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Week 5 Barn-door Bonanza

Rob Allen gives you some ideas of which players you should be looking to bring in during that tricky barn-door period

Welcome to week 5 of the Barn-door Bonanza, we’ve got all of the players you should be considering when preparing for your week 6 team. Without further ado, here’s your team by team breakdown:

Southampton


Southampton midfielders and forwards are premium picks in week 6 at home to a QPR team who has the worst goal difference in the league. The key players to look out for are:

Schneiderlin – He’s the second highest performing midfielder in the game but he’s owned by just 4.4% percent of managers. They’re away to Swansea in week 5 but with 27 points in week 3 and 14 in week 5 there’s no telling how high his price might rise.

Pelle – He’s got the sixth highest score of any forward, costs less than 10m and is owned by just 3% of the population – I’ll be looking to include both of the these players in week 6.

Bertrand – He’s generally on or off but when he’s on, he’s a slice of fried fantasy gold.

Mane – Whilst I suspect week 5 may be too soon for him, he could be part of the action in week 6 so try and grab that fantastic 6.03m price tag before it rises.

Manchester United


It was only a matter of time before they got it together right? I’m not one to get excited over one good game but I strongly suspect that they’ve turned a corner. Their attacking players prices are now flying and some, like Herrera’s, jumped up by 2.5m over last weekend. I have some concerns how Mata and Falcao are going to be played but I think you have to look at:

Di Maria – It’s all coming together and his 21 points last week could become his average. The definition of a season keeper.

Falcao – If he played every week he’d be a season keeper as well but I fear that playing alternate weeks might raise his price and bring the risk of the dreaded ‘rotation’. However, if he’s on, West Ham are in trouble, big trouble.

Evans & Blackett – Two defenders who appear to score well, are in a largely transformed team and that are still relatively cheap. Nice. It’s worth noting though that the introduction of Shaw will probably bring Blackett’s playing time to an end.

Chelsea


Chelsea are fantastic picks for week 6 with Aston Villa visiting (who face Arsenal, Chelsea and Man City in three games). The only problem is that all of their players are quite expensive already and the vast majority of managers already have Costa, Courtois and Fabregas. If you fancy any of the team I won’t stand in your way but Man City might do us all a favour and drop their price during week 5.

Manchester City


Manchester City have a great match up as well, away to Hull. I can see Aguero easily getting on the scoreboard along with the strong likelihood of a clean sheet. The trouble of course is that even if Aguero does, there’s no guaranteeing that he will return enough points to justify his current cost of 17.43m. Similarly the rest of the team are all expensive except…

Mangala – He’s got to be in action soon so keep an eye on team news – at 8.69 he could be a great cheap way of getting into this defensive unit.

Stoke


Stoke aren’t sexy. There, I said it. Who wants to be the manager who choses Shawcross when he could have Lovren or Rojo for the same amount? The paradox with Stoke though is that some of their players score fantasy points for fun, such as:

Shawcross – Any player who after 4 weeks costs 10m and averages 11 points is fantasy gold.

Bardsley – As above, costs 9.55m and averages 9 points.

Begovic – He hasn’t performed well of late and has the dubious honour of averaging just 2 points per game however many of us know that he can be a fantasy stud! Week 5’s game against QPR could get his price moving back in the right direction and a home game in week 6 against Newcastle should be equally forgiving.

So that's it for this week, I'll see you again on Tuesday with my By The Numbers column.