the responsibilities to the third party, spoke uncountable numbers of ridiculous lame jokes and regarded himself as the emperor of English football.

Well get back to the topic. Why do I think that Fergie is too optimistic this season? It's obvious - he earned 80 million pounds through Ronaldo's sale yet he didn't bring on any world class replacements. This was shown again in the game against Sunderland last fortnight where Ryan Giggs was not even on the bench! Come on, he's not injured, why not putting him on the bench so that he can come out and save the team when needed? Welbeck on the starting 11? He's simply too overconfident.

Chewing gum keeps his breath fresh, but not his mouth.

Chelsea: Unprepared for Downtimes

Feeling that this is absurd? Well, hah, they just got beaten again, so think about it. They're in a quite dangerous position now as their main problems are still hidden, which Ancelotti will have less time to fix them should they float to the surface. Even Scolari recorded a long run of victories before eventually dropped out of Man Utd-Liverpool title race faster than the speed of light. I think the Blues are just to comfortable about their position right now that if their tactics get dissected by their opponents, they can say bye bye to the EPL trophy again. Not to bluff, but see how they fallen by two Aston Villa's headers? They should really buck their self up and do their best every game to prevent unnecessary slip-ups.

He needs to be more aware of his squad's weaknesses should he want to stay longer than Scolari...

Manchester City: Dissatisfaction of Star Players

Sooner or later, the internal breakout of Manchester City will arise. Just look at the signings they've got: Roque Santa Cruz came the earliest as he thought that he can partner with Robinho, only to realize that he doesn't even know in what position does Hughes put him on; Tevez joined City with a hope to gain his playing time, but that turns out to be somewhat impossible; Robinho joined last season as he didn't see his future with Real Madrid, but now his future doesn't look bright at England as well. With Bellamy unexpectedly joined the battle of the sky blue army's strikers, several of them might outburst their frustration and eventually breakup the squad's unity and morale. Good luck, Mark Hughes.

"Oh boy, just be good and listen to papa's words."

"Why should I? I don't even get sweets for that!"

Topic of the Fortnight: Fun Facts After One-Fifth of the Season...

Well, since we have a long break before the next gameweek, lets just discover some interesting and helpful tips that might just give you a rocket rise in your fantasy rankings...

I. Most Points Scored: 65

Yeap, this is interesting. In fact, given that if the performance of the players are consistent throughout the whole season, if we project it to gameweek 38, Drogba who leads the fantasy leaderboard will score more than 300 points! You can see how crazy is EPL this season.

II. Most Points Scored In One Game: 24

Who would expect Benayoun to surprise us with his 24-point hat-trick haul? Not me seriously. And he's not the only one who score more than 20 in a match this season, as we had also Robbie Keane who scored 21 with his four goal feast since Arshavin, and the spectacular Fabregas who had already scored 22 points twice for only one-fifth of the season!

III. Most Goals Scored (Club): 24

Wenger's squad had successfully converted what their coach wanted this season: numerous of smooth short passes which eventually lead to goal. Their new Barca-like formation had proven to be a great success. What can you as more if Vermaelen the centre back can also score 4 goals in 8 games, which two of them are long shots? Behind of Arsenal are Liverpool (22), Man Utd (19), Tottenham (19) and Chelsea (18).

IV. Most Goals Scored (Player): 8

Well, Torres, the successor of Ronaldo as the king of EPL, led the scoreboard as expected. 8 goals from 8 games certainly is a very good record for any striker, but seriously he needs to buck up his fire-power against stronger clubs, otherwise he won't be able to land in the first EPL trophy for Liverpool. Surprisingly, Bent is his closest contender for golden boot currently with 7 goals.

V. Most Assists (Player): 8

Fabregas' performance is just unbelievable. As the heart of the team, he delivered what he got perfectly. He makes Arsenal's attacks fast and lethal.

VI. Most Bonus: 12

Van Persie and Rooney shared the place currently with 12 points each. The Dutch had successfully made the people at Emirates Stadium to forget Adebayor with his influential role currently; the English however needs to improve his consistency as Man Utd suffers with his inability to score goals.

VII. Most Clean Sheets: 4

This year has not been a great one for the defenders. While Chelsea's performance is quite a good one till now, the rest of the league are all suffering for their sloppy defences.

VIII. Highest Points-Value Ratio: 8.8

Keepers always had advantage at this due to their cheapness, and Sorensen currently leads at this field. This is not surprising as he is one of the golden defensive trio in Stoke, apart from Faye and Shawcross. At the defending line Dunne leads with 7.4 points per value, which kind of surprises me; at the midfield line Elliott takes the pole with only 6.2 points per value; and at the strike force we got the superbly performed Bent with 7.8 points per value.

