Gameweek 5 preview
September 21, 2012
22 Sep 12:45 Swansea v Everton
22 Sep 15:00 Chelsea v Stoke City
22 Sep 15:00 Southampton v Aston Villa
22 Sep 15:00 West Brom v Reading
22 Sep 15:00 West Ham v Sunderland
22 Sep 15:00 Wigan v Fulham
23 Sep 13:30 Liverpool v Man Utd
23 Sep 15:00 Newcastle v Norwich
23 Sep 16:00 Man City v Arsenal
23 Sep 16:00 Tottenham v QPR
We’ve a bumper crop of games on the Sunday featuring all but one of the top seven from last season. Arsenal host City and United go to Liverpool. Tottenham and Newcastle play their first of many Sunday games following their Thursday Europa League slogs. Chelsea play Stoke on the Saturday, and are probably the most reliable of the big hitters to pick up the big points. For the record, Chelsea’s first hard game of the season comes next week when they go to the Emirates. So big teams may cancel each other out this weekend. Which is good news for the bottom 27 teams in the Buckets League. Rip Roaring Reds have three Arsenal and three City players. A 0-0 draw with plenty of cards is not beyond the realm of possibility. Time to pull back that gap.
So, maybe it’ll be one of those weeks where the top points scorers come from the other matches. Maybe Berbatov will bag a few more for Fulham. Of all the strikers priced in the 7 million bracket, he’s certainly the most likely to end the season in double figures, although Steven Fletcher’s made a good start to his Sunderland career. Sunderland are away at West Ham. Fulham travel to Wigan. Definitely a chance for both strikers to add to their totals.
West Brom are back at home against Reading. They look like a team that will prove difficult to beat on their own turf. Across their first two home games against both Scouse teams, they’ve scored 5 and conceded nil. They’ve plenty of players who’ve made good starts to the season. All are relatively cheap, so you won’t have to move multiple players out to get one or two of them in – if you so wish.