The Fantrax Transactions you need to do this week: GW20
Tommy Tuchel's having a party
This is edition six of the “Transactions” series and will focus on moves you can make to improve your Fantrax roster and give yourself a season-long advantage over the opposition in your league. These columns won’t talk too much about the very top tier players, it goes without saying that you should buy KDB if the opportunity arises, and only sell these players if the offer is ground-breakingly excellent.
It’s actually not been that long since I wrote a transactions column. And yet, it’s also been bloody ages in Fantrax terms!
If I was to sum up this season in a word, it’d be “relentless”. And it’s not letting up. In the last seven days alone (at time of writing), we’ve seen Kevin De Bruyne pick up an injury, Liverpool blank at Burnley (?!) and Chelsea make a managerial change.
In the face of this constant shifting, you could be forgiven for struggling to know what a good player acquisition strategy is. I’m going to try to highlight some of the moves that I think you should be considering to provide a post-January shot in the arm for your Fantrax team, as we move into the business end of the season.
I’d say the last few weeks make it probably a bit late to add Phil Foden (as he’s the fifth overall scoring player in 2021 so far), but he can at least provide an opportunity for me to plug my most recent article, in discussion with @drafterthoughts and @ovrthnkfootball, where Phil may have been tipped as a breakout for the second half of the season!
*Editors Note* The Value Index will return but needs some cleaning up with all the double fixtures and strange gameweeks. I will backdate values into this article as I reach this Gameweek. I blame my 5 month old entirely for the productivity loss that has led to this delay.
Buy of the week: Buy Ross Barkley
This one isn’t so much trying to pluck someone that is out of form as it is trying to find some nervousness in the manager that owns Ross. Three games back now. Not a score above ten points, not even in a matchup against Newcastle. He’s got Twitter favourite El Ghazi breathing down his neck. What if this is the real Ross Barkley? What if the early season was a mirage?
Except, Ross Barkley has been an elite Fantrax producer before. In fact, if you focus on his last few seasons at Everton and his non-sub appearances at Chelsea, you see a pattern of a consistent double figure producer. His injury is a worry, because it’s not the sort of thing you want in a congested fixture season. But even if he is managed more carefully by Dean Smith, this is a player you want exposure to. Especially as Villa’s Covid-enforced winter break means there are some DGWs in their future!
Sell Ilkay Gundogan
I hate when a player goes on a run like this. Not because I’m facing him in my home league (but I am) and not because it’s scary to see just how well coached Manchester City can be (it is). But because identifying the peak is hard. I do not expect Ilkay Gundogan to continue to be the number one player in Fantrax. But so far in 2021, he is on a total points basis. He scored 30 (thirty) points in 51 minutes this week. But this is not who he has been in his career to date. The best case you can make is that the injury to De Bruyne (and possibly the tactical tweak Pep has made this season with Joao Cancelo) is forcing him into more advanced positions.
But even so, this is a player who has finished with around 5 points per game in two of the last three seasons. If you can sell him and shift the risk, I’d be 100% doing that. In fact, my favourite hypothetical offer this week is probably to try to move Gundogan out and bring Mason Mount in (capitalising on any fears the manager may have from Tuchel’s first team selection). But even if you can’t get a prize that large, you should be able to get a season long contributor in return for Gundo’s hot streak.
You might find that until KDB returns, you miss out on a couple of good performances. Or you might find that goals change Fantrax scores, and Ilkay may regress. Either way, you’re probably improving your team for the second half of the year and that’s always a good thing.
Add Christian Benteke
Speculative? Yes. But if Big Sam reportedly gets his way, Benteke will be heading up the motorway and trading his Croydon digs for something a little closer to Birmingham.
Sensible? Maybe.
Benteke is a Fantrax points monster when he is on the pitch (arguably we should all see this as a sign that something is wrong in our scoring rules but lets ignore that for a moment) and it’s hard to imagine a better fit than Big Sam and Big Benteke. And it’s not like there’s a huge amount of competition he’d have to beat to get into the lineup at West Brom.
It’s a stash. It might not happen. But in 10+ team leagues, there’s a good chance you’re rostering someone worse.
Add Callum Hudson-Odoi
This is going to be published one game too late for the true breakout party. But make no mistake, we are seeing signs of yet another young Englishman making the leap in the Premier League. You can almost pinpoint the turn in form down to the game that started Frank Lampard’s spiral: the 3-1 loss to Arsenal. Callum didn’t start the game but was brought in at half-time and provided the only spark in the Chelsea attack in that game. And bar the game at Leicester, he’s continued to look the brightest in Chelsea’s otherwise fairly expensive set of attackers.
