WTR MLS Fantasy League: Week 4 Recap

Week four was marred by the international break and several teams on a bye. But you know what they say, "The show must go on!" This game week saw only 12 of the 23 MLS teams in action so I hope you didn't take any players that were not playing! Let's first take a look at the dream team of the week:

Highlights of the Dream Team:

I hope it's not becoming a recurring theme that this team is dominated by the New York Red Bulls. Six of them are present and boasting huge point hauls with youngster Alex Muyl leading the way with 28 points (if you captained him). Not sure who he is? Me neither. This is his first appearance for the Red Bulls in MLS this season and he made it count with a goal and assist in his team's 3-0 victory over Minnesota United.

The rest of the dream team was rounded out with Federico Higuain (Columbus Crew), Cristian Martinez (Columbus Crew), Daniel Steres (Los Angeles Galaxy), Wilfred Zahibo (New England Revolution), and Ismael Tabour-Shradi (New York City FC).

Here's a look at our (seemingly unchanged) leaderboard for the Waking the Red group:

Top three teams this week!

By the looks of it, Rosen, Oldergoaler and Lewis look to be the early favorites. But remember, this type of league is a marathon, not a sprint so certainly don't lose faith yet! With that being said though, each of their teams have consistently put up big numbers so they'll be hard to catch. Honorable mention to Trump who posted the highest score of the round with a 94!

Recapping tips from last week:

• That whole "pick the home teams because they are going to have better results" thing holds true again! It might not fall into the category of a wild prediction but points are points. The six home MLS teams went 2-0-4 this week, not too shabby and undefeated for the second week running!
• Of the four specific players I mentioned last week (Maxi Moralez (NYCFC), Miguel Ibarra (Minnesota), Bradley Wright-Philips (NYRB) and Gyasi Zardes (Columbus)) only Wright-Philips cracked the dream team. The other three did put up solid contributions with 4, 3, and 2 points respectively.

Tips for week five:

• The only team on a bye this week appears to be FC Dallas. So pending any other suspensions, injuries or odd outliers, feel free to take your pick of the lot.
• I'm going to keep riding the home team train. Particularly I like Toronto FC (of course) over Real Salt Lake. RSL have scored once in each of their first three games and have an even 1-1-1 record to show for it. A fresh TFC squad should be able to capitalize here so fill your squad with the good guys.
• I also have to side with the Columbus Crew over the Vancouver Whitecaps. Vancouver is off to a solid start and do have Kei Kamara to lead their attack. While he's good for a goal pretty frequently I think Zack Steffen has his number after he posted a shutout on international duty. Steffen and co. are safe picks this week as well.
• There's a few good story lines this week too which could go either way — cagey affairs or goalfests. There's the battle of LA (Galaxy vs. LAFC), last year's expansion teams (Atlanta United vs. Minnesota) and Sacha Kljestan vs. his old team (NYRB). With these games it's safe to stick with the Atlanta attacking contingent, Red Bulls defense (Particularly Luis Robles & Tim Parker) and I like our old boy Steve Beitashour of LAFC to have a good week.
• Other specific players I like for one reason or another this week are Frederico Higuain (Columbus), Sean Johnson (NYCFC), Alberth Elis (Houston Dynamo), Bradley Wright-Philips (NYRB) and let's take Marky Delgado (TFC).
• Fun fact, Zlatan Ibrahimovic is available for a costly $10.0M. I'm not even sure if he's slated to play or wants to play. Zlatan does what Zlatan wants as we all know. He'll be an entertaining addition to the league either way though.

Best of luck as usual this week!