IX. Highest Selection By Fantasy Managers: 40%

Many people have put much faith on Sorensen, and their choice has proven to be correct from the above statistics. Elsewhere Gerrard and Torres are both managers' favourites with 36% each. Interestingly, the preferences for defenders are quite scattered due to this year's attacking fever. While for the forwards, the top five selections dominate with 36% (Torres), 29% (Rooney), 27% (Drogba), 26% (Bent) and 24% (Bent); the sixth (Van Persie) only owned by 12% of the managers.

X. Highest Price Rise: 0.6

Darren Bent and Aaron Lennon both profit fantasy managers a lot to gain 0.6m this season, while Drogba, Vermaelen and Shawcross also kindly treated their managers with their rise of 0.5m respectively.

XI. Most Yellow Cards: 4

Skrtel and Carr are both listed in this notorious list. While Carr had helped Birmingham a lot defensively, Skrtel cards were mostly due to his sloppy teamwork with Carragher.

XII. Most Red Cards: 1

Luckily we didn't see any player with two, or else EPL might be the realm of brutal football. The most remembered red card should be Cech's anyway, in which Chelsea suffered their very first league defeat this season.

Topic of the Fortnight: A Season Where Attack Dominates

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, here comes the second issue of topic of the fortnight. Firstly, I would like to introduce you some really interesting stats: among all the games that had played since 09/10 premier season started until now, only 2 games were recorded goalless. A total of 159 goals had been produced in 56 games played until now, with an average of 2.84 goals per game! Can you see how high is this figure given that last year it's only 2.48 goals per game in average?

7 goals in 1 game.

This is a double edge to all FPL managers - most of you would be satisfied with your strikers for their prolific scoring record, but in the meantime, you might be also frustrated with all those points deductions of your defenders. And since the trend has already been set, the only thing you can do is to follow the flow - load up your team with all those offensive players, from strikers to defenders.

Now lets see all the must grab offensive players up till now. If you can grab at least 6 of the following top-class offensive players from at least 4 different teams, you shall have no problem this season.

Wayne Rooney

EVER since Ronaldo left, Rooney has been given the biggest responsibility in the team. The team centralises around him and most of the offensive actions involve him. He's the best point-earning strikers in my opinion as he'll always score goals under United's strategy and most importantly, he'll gain a lot of bonuses which edges him over the rest of the pack.

Didier Drogba

HIS reincarnation of career is one of the most exciting phenomena in premier league this season. He is the joint second top scorer so far, with all of his 5 goals were decisive, which honoured him plenty of bonuses (3 behind Rooney). His monstrous strength is the key of 6 back-to-back victories Chelsea recorded this season, and that's the reason why he's now on top of the FPL score sheet. Sadly, he knocked his heel and is doubtful for action for Chelsea's next game.

Emmanuel Adebayor

GREAT job by him don't you think? He scored an average of one goal per game this season, something only Rooney is able to match currently. Furthermore, Adebayor had also recorded 2.75 bonus points per game up until now. Unfortunately, his hell-like performance had dragged him down, and he'll fall behind from the leaders by a lot when he comes back from suspension.

Fernando Torres

WHEN El Nino seemed to have dropped out of the fantasy champion race, he scored a brace to show that he's not out of the golden boot's race. I've to agree with Fantasy Adviser's favourite quote: form is temporary, class is permanent. Given now that he's on his way to his top, why not load him into your team?

Cesc Fabregas

CAPTAIN is back. He stunned the world with his 22 point nuke on the first game, and the following games aren't bad either. Given that he's a lot cheaper than the fantasy holy duo (Fat Frank and Stevie G), you might consider to save the money on them and use it on other areas.

Frank Lampard

THE most consistent player in FPL has maintained his standard again - almost the same figure of points per game compared to last season. He's always the man if you want consistency, and always the least risky man to be captained.

Steven Gerrard

STILL not on his best. You can see from how he wasted several golden chances. But still, for his superior class, you can buy him even when he's not up on form yet.

Glen Johnson

THIS speedy wing back has successfully captured the hearts of Kopites. His totally out of position play has shaped him to be the most offensive defender in the premier league, and that's the reason why he's leading the defender's table now.

Thomas Vermaelen

WHILE Johnson benefits from his Liverpool's out of position play, this guy is enjoying Arsenal's all up offensive strategy as well. Wenger's biggest investment this season had proven to be one of the best bargain he had made. 3 goals and 1 assist in 5 league games from a centre back. What more can you expect?

Ashley Cole

SURPRISE surprise! He doesn't want to lose to his English counterpart Glen Johnson, and his actions had shown that - just 1 point behind Glenny. Another man who had found back his confidence under Carlo Ancelotti.

OTHER OFFENSIVE MARVELS (Excluded From the Category Above)

Those who are always one level below of those above: Robin van Persie, Jermaine Defoe, Aaron Lennon, Dirk Kuyt, Leighton Baines and Michael Ballack.

Low-cost high-return performers: Darren Bent.

Those who have the potential to become like Darren Bent: Damien Duff and Michael Kightly.

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...