Welcome to Genie's Corner for Gameweek 8! Here, I, (DraftGenie) will be providing you with my thoughts on all things draft! Each segment of Genie's Corner will focus on something specific and relevant to current events in the Draft Fantasy EPL world. Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know I tend to take a bold and differential approach to the draft game, which has led to many fantasy titles. In these articles I will be giving you my unique insights, bold takes, sage advice, and much more throughout the season.
Genie's Corner
Check out this weekly dive into the mind of our mercurial Fantrax EPL manager and analyst Draft Genie! Each week he provides his thoughts on strategies, players to watch, trades to push for, and much more!
Being a "Ruthless" Manager
For those who have played in leagues with me, you know I am very ruthless when it comes to dropping/trading players (unless, of course, they play for Manchester United). I have made big drops and sold players after just 2-3 weeks of poor form for much lower than their value. Given that this strategy has worked extremely well for me, I figured I should share some strategies and tips in case you want to give it a go.
What it Means
In short, being ruthless in short-form means not getting "attached" to certain players - keeping them on a "shorter leash", being willing to churn, trade out, and drop them to keep your team full of players in the best form, or ones with the best schedules. There is always going to be a grey area of how ruthless is too ruthless, and how successful you can be mainly depends on how active you are, as well as your confidence in making waiver pickups, and multiple trades throughout the season. This strategy doesn't really work if you are the kind of manager to make 1-2 trades in the whole season, or you are someone who is still holding onto Ronaldo despite seeing offers of 5 FAB for him getting rejected.
Where to Draw the Line
To start things off, one of the best ways to know it is time to drop an asset is when no manager wants said player in any sort of deal, not even for a few FAB. Usually this would only happen for players in extremely poor form who lack "big name value", those who have very tough schedules coming up, or those who look like they may lose their spot in the XI/may not break into it as soon as managers would have hoped for.
This is a very tough area to discuss as "the line" will be different based on the structure of each manager's team. As a typical rule of thumb, any player picked up off the waiver wire (maybe excluding those high profile signings), is droppable anytime to you feel they are in poor form, or have a tough schedule. A good example is Forest signing Awoniyi, who hasn't scored since the win vs. West Ham and hasn't started in over 3 weeks...he is somehow still rostered in 35% of leagues. He is such an easy drop: poor form, and not even starting. Tougher examples might include a player such as Emile Smith-Rowe, who is shockingly rostered in 70% of leagues. He is injured, and looks a long way from cracking the XI. This is a player no-one wants to trade for, but also one that should be immediately dropped to allow you to stream starters and players with more potential over the next few weeks.
When the bigger names start to enter poor form (Liverpool and Chelsea top assets currently), my recommendation is to trade out if you are starting to lose games because of them. Of course there is a great chance they come good, but trading them out for better value is probably the way to go. You will probably find that getting 2-3 set and forget players with a decent floor/ceiling might help you win games in the short term while said players continue to be in very poor form. Of course, I am not saying to go and drop Mount, for example, but surely you will get some decent value for him from certain managers.
Short-Term Gain, Long-Term Loss??
A lot of you might be thinking this is a very short term strategy - being ruthless instead of playing the "long game". My theory is how long can you really play this long game? With only 38 gameweeks, it is important to get wins as often as possible, especially in larger leagues where there is only 1 winner or potentially only top 3 get prizes. In a playoff league, you can employ a different strategy, which will be discussed in a future article. If your only goal in normal leagues is to get wins as often as possible, why not play the short game? Surely the manager who started out the season 5-1 by getting rid of poor form players, dropping those failed draft picks and capitalizing on some trades is in better shape to win the league title than the dude who is 1-5 but holding onto to Calvert-Lewin as his FWD1 and Chilwell as his DEF1, hoping they just flip a switch. I can assure you both those players could have easily been traded out for more useable players that probably would have helped you to a better record. Instead, you are 4 games back, sit in last place, with Calvert-Lewin and Chilwell still a few weeks away from providing any sort of value. You will need a 6-8 game swing to challenge for a league title.....I prefer to be the guy who is 5-1, constantly dropping underperforming players, and not worrying about sunk costs/holding on to players like Ronaldo.
Chelsea and Graham Potter Take
Will Chelsea Improve?
What an interesting move for Chelsea. Firing Tuchel was way too reactionary given the great things he has done since his time in charge. He was in the midst of a bad run of form that could largely be chalked up to some players, a poor transfer window in the midfield area, and some injuries. At the same time, Potter is a great manager and we have seen it this season getting Brighton off to a flying start. The question is: can he improve Chelsea? Short-term, the answer is yes, I mean Chelsea really can't be doing much worse. But they will need certain players to really start producing or firing Tuchel will look like a horrendous error.
