Gameweek 9 Wrap-up

Another interesting week is in the books, which seemed to follow the recent trends of striker goals and a clear scarcity of clean sheets. Drogba, Van Persie and Bent (sort of) all managed to find the back of the net, while the fortunes of the other big strikers were much worse with Torres and Rooney missing through injury, and Defoe being sent off against former club Portsmouth (having scored earlier in the day). Only Sunderland and Fulham managed clean sheets despite good prospects for the likes of Arsenal, Everton and United. It is becoming clear that until one of the big five or six sides can sustain a run of clean sheets the best strategy is to load up on mid price/cheap defenders and play them based on matchup.

Transfer Watch
Defoe owners will likely want to move early in the week as the Spurs striker is set to miss the next two gameweeks after his suspension. His price has already fallen in the past couple of weeks due to a run of three games without a goal. At the time of writing 27,000 net transfers out have already occurred and one would expect Defoe to fall to 8.7m before the week is done. Spurs' fixtures are okay when he returns so it isn't a no brainer to sell him but it would be tough to have 8.8m ride the bench for the next two weeks.

Steve Gerrard limped out of tonight's Champions league loss to Lyon with what appears to be a recurrence of his groin injury. If I haven't said it enough before, Gerrard is a major sell right now, especially in light of Torres' injury, Liverpool's terrible form and Sunday's opposition (MNU).

Richard Dunne and James Collins both found the net this week as well as earning bonus points which should give rise to a flurry of transfer activity. I have tipped this paid in the past (especially Collins) but beware, Villa's sees them travel three times in the next four weeks before a later run of trips to MNU, Sun and Ars. Ride the wave while you can but consider selling high on this pair in a week or two.

Cesc Fabregas's value increased by an astonishing 0.3m last week and is already up by another 0.1m this week. Gerrard's injury could accelerate this and I would not be surprised to see 11.2m by the weekend. Needless to say I still rate him as a buy, having scored again tonight.

I'm just running through the schedule strengths for the next few weeks and will post them asap. Hope your weeks went okay and as always continue to post your transfer thoughts and tips.