Enter Thomas Tuchel and, although we cannot make any kind of reasonable conclusions about what he plans to do tactically or who he will favour yet, the one notable thing about the Wolves game was that the tactics were set up to give Callum a lot of the ball and to get him to deliver it to dangerous areas. Wolves reacted to Callum’s first half performance by moving Nelson Semedo over to shadow him (which Tuchel responded to by swapping Callum over to the other side). Not only that, but when it came time to try to change the game, Callum remained on the field for the full 90 minutes.
I'd add him everywhere he’s still on waiver wires. I’d buy him in leagues where it was possible. And I’ll be hoping he’s the next young star to travel down the Bukayo Saka highway.
Sell John Stones
I know, I know. I wrote preview articles telling you to pick up John Stones. But I couldn’t have accounted for him magicking up two goals out of nowhere, could I? All of a sudden, his PPG stats, which are heavily inflated already by Clean Sheets have been inflated all the more by his goals.
If you offered me odds that he wouldn’t score again this season, I’d probably make that bet. If you asked me if I thought the Clean Sheets would dry up, I’d be less sure. But either way, inflated PPG = a sell high opportunity. I’d look to see whether there is the option to turn Stones into a player that’s a bit more “active” in the Fantrax points categories. Could you even push to turn Stones into a Coufal or similar? If so, I’d be all over that.
Just remember, this isn’t a panic sell or a fire sale. He’s a perfectly usable Fantrax defender at this point. Just don’t expect his PPG to stay quite so pristine if the CS column gets just a little bit less ticked in the second half of the season.
Buy Dominic Calvert Lewin / Richarlison
A double whammy. Take your pick or go for both but there’s some value to be had on these two right now. Everton have been quietly going about their business with a pretty threadbare squad with the injuries that they picked up in the first half of the season. A number of those names are getting their fitness back now and if they can get their first choice players onto the pitch at the same time, these two should be the main benefactors. Back in August, they were firing on all cylinders and it looked as though these two might both be finishing as top 10 forwards.
I’m interested in buying either, but DCL is the preference, as he’s had a bit a rare barren spell after some pretty incredible consistency. He probably still won’t come cheap, but he is the sort of player that could hit form and fire you to a consistent stream of double figure outings. Richarlison you might get for a slightly lower price, but you have to factor in the recurrent injury challenges into that.
Either way, with Digne and James seemingly healthy again (for now) and Allan not far away from returning, better days seem ahead for the pair and if I can get some exposure to that, count me in, even despite their 6.5 combined points against Leicester!
*A short note on Chelsea players*
I have called out Hudson-Odoi above, but his inclusion is actually more to do with his performances the last month, but otherwise knowing what to do with Chelsea players is near impossible without knowing more about Tuchel.
However uncertainty is where you can benefit from strange decisions, so if you’re out to buy / sell right now, I’d recommend that you aim to get at least the following players in whilst their value is temporarily depressed:
Christian Pulisic
Mason Mount
Reece James
Hakim Ziyech
Timo Werner (speculative but if he can sort his head out, outputs will likely follow).
I would avoid getting sucked in on Jorginho. Even in the season when he was Sarri’s centrepiece midfielder, he was worth 5.2 PPG. You don’t want anything to do with him.
And that’s it for this week’s transactions. Good to be back. Subscribe with the button below and feel free to comment / message on Twitter if you want to discuss any of these, or suggest others.
Oh and see below the line for a remnant of the first draft that… didn’t age well.
BONUS OUT OF DATE TAKE, SAVED FOR POSTERITY: Sell Craig Dawson
The 27th best CB since the turn of the year, despite a dud in his most recent performance. In fact, the 18th up until that last match.
Highlight those statistics. Ctrl+C. Open your messenger of choice. Find a potential trade partner. Ctrl+V. That’s our case right there. They should buy Dawson because he’s a top 30 (maybe 20) defender providing stable and solid output. Don’t let the conversation drift into ugly territories like “Clean Sheet dependency” or “lack of Ghost Points” because that’s where you’ll lose deals.
Dawson has been a really solid defensive stream for many of us through the busy period. But now is the time to try to capitalise on a high value that he’s going to find it hard to maintain going forward.
Great read! I'm in a 10 teamer. Benteke and Benrahma are on waivers. I've got Vardy (INJ), Ings, Mahrez, Jota (INJ), and Willian Jose. Do you add one those FAs? Or would you try a trade for DCL? Do you sit tight?