Premier league preview

Arsenal - 2nd 
They've already beaten Chelsea, and strengthened between the posts. However, I still feel they are just short of Chelsea in terms of all round strength and quality.

Aston Villa - 16th
They've lost Delph and Benteke their 2 best players last season, so are expected to struggle. They have strengthened defensively, with full backs, Micah Richards, Jordan Amavi and defensive midfielder Idrissa Gueye. However, at present only Jordan Ayew has signed to replace the departed Delph, Cleverley and Benteke.

Bournemouth - 19th
They play attractive attacking football. I think they will be similar to Burnley and Blackpool before them they won't overstretch and will cause teams problems but will ultimately fall short.

Chelsea - 1st
They have brought in Falcao and Begovic, to replace Drogba and Cech, but their squad was already strong, and it would be surprising if they were unable to match last season, albeit maybe going further in Europe.

Crystal Palace - 10th
Palace were resurgent under Alan Pardew, so much so, that it is easy to forget that they were in the relegation zone just before Christmas. I expect Palace to continue to do well under Pardew, they are solid in defence, especially with McArthur and Jedinak screening, but in attack they possess real width and creativity with Zaha, Bolasie and Puncheon. New signing Yohan Cabaye, adds flair to their midfield as well.

Everton - 13th
Distin and Alcaraz have left, but they haven't been replaced, so if either Jagielka or Stones are injured, Everton have no cover. Lukaku was less prolific last season, and as the only true striker his form will be closely tied to Everton's.

Leicester City - 18th
Nigel Pearson seemed to be walking a tightrope in the sack race, until some stellar form saved Leicester, but he still ultimately left the club. Claudio Ranieri has replaced him, but the tinkerman doesn't have a big squad to tinker with. Their fortunes will revolve around getting goals from Kramaric, Ulloa or Okazaki.

Liverpool - 5th
Last season ended in shambles as they lost 6-1 to Stoke, who they play in the first game. But Liverpool look a lot stronger, still defensively fragile, but with an attacking force of Benteke, Coutinho and Firmino, and backup strikers in Ings, Sturridge and Balotelli, they should be much more competitive.

Manchester City - 4th
City fell away badly at the end of the season, and have responded by signing Raheem Sterling and Fabian Delph, they are both talented players, but also crucially home-grown British players, which Man City needed to meet the quota. However, neither appear to improve the side beyond what they already had, and ultimately they still look vulnerable at the back.

Manchester United - 3rd
A big spending spree again for United, but the biggest problem is the unresolved issue of De Gea. Despite all their spending they still need another striker and at least one central defender. However, they should be able to improve upon last year's 4th place. 

Newcastle United - 14th
A dreadful second half of last season, should be eradicated by a change of management. Steve McLaren has had a raw deal from the English press, he is a very good coach, and should do well in Newcastle. Georginio Wijnaldum is a good attacking signing, and should provide goals from midfield. Mitrovic and Mbama are signings in key positions, but are a bigger gamble.

Norwich City - 17th
Norwich have a very good early run, which I expect them to capitalise on, as Alex Neil has got them playing very good football, with an exciting midfield with Redmond, Hoolahan and Dorrans. However, up front they look very light for the Premier League, with Grabban and Jerome.

Southampton - 9th
A great season last year, followed by more sales with Clyne and Schneiderlin departing. However, they received good money once again, and appear to have re-spent it well with Jordy Clasie replacing Schneiderlin and Cedric Soares in for Clyne. I expect them to be top half again, although think Pelle will be less effective up front.

Stoke City - 6th
Stoke have strengthened well in the summer, and are starting to build an exciting side. The likes of Bojan, Joselu, Afellay and Van Ginkel is a very exciting quartet, and if Shaqiri signs, it could be a very exciting side, built on solid foundations. Begovic leaving will be disappointing but not unexpected as Butland was a ready made replacement. The only slight concern is the loss of last seasons ever present Steven Nzonzi.

Sunderland - 15th
The biggest summer signing for Sunderland was Dick Advocaat who at first said he wouldn't stay, but then did a 360 and has stayed on. They have strengthened defensively with Matthews, Kaboul and Coates. M'Vila has come in on loan and Lens provides some additional attacking threat. They will still struggle, as they lack depth and quality in most areas. 

Swansea City - 8th
Last season showed that Michael Laudrup is not missed. Swansea have managed to keep hold of their key players, such as Williams and Gomis, but the great thing for Swansea is that they are greater than the sum of their parts. Ayew will provide an additional attacking threat.

Tottenham Hotspur - 7th
They have had a big summer clear out, but have signed only 3 players, all defenders. Their midfield now lacks depth, and they have a real dearth of strikers, as they are almost entirely reliant on Harry Kane. I think they will struggle this year.

