Fantasy Premier League

Thu Dec 27 10:22PM by Neal Thurman

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For those of you who didn't see the Citeh/Rovers match today, you probably won't get a great sense from the highlights or match reports how dominant Martin Petrov was.  For the first 60 or 70 minutes or so, he was far and away the best player on the field.  Bentley and Santa Cruz had better statistical matches but MPet looked to be the one you'd want on your team.  Elano has gotten more press as Sven's best signing but MPet looks to be close to as valuable.  If you're rating the summer signings, the three best were on display today - Elano, RSC, and MPet.  If Elano continues to be slowed by injuries, his teammate may overtake him in the race to be newcomer of the year.

The fixtures keep on coming but after the matches on either side of New Years we get a bit of a break and hopefully, we'll get a chance to add some new (cheap) blood to the mix before matches resume on the 12th.  In the meantime, here are the guys to watch over New Years with an eye towards the Barn Door.

Rovers continue a run of bottom-of-the-table teams with a trip to the Reebok to visit what may be an Anelka-less Bolton - in theory, you should already be loaded up on Rovers players but you may want to track McCarthy over this coming weekend to see if his 2nd half runout will lead to him being re-inserted as a starter.  From what I saw, it shouldn't but if ever there was a time for Mark Hughes to revive the confidence of last season's talisman a stretch of Derby, Sunderland, and Bolton would be it. Also worth checking out Nelsen's price after his OG today and Friedel's price is likely to go down after he let in 2 goals in a draw.  All worth monitoring if you haven't picked them up already.

Pompey also continue their run of what should be non-taxing fixtures with a trip to Sunderland.  If you didn't buy in for the New Years weekend, Kanu, Benjani, and Kranjkar are reasonable bets to watch. If Kanu hits one on Saturday vs. Boro, be sure to pick him up immediately.  

Arsenal's run of fixtures gets a bit easier after New Years with Birmingham, Fulham, and NUFC upcoming in the Prem.  Hleb and Diaby are inexpensive and if RvP continues to struggle with his fitness, Bendtner seems like he's earning more time.  Flamini is also cheap and has had some runs where he's been a pretty good fantasy choice for the price.

Reading have been just terrible on their travels and they head to Villa - most of Villa's players are expensive but Carew is reasonably priced and worth picking up if he starts making some noise in one of the New Years fixtures.

Finally, probably not important to do anything about this one before prices change based on match-ups but I'm likely to consider getting back on the Dean Ashton bandwagon for the 12th.  West Ham have the ManYoo/Arsenal double on either side of ringing in the New Year but they host a terrible-on-the-road Fulham team who may or may not actually have a manager at that point.  Might be worth a look at Ashton if he improbably scores one or two against the league leaders.

Finally, a Barn Door Watch shout out to Giles Barnes for ending the year by showing the form we expected from him all season.  We aren't going to jinx him by renaming the feature yet but given that Derby are going to host Wigan on the 12th, you might want to think about our guy if his price drops back down to a reasonable level.  He's been improving his performances with a 10, 15, and 20 in his last three matches.

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