Which Players Win/Lose
I reckon Potter sticks with a back 3, given Chelsea spent quite a bit on defenders in the window, and that's how both Brighton and Chelsea have been lining up this year. The biggest benefactor in my opinion is arguably the best RWB in the world, Reece James, who will no longer be forced into his RCB role given the signing of Fofana. And Potter will probably be more willing to use Chalobah than Tuchel has been this year. It remains to be seen if the defence keeps more clean sheets, with error prone Koulibaly, an aging Silva, and a keeper in very very poor form. Potter will have a lot of work to do to get the clean sheets going, but the player who wins the LWB slot may surprise us. Cucurella has been used as both an LCB and LWB by Potter, and could get serious minutes in the LCB role given the way Potter has set up his wingbacks at Brighton this season. This is a very "out there" take - very on brand, I know - but there is every chance Pulisic is given a chance in the LWB role, similar to what Potter has previously done with Leandro Trossard. We saw Brighton buy a new LWB who has been relegated to the bench and supplanted by Trossard in that role. Chilwell has been very inconsistent this year and it remains to be seen if he will win the role in the long term. I would sell Chilwell and Cucurella if I could get decent value, and stash Pulisic as a punt if he is on your waiver wire.
The attack will be an interesting proposition with some combination of Auba, Sterling, Mount, Kai, and Ziyech likely getting minutes. Ziyech surely will get a look in at some point given his creativity, especially from sets. Both him and Mount haven't offered much this season iso it remains to be seen if there's times BOTH are dropped for a front 3 of Sterling, Auba, and Kai. In the midfield, we could see Gallagher get a big increase in usage, and minutes. Potter tried to sign him this summer, and will give the young midfielder a role in his squad. I do think selling Chelsea attackers that were not just picked up and stashed from the waiver wire is the way to go. This might be a "sell the news scenario" - getting rid of them on the prospect of Potter getting them firing. This might be the time in which they have the highest value - until Potter settles in fully and picks his favourite of the bunch to be his go to front 3.
Gameweek 8 Advice
What Level of Players to Drop
We are into our first real blank gameweek of the season with 7/10 games set to play. Manchester United, Leeds, Chelsea, Liverpool, Crystal Palace, and Brighton are all blanking, so you might be tempted to drop some of their lesser value assets. From United, every defender not named Dalot is easily droppable, same as the likes of McTominay, Elanga, and dare I say even Ronaldo. Any of the midfielders on Liverpool are droppable, and your Leeds players not named Aaronson, Harrison, Sinisterra, and Bamford are all droppable. From Chelsea, if you have the room to hold high-potential players, do so; if not, feel free to drop all their CM type players and even Ziyech, Azpi, Mendy, and if you are in a very close matchup come Sunday - Koulibaly. From Palace and Brighton, I assume most players currently rostered are undroppable such as: Trossard, Zaha, Olise, Eze, March, Gross, Welbeck etc. Any high upside streamers picked up from either team can be dropped, except ghost point magnet Anderson.
At What Point to "Take the L" and Plan for GW9
If you have a stack of players from United and Liverpool, and can only field 6 players as of now, and are contemplating dropping the likes of Eriksen or Van Dijk for a 7th streamer, just take the loss. Play your 6 players, to ensure you don't fall too behind in fpts, and give yourself a little bit of a chance. But if you are definitely taking the L anyway come Sunday, it may be worth picking up a player that was dropped. For example, if you are 75 points down in the run-up to the West Ham game and are rostering Coufal but Thiago is available on the waiver wire, drop Coufal and his 11 point ceiling for Thiago who will surely be back in the XI the next time Liverpool play in the EPL. He will help you a lot more over the next 2-3 gameweeks than Coufal.
Start as Many Players on Friday as Possible
Anything can happen this gameweek with the funeral of the Queen set to take place Monday. Who knows if a game just happens to get cancelled Saturday morning due to a lack of security or something else. My best advice is to play at least 3-4 players from those games, and there should be a ton of streamers available from Nottingham Forest, Fulham, Southampton, and Aston Villa. Look to punt on some Southampton players such as: Aribo, Djenepo, Salisu, Armstrong, and Walker-Peters. I wouldn't go as far as saying start the likes of McKenna and Worrall. But if you can start 5 players from these 2 games and maybe only 3 of them are your "streamers", you should be in good shape given the worst case scenario, which is what everyone needs to plan for every week it seems. With COVID the last 2 seasons, we know how late the EPL will postpone a game, so with a massive event taking place on Monday....be prepared for the worst this weekend.
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