Fantasy Freekick: Round 25

Very little change at the top of the table once again. Canadian Bacons expanded their one point lead to nine over Fish and Chips FC. The rest of the top ten remained status quo with the exception of 8^th and 9^th swapping places to keep things interesting. This week’s winner was Hopeless Wanderers managed by Simon Hitchens with 133 points. Thanks mostly to captaining Landon Donovan, who scored 58 points with the armband, and strong performances from Bill Hamid, Bobby Boswell and Fabian Espindola in DC Hopeless Wanderers found the path to the high score.

DGW MADNESS

DGW’s are back this week with TFC and Philadelphia leading the way with a home and home series. New England hosts Sporting KC and Chicago, Chivas host Seattle and then travel to Columbus on the weekend. Sporting’s second game of the week is another road trip in the northeast of the United States on Saturday night at Red Bull Arena.

The Union look to this series with an eye on TFC’s playoff spot. With a relatively healthy squad and just about everyone available for selection they look to be coming on strong this week. Le Toux ($8.4m) has been nothing short of outstanding two of the last three weeks and Wenger ($5.6m) has been much more consistent since the trade from Montreal. With the suspensions and international callups at forward this round combined with the Union DGW Wenger just might be the buy of the round.

Chivas USA will be without their top scorer Erick Torres due to the red card he picked up last week. With a couple of tougher matches it’s probably best to avoid Chivas all together.

At just $4.8m, two home matches and a team coming into form Bobby Shuttleworth could be a great buy this round. New England could easily come away with a clean sheet as they did in Toronto this past weekend. Andrew Farrell ($7.3m) has been reliable all season and Lee Nguyen ($8.7m) has been the midfielder to own for some time, not Fagundez. The young American did put up 7 points against SKC last time out though and this Chicago squad can concede goals. If you want a bit of a gamble Fagundez won’t break you bankroll at $7.4m.

The best team in the east is the hardest hit this week. Dom Dwyer and Benny Feilhaber will both be suspended due to yellow card accumulation. Combined with injuries to Paulo Nagamura and Sal Zizzo and Jacob Peterson this KC squad could be ripe for the taking for game one in New England. Soony Saad and CJ Sapong will likely get the start in the New England game but could be right back on the bench for the second with a few suspensions are over. This isn’t the time to be buying in KC as most won’t get both games and lineup prediction is a dangerous game to play with Peter Vermes’ team.

VIEW FROM THE BUNKER

It’s been an eventful few days in Toronto. First off there was a number of Canadians called into the national team camp ahead of the Canada v Jamaica game on September 9 then there was the Defoe injury, then the Nelsen firing and then the Defoe allegedly wanting out news. That is a lot to take in so what does that all mean for your fantasy team?

It means Defoe should not be in your squad since there are better ways to spend $11m for a month long stretch. I hear some midfielder in LA is tearing it up over the last few weeks and is in the same price range.

Second, Osorio wasn’t called into the Canada squad and news has come out that Doneil Henry won’t be going either. It’s highly unlikely that Ashtone Morgan, Kyle Bekker and Dwayne De Rosario were in your squad and if they were you either haven’t been managing your team for the last four months or they are sitting on your bench anyway.

The last big news is the firing of Ryan Nelsen and his coaching staff. How will this effect the players that were brought in under his watch? Will Vanney venture out from ol’ reliable (the 4-4-2)?

With the injuries at the back Henry and Hagglund should still be safe bets for consistent minutes. In midfield Collen Warner has been one of the most reliable TFC midfielders this season but will new coach Greg Vanney give him a full 90 game in and game out? Will Osorio get moved back to his more natural central midfield position? Finally up top does Luke Moore continue to get pegged as a starter?

Here are the top 10 in the WTR League: