Saturday 6 October 2012

GW7 Match Centre - Day One

 
Chelsea delivered what you would expect of them in this fixture.  I had them down beforehand for 9 SOT  which would lead to 3 goals.  Ivanovic does what Ivanovic does though, with a searing effort and they score 4  .Lots of players impressed in Blue, Mata, Hazard, Oscar and Torres plenty involved, and Lampard to a lesser extent.  Despite Mata's 2 assists (expect Transfers In this week) the love is still spread out between as many as 4 players in this team.   Norwich put up a good enough fight.  I predicted they'd have 2.4 SoT, they had 2 and managed a goal from that.  Holt put in a good performance and he looks like he'll be back amongst the goals soon enough.

 

Swansea should feel hard done by not to have won this one with a massive number of opportunities to score with Ki and Moore most involved, Moore in just 50 minutes mustering 3 SoT.  Ki continues to look like he could actually be the new Steven Gerrard, and not just the Korean one.  Michu only had the one shot on target and looked to be the least involved in actual goal threat of the Swansea front line.  The Royals didn't really do enough to warrant 2 goals.  Karacan might be worth a gander but overall this lot are fantasy no-no;s.  Pogrebnyak included.

 

Martinez was quoted after the match saying that Wigan looked like creating something every time they got into the final third - creating shots off target maybe.  That they scored 2 here was fortunate from a pure numbers point of view.  Kone and Di Santo though are clearly the focal point of Wigan's attack and they seem to know where the net is, with both favouring shots in the penalty box.  I don't think Kone is worth £1m more than Di Santo though.  Everton had the better chances to win this game with Pienaar the main creator and Jelavic and Mirallas benefactors of those.  Osman and Baines were busy too, but where was Fellaini?  No shots at all, and only one key pass matching Neville's output.  Oh dear.

 

Not quite the dominant display that I expected from the Baggies with my Select XI "secret weapon" pick Lukaku on the bench again.  Your eyes are drawn to the midfield trio of Gera, Morrison and Mulumbu for West Brom, with them pretty much equalling each other in attacking performance, indeed, with them all grabbing goals, and Morrison adding 3 key passes and an assist to top the bunch.  In comparison, the "strikers" Long, Odemwingie, Lukaku and Rosenberg all did little.  For Rangers, Granero deserved his goal, will have to keep an eye on him, as well as Taarabt.  The Algerian has so much fantasy promise but can be so frustrating too. 


 

Sunderland did their best to stem the Champion's attacking talents but Kolorav's goal so early probably undone them.  Kolorav was pretty brilliant for a defender and with Mancini's tactical plans allowing such freedom for the fullback it's a shame for fantasy manager's that there is so much rotation in that position.  No-one in particular dominated City's attacking chances though, with Tevez not even getting a shot on target, although Aguero was a real force when he came on..  Conversely, all of the Black Cats play is through Steven Fletcher and he's already shown he doesn't need a great amount of opportunity to score. This is why he should be considered a fantasy target when the fixtures line-up.  Not because he "always scores", but because he's the focal point of a team's attack and one of the most proven finishers at this level.

 
Giroud put up a great display in this game against difficult opponents to boot.  This performance netted the Frenchman the top F.SCORE from Day One of GW7.  Podolski also had is best game in England and Walcott impressed greatly in a 35 min sub appearance.  Cazorla's goal was from his only shot of the game to hit the target, and he does seem prone to shoot from range - but you have to shoot to score.  This was a good performance from Arsenal and  West Ham weren't given a great deal of chances.   When they did thought hey got them in the box, which is an indicator of  Allardyce's play style.  Andy Carroll was busy on his full return from injury creating most of the chances.  His relationship with Nolan looks to be a good one.

1 comment:

  1. Pretty much as expected this week. The MCI guys could have easily scored 5 and the expected clean sheet came (even though I decided against Zabaletta due to threat of rotation). Arsenal looked solid. Chelsea was pretty good although a bit lucky to have 4 (probably deserved 3.5 in my opinion). No idea how Everton ended up with less than 3, but at least Baines got the penalty. If he is on penalties the rest of the year he seems like a must have.

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