Watford - 20th
They have made a raft of signings, but no one signing really stands out. They were strong in attack in the Championship, but it is a step up for Deeney, Ighalo and Vydra, Vydra having struggled in his season in the Premiership with WBA. I think their defence will let them down, and the strikers won't be able to hit their championship heights to bail them out.

West Bromwich Albion - 11th
Under Tony Pulis West Brom look a much stronger side, Berahino has stayed and now has Rickie Lambert to support him. They have signed McClean and Mcmanaman as out and out wingers, but it could be Serge Gnabry on loan from Arsenal who provides the real creative spark. 

West Ham United - 12th
Slaven Bilic now leads the East London side, after Sam Allardyce departed, with football the 'West Ham way' the remit. Bilic has added some key players, Ogbonna, to strengthen the defence, Payet and Lanzini to add midfield creativity and Obiang to replace Alex Song (who may still sign). Up front they are weakened due to the perennially injured Carroll and Enner Valencia who picked up an injury in their short lived Europa League adventure, which they seemed to treat more like a pre-season friendly.

Here is my predicted final table

Team	Position
Chelsea	1
Arsenal	2
Manchester United	3
Manchester City	4
Liverpool	5
Stoke City	6
Tottenham Hotspur	7
Swansea City	8
Southampton	9
Crystal Palace	10
West Bromwich Albion	11
West Ham United	12
Everton	13
Newcastle United	14
Sunderland	15
Aston Villa	16
Norwich City	17
Leicester City	18
Bournemouth	19
Watford	20

Fantasy Football picks MFs and STRs

Midfield

Eden Hazard was top points scorer last season
and top bonus points scorer

Midfielders and Strikers are the most important players in the team, they are the big points scorers. Last year, Eden Hazard was the class of the field bringing home 233 points, followed by Alexis Sanchez who totalled 207 points.

Midfield is less about value, and more about accommodating as many of the big points scorers as possible, as a minimum of 3 midfielders play every week, and they get an extra point for each goal they scored.

When picking midfielders, the key is to focus on the attacking midfielders, Francois Coquelin was instrumental for Arsenal in the second half of the season, but only picked up 45 points.

Mane often plays in an advanced position,
and scored the fastest ever Premiership hat-trick
last season against Aston Villa

Players like Jon Walters and Sadio Mane at times play as strikers and so represent very good value as Midfield picks.

As with all positions, players who missed periods of last season and therefore ended up with less points, can represent good value. Examples include Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Jack Grealish.

Alongside the key player makers for the big sides, the likes of Fabregas, Hazard, Sanchez, Cazorla, Ozil, Mata, Coutinho, and Silva. The mid-table and lower sides also have key play makers who represent good value.

Value Picks:-

Jordan Henderson (Liverpool) £7.0m - Gerrard's replacement, scored more points than Coutinho, but costs less.
Dimitri Payet (West Ham) £7.5m - 
Georginio Wijnaldum (Newcastle) £7.0m - scored 14 goals for PSV last season
Ross Barkley (Everton) £6.5m - had a broken run last season with injuries, but could hit the ground running for Everton this year.
Jason Puncheon (Crystal Palace) £6.0m - Puncheon has been a consistent points scorer over the last 3 seasons (but Cabaye, Bolasie or Zaha are also good picks).
Nathan Redmond (Norwich) £5.5m - Redmond will provide assists and goals, and Norwich have a relatively easy start (Johnson, Dorrans and Hoolahan could also be good value).

Strikers

Harry Kane was a bargain last season at £5.0m,
but is £9.5m this season

Last, but certainly not least, are the strikers.

For these you definitely need to follow the form. Strikers thrive on confidence, some strikers can't stop scoring, and then as soon as they stop can't score again. Think Michael Ricketts  (12 goals 01/02), Marcus Stewart (19 goals 00/01), Marlon Harewood (14 goals in 05/06). Glenn Murray, Charlie Austin and Danny Ings were all in rich goalscoring form at some point last season. The point is don't back players just because they played well last year, but also to transfer in the players who start to get on a roll.

Sergio Aguero maybe the most expensive player at £13.0m, but there is a reason, he is a consistent starter and performer at Man City and brings home the points.

From the Championship, Deeney (Watford) and Wilson (Bournemouth) both at £5.5m, both scored plenty of goals in the Championship, although it remains to be seen if they can achieve similar feats in the Premier League. Cameron Jerome at Norwich is cheaper, but less likely to hit the heights of the other 2, but all are worth having on the bench at least.

(Not this Pele)

Graziano Pelle at Southampton, had a great first half of the last season, but faded in the second half of the season. If Pelle starts slowly, Jay Rodriguez could be a good option, if he can rediscover his form of 2 years ago, but at £7.0m, he is too expensive to pick at the start.

