Week One is in the books. I hope your team was full of points. Congrats to those who rostered ("owned" makes me uncomfortable) Banda, or better yet, captained her.
I ended up with 140 points, good for 20th overall. Banda, Marta, Abello, and Chawinga were my big hitters, with everyone else between 5 and 8 points.
Looking forward to week 2, I have a general plan. First, to note that the top four teams -- Orlando, Washington, KC, and Gotham -- play each other. That's great for viewing, but lousy for fantasy. I'm considering benching some players from those teams and playing the matchups.
Second, more medium-term, is that Portland and Gotham will have two matches in gameweek 5. These can be big advantages and I always plan to attack those weeks and roster doublers. What's nice is that we have some time to prepare, though I'm not against taking a -5 (or -10) sometimes.
With that in mind, I'm looking at Portland this week. They play Angel City, while as mentioned above, Gotham plays the Pride. Deyna, Moultrie, and Perry are on my watchlist. Perry is a cheap defender and can swap into my team easy. Full disclosure here: I accidently put Julie Dufour on my bench for week one. I wanted Ana Marie Guzman all pre-season, but she was injured in week one. I'm not sure who else I should have put on the bench, but I didn't think Dufour would start, and she didn't. Not great, but hey, she can now easily become Perry.
Deyna and especially Moultire, are much more attractive fantasy players. However they're also correspondingly more expensive. I would love to swap one of them in for Ally Sentnor. The Utah Royal looked a true midfielder, when I was hoping she would be played in the forward line. The Royals are playing the San Diego Wave this week. I don't think the Wave are as good as Angel City made them look. More reason to target Portland who play Angel City this week. So I want to hold Sentnor for at least one more week. I can look to make the move at a latter date.
Another player who is definitely high on the watchlist is Sarah Schupansky. I have Gabi Portilho in my team and this isn't the week to double up on Gotham attack. But Schupansky is also $75,000 and would be an easy fit.
Rounding out the bargain priced trio I'm looking at is Taylor Huff. The Bay FC rookie played a big role in their attack and took some set pieces. She's a target if I want to free up money to move for another player. Though she may end up being a good pick in her own right.
So going into the gameweek, my team looks like this:
Captain is a hard decision this week, but I'll go with Banda over Chawinga. She balled out against a dire Chicago squad last week and will take that momentum into a road match with a thin Gotham backline also missing Mandy Freeman to her red card last week. I'm tempted to play Abello and bench Portilho, as good as she looked against Chicago, but I'm more inclined to go with the forward than the defender. The Orlando clean sheet is less certain, and Gotham will pose more challenges for Orlando who might not play Abello as an auxiliary inside forward.
My back four is already full with Williams, who has earned always start status for me and is home to a rebuilding Seattle side; Gisele Thompson against a rebuilding Portland side; Avery Patterson against Chicago, who are in the demolition phase of their eventual rebuid; and Jayden Perry, as discussed above.
I would consider benching Perry for Abello. Hard to roster a player just to bench them, but that's one for the future (gameweek five) anyway. Thinking emoji.
In midfield, it's Marta, Sentnor, and Olivieri, who disappointed me last week but gets a "who's playing Chicago" reprieve.
What do you think? How did you do last week and what are your transfer thoughts?
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