Friday's Team News

Blues hope to recall star pair - Yahoo! Sport UK
Chelsea hope to have Arjen Robben and Michael Ballack available for the trip to Blackburn in the Premiership on Sunday. Robben injured himself in the warm-up prior to Chelsea's defeat to Middlesbrough on Wednesday night but should be fit and Ballack has almost fully recovered from a hip injury.
Team news is full of the usual "should be fit" and "expected to be fit", though "almost fully recovered" is a new one.

So no good answer for Neal, or, I assume, a lot of fantasy manager itching to buy Ballack. Ditto for Rosicky.

The West Ham/Liverpool match is turning into a medical crisis with both teams (potentially) missing quite a few players. Liverpool have enough depth to bring in Pennant and Gonzalez on the flanks, but if West Ham can't call on Bowyer or Benayoun, they will have to move strikers back or push their full-backs into midfield. The latter would make Paintsil or Konchesky good fantasy options, even if @LIV isn't an ideal matchup.

For Spurs, Berbatov seems the more likely of their injury doubts to make the game as he's just "nursing" his ankle while Jenas missed training. Also, Spurs have more depth at midfield than forward as Zokora could come back into the XI.

Gary Neville is out, but this may not help fantasy managers as his replacement, Wes Brown, costs over 9 "units". If you can afford him, he's a good buy for the week.

In other ManU news, don't forget that Ben Foster can't face his parent club, so Watford will have to field their reserve keeper.

Are you following any matchups, or sweating on any particular player's availability this weekend?

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:51 PM

    Zero chance I'm picking Ballack this week. Even if he returns he won't be 100%, and could have a Sheva sort of first game.

    Pity about Foster, since I was so looking forward to picking a Watford keeper for their Man U match...

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  2. Anonymous10:51 PM

    Any word on Heinze yet?

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  3. Anonymous5:27 AM

    heinze's injured...fractured his wrist in training...go for evra...jeremy, what do you think of bobby convey this week? is rosicky gonna start? i'm itching to pick him...and should i drop lampard to free up some $$$ to get downing and camara? i don't think berbatov is gonna play...deofe will start..

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  4. Anonymous7:20 AM

    Damn yahoo....spot on with the points allocation but player database is still outdated. no Kuyt or martins or anelka yet.how are we supposed to take the new players when they are not even in the database. luckily kuyt did not score even though i think he would have had a decent fantasy debut

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  5. Anonymous10:53 AM

    Jimmy Bullard is a stud. He and Giggs made my week. That is all.

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  6. Anonymous11:21 AM

    I hate Chelsea but man that away black kit with the pinstripes is hott!

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  7. More on this later in the week but Kuyt looked GREAT in about 30 minutes for his debut. He was everywhere. Going to be hard to keep him out of the line-up even though Crouch scored.

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  8. Anonymous9:04 PM

    Kuyt (Chelsea, Newcastle) and Martins (West Ham, Liverpool) also have two-game weeks approaching the week of 16 September...

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