New signings

I wouldn't suggest picking new signings as they usually take time to adjust to the Premiership, but the following signings are worth following, and picking if they start scoring.

Mitrovic joins fellow Serbians, Ivanovic, Kolarov,
Matic and Markovic in the Premier league

Aleksandar Mitrovic (£6.5m) scored plenty of goals for Anderlecht, and Newcastle need someone to score the goals.

Joselu (£6.0m) is a former Real Madrid player and has signed for Stoke from Hannover, with former Barcelona players Ibrahim Afellay and Bojan creating chances, he could hit the net with regularity.

Patrick Bamford (£6.0m) and Conor Wickham (£6.0m) will play up front for Crystal Palace in front of a creative midfield, with Yanick Bolasie, Wilfried Zaha and Yohan Cabaye, so chances should be plentiful.

Fantasy Football Picks - GKs and DFs

For this blog my focus is on the Premier League Fantasy Football although some of the principles and players will apply to other leagues.

Fantasy Picks

When you think about picking your fantasy team, the main misconception is to buy as many players from all the top teams as possible.

Goalkeepers

Tom Heaton may have been relegated with Burnley
but he got a lot of Fantasy points

Taking goalkeepers as a case in point. Keepers get a point for every 3 saves they make and -1 for every 2 goals conceded, so often Keepers from mid-table sides that face a lot of shots, outperform keepers from the top 4/5 teams.

Indeed of the top 5 keepers, only Joe Hart was from a top 5 team,  Fabianski (Swansea), Heaton (Burnley) and Mignolet (Liverpool) were the top 3 points scorers.

However, it is not always clear from last years points, as to who the best keeper to pick is.

Take Chelsea for instance, they changed keepers during the season, the combined points from their keepers was 159 a better combined total than any other team of keepers.

Lastly, as Heaton showed at Burnley, don't discount the newcomers. Of this years keepers Boruc at Bournemouth, Ruddy at Norwich and Gomes at Watford, represent the best value. At £4.5m each even if they only warm the bench of your team, they are all going to score points. They all have Premiership experience, and all conceded a similar amount of goals in the Championship, although I think Norwich are the most defensively resolute of the 3 teams.

Defenders

Chris Smalling scored 4 goals for United last year,
but played a lot less than the other top goalscoring defenders

Defenders are key in any team, the dream is a goalscoring and assisting defender, who also keeps clean sheets. Unfortunately, these players are rare and very expensive.

John Terry and Branislav Ivanovic of Chelsea fit this bill last season, keeping 17 clean sheets, as well as scoring 5 and 4 goals respectively. However, this season you'll pay the price for picking them, £7m each.

Managers who favour a defence style help, so Tony Pulis at West Brom, usually sets up with a staunch defence, and tries to score on the counter-attack. James Chester has come in from Hull, and along with Joleon Lescott and Craig Dawson, is valued at £5m, one of those would be worth having.

Lastly, for defenders don't always pick the best defender in a teams defence. Bonus points more often than not go to strikers and midfielders, whilst clean sheet points are the same for all the defenders as long as they play 60+ minutes. The only difficulty with this is making sure they play, Cesar Azpilicueta at Chelsea is a million cheaper than Terry and Ivanovic, but will like play the same amount of games and likes to push on, so will hopefully get some assists.

Tomorrow
Tomorrow I'll preview the Midfielders and Strikers.

Fantasy Football - top tips

It's that time again, time for the start of the Premiership season, and time to pick your fantasy football team. 

In the next few days, I will put up some top picks, but today here are some top tips on how to play fantasy football.

General Rules

• Follow the Form - If a striker gets his confidence back, he may suddenly go on a scoring run, e.g. Glenn Murray scored 5 goals in 6 games at the start of 2015.

• Follow the fixtures - Gone are the days when every team plays one game a week for 38 weeks. Postponements, European fixtures, Cup matches, all mean there will be times this season when a club plays in the league more than once in a week or not at all. Check the fixtures and bring in players who are playing more in that week. 
• Also check who teams are playing, some of the top teams get a run against lower sides, and it's worth having those players in for those times. For instance last season Southampton were keeping clean sheets, but had a spell against the top 4 sides, that involved conceding several goals when they played their title rivals.

• Follow the fitness - Have a quick check of BBC Sport the day before the games to see who is injured and how long for. Also, players who are out for 6 weeks or longer, usually take time to adjust to playing again, so are worth transferring out, don't expect them to pick up where they left off.

• Follow the transfers - The season maybe starting but that doesn't mean all the transfer business is done, key players are still being signed. I expect Man United to bring at least one more defender and  a striker.