Fantasy Football Insider – Gameweek 14

Fantasy Football isn’t all about players that score goals; there are plenty of points on offer for the men who put them on a plate.

By Conor Heneghan

The likes of Filippo Inzaghi, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Michael Owen will always be remembered for their ruthlessness in the box and the vast amounts of goals they have totted up over the years. These players (especially Inzaghi) celebrated each and every one of these goals as if they had won the lotto, but some of the game’s great players (Scholes, Xavi, Fabregas etc.) take as much pleasure out of making a goal as they do from scoring one.

Some of them aren’t always given as much credit as they deserve, but thankfully, in fantasy football terms, the creator of goal will always be rewarded with three valuable points. The value of an assist is illustrated in the fact that the leading player in terms of points this season is Manchester United’s Nani (£9.0 million), largely thanks to the nine assists that he has been credited for so far.

Not far behind him in terms of points is Chelsea’s Didier Drogba (£13.1 million), who, it might surprise you to learn, has six assists, while the revelation of the season so far, Andy Carroll (£6.0 million), has four. Part of the reason Drogba’s Chelsea teammate Ashley Cole (£8.4 million) is such a popular choice as a defender, despite his price, is his ability in the opposition’s half of the pitch and he has paid back his managers in that regard this season by creating three goals.

Away from the bigger clubs at the cheaper end of the market, there are plenty of players who notch up assists on a regular basis. West Brom’s Chris Brunt (£5.7 million) already has seven this season, but the Baggies have been on a bit of barren run of late.

One player who has really impressed this season is Bolton’s Chung-Yong Lee (£5.2 million) and the tidy South Korean has laid on five goals for his teammates already in this campaign, while teammate Johan Elmander has four assists to add to the six goals he has scored. Even cheaper are the likes of Joey Barton (£4.7 million) and Luke Varney (£4.6 million), who both have four assists.

Chung Yong-Lee has been one of Bolton's impressive performers this season

What to look out for this week

Ordinarily, Manchester United against Wigan at Old Trafford would seem like an ideal game to pick up loads of points from the men in red, but the Red Devils have been so mediocre of late that you can’t rely on them for home bankers anymore.

Still, at the back, Nemanja Vidic has returned to something like the form that had him in the running for the PFA Player of the Year two seasons ago. He’s got three goals already this season and is the second highest scoring defender behind Ashley Cole. He’s also just under a million cheaper than Cole at £7.5 million.

Elsewhere, considering that Spurs are now Champions League quality, one would think that themselves and Arsenal might cancel each other out at the Emirates on Saturday lunchtime. As with Manchester United, however, Spurs have a terrible record away to their bitter North London rivals and haven’t beat the Gooners in the Premier League away from White Hart Lane since 1993.

This particular derby has a history of being entertaining, though and there should be goals, unlike the insipid Manchester derby last week. For Arsenal, Cesc Fabregas (£11.9 million) and Marouane Chamakh (£8.4 million) have 16 and 18 points respectively from their last two games, while it is hard to ignore the claims of Tottenham’s midfield duo Gareth Bale (£6.9 million) and Rafael van der Vaart (£8.3 million), who delivered a combined 28 points last weekend.

JOE’s Fantasy Football Picks

Top Dollar: Cesc Fabregas (£11.9 million). Fabregas scored 16 points in his last two games and with the likes of Drogba, Berbatov and Malouda out of form, the Spaniard is the best bet of the expensive brigade to have in your team this weekend. Also, he traditionally does well against North London rivals Spurs, who the Gunners face at the Emirates this weekend.

Mid Range: Tim Cahill (£8.7 million). The Australian has scored six goals this season including efforts against Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal, only one less than leading scorers Andy Carroll, Carlos Tevez, Florent Malouda and Kevin Nolan. People haven’t been shouting from the rooftops about Cahill, however, because it is expected that he is going to hit the net thanks to his consistency in front of goal in recent years.

Bargain Basement: Charles N’Zogbia (£5.6 million). The man who once famously sent somebody else in to do his driving theory test has been in full throttle so far this season. The Wigan man is in the top ten highest scoring midfielders so far this campaign with 59 points, but interestingly 50 of those points have come in his last seven games. A game against Manchester United this weekend mightn’t be the ideal opportunity to pick up points, but the way Sir Alex Ferguson’s side have been playing lately, anything is possible.

Irish pick: Stephen Carr (£4.4 million). We spoke last week of how we have already exhausted this category and as a result, have reverted back to players we have used in previous weeks. Carr has been an ever present in a Birmingham defence that have kept five clean sheets already this season and are particularly stingy at St. Andrews, which they’ll need to be against Chelsea this weekend.

Captain’s pick: Nani (£9.0 million). The Portuguese winger is the leading player in the competition and has seen his price go up by a million quid since the start of the season. Even though he didn’t play well last week against Aston Villa, he still provided an assist, while three of his four goals this season have come at home and he’ll fancy his chances of more against Wigan.