By Patrick Donald
With the Premier League heating up going into its final stages, the Fantasy Premier League is as well. With Liverpool and Manchester City battling it out for the title, Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal fighting for 3rd and 4th place, here are some of my top picks for players you shouldn’t miss out on getting in your team to make sure you beat your friends in the final few weeks.
Liverpool are back in full flow pushing for the Premier League title, after a difficult spell, getting a few of draws against West Ham and Leicester, as well as an injury-struck Manchester United. Mohamed Salah is their clear star man with 18 goals in the league to date. His teammate Sadio Mané has 17 goals of his own and has picked up goals when Salah has been missing the target in recent weeks, however Liverpool’s ‘Egyptian King’ has 7 assists to his name as well whereas Mané. He is a very expensive player at £13.5 million, but he is worth every penny; especially due to playing as an inside forward for Liverpool, although on the game, he is classed as a midfielder, so you can have other strikers in your team at the same time. Scoring 216 points already this season, you’d be mad to not put him in your team.
Liverpool have a few tricky fixtures remaining in Chelsea and Wolves as well as looking likely to advance in the Champions League against Porto. So Salah will be looking to step up in these games as well as putting the smaller teams they have to play to the sword.
With Manchester City battling it out with Liverpool, the citizens are doing everything in their power to ensure they are the first team to win the league 2 years in a row since their Manchester rivals, United in 2009, 10 years ago. And one man who is leading this charge is Sergio Aguero. Fighting it out with Mohamed Salah for the Premier League golden boot, he has 19 league goals in Sky Blue this season and is scoring consistently, as he has throughout his City career. Scoring 175 points on Fantasy Premier League this year already, £11.7 million would be money well spent for the Argentinian forward. Another of Pep Guardiola’s men who would be worth putting in your team is Raheem Sterling. The young Englishman already has 15 goals and 9 assists for the blue side of Manchester this season and with his electrifying pace and skilful trickery, it is almost guaranteed he’ll add to his tally a few more times before the end of the season, especially since he has clearly become one of the first names on Guardiola’s team sheet this year.
Manchester City have favourable fixtures for the rest of the season other than games against Tottenham at the Etihad and away at Old Trafford against Manchester United. However, with City’s dominance, they could easily steam-roll both these teams as well as the rest. Sterling and Aguero would both be fantastic players to put in your team for Manchester City’s last 6 games.
With the remaining 4 teams behind Liverpool and City in the league, each team have an outstanding player that could drive them into the top four at the end of the season. Tottenham’s Son Heung-Min has been in exceptional form for the Lilywhites. Picking up many of the responsibilities since Harry Kane and Dele Alli had been out injured a few weeks ago. This season, he has 12 goals and 5 assists and will look to carry on that form as it seems Harry Kane is injured once again after hobbling off against City in the Champions League. Spending £8.6 million on the South-Korean winger would be a smart choice. Paul Pogba has been in fine form since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer took over from Jose Mourinho at Old Trafford. Undoubtedly United’s main man, with 11 goals and 9 assists being the World-Cup winner’s best return in any season of his professional football career, he should be one of the first players you should consider bringing into your midfield for the remainder of the Premier League campaign. It looks as if Eden Hazard will be leaving Chelsea at the end of the season, so surely he’ll want to leave Stamford Bridge on a high getting them into the top 4. Eden Hazard has 16 goals and 12 assists to his name in the Premier League already this campaign and he’ll almost definitely add to that in their last 5 games. He is a costly transfer at £11.1 million, but with Gonzalo Higuain now in the team to finish off the chances Hazard will create, he’d be a good acquisition to your Fantasy team. Arsenal’s forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has been in sensational form for the Gunners this season with 17 goals and even 5 assists. Arsenal will be fighting to get into the top 4, so it would be a good acquisition as he’ll be fired up to get them over the line.
