While Man. United and Chelsea had to play in the Champ. League, City take a break and Liverpool crush Leeds 6-0 and make the title race more and more exciting. This weekend, however, it’s a break again for Liverpool and Man. City have to play Everton. In addition, Arsenal, Chelsea and Leicester still have matchday off, which means that some top stars will not be available at SPITCH. In this preview, as always, I’ll introduce you to players who can be cheap alternatives or solid additions to your team. Pick one or more players that particularly appeal to you and don’t pick too many as most of the players in this preview are riskier picks.

Goal:

Jordan Pickford (8.6m, Everton): Against Man. City it can go one of two ways for a goalkeeper: Either he allows no to few goals and scores very well or his team is overrun by City and he scores mediocre points, by conceding a lot of goals. The Toffees are playing a miserable season but will give everything against the current league leaders. Moreover, Pickford scored an outstanding 531 in the last game against Southampton and is clearly in first place in the Super Pass statistic, in the last five games.

Defence:

Sergio Regulion (10.9 million, Tottenham): After his Corona infection, he could be back in the starting eleven after his team’s poor performance against Burnley during the week and I am particularly impressed by the Spaniard under Antonio Conte. Conte questioned himself during the week and spoke about his ambitions as a coach after the frustrating defeat, but he will also do everything he can to secure a win and take the important three points in the race for the international places. Regulion regularly scores green points and will be going all out to break Conte’s doubts in the game against Leeds.

Harry Maguire (12.5 million, Man. United): At the beginning of the season, I would never have thought that Harry Maguire would ever be in a preview, because the captain of the England national team simply made mistakes too often and does not manage to perform consistently. However, this seems to be changing. In his last two Premier League games he made 371 and 375 points and also this week in the Champions League he convinced with 308 points. Their opponents Watford were already beaten 1:4 by Palace during the week and the Red Devils will want to attack again and show their class.

Joachim Andersen (8.0m, Palace): If you happen to have a moment, be sure to check out his player profile picture on OneFootball. I hope everyone looks like this after they had him in their starting eleven at the weekend and he scored really well. The 25-year-old Dane is averaging 223 points and had solid performances in the last two games, scoring 366 and 312. After the win during the week, his team managed to end their six-game winless streak and will again give their all to stay on the winning track this weekend. Another interesting thing about Andersen is that he is second in the free-kick statistics, which means he earns you safe points from them every gamePontus Jansson (8.8m, Brentford): Another Scandinavian centre-back who is doing very well at the moment. In the last two games he made 247 and 334 points and leads the statistics ball intercepted/blocked in the last five games. Brentford do have a tough game ahead of them as Newcastle are improving this season and Brentford are without a win in seven consecutive games, but they will still give it their all at home at the Brentford Community Stadium and Jansson in particular could well score even if they lose.

Midfield:

Fred (11.9m, Man. United): He came on as a substitute in the league and scored straight away, then was in Manchester United’s CL starting line-up and played a solid game but did rather poorly at SPITCH with 154 points. However, the Red Devils are unbeaten in the league for seven games and Fred will be fueled after his goal in the last league game and will want to prove himself alongside the fit-again Paul Pogba.

Joseph Willock (6.9m, Newcastle): Even before the takeover by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and the huge amount of money it brought with it, Newcastle brought in Arsenal-trained midfield talent Joseph Willock for 30 million. This season, however, he has not been able to make much of a difference for the world’s richest club until recently, but now, finally, the 22-year-old is running hot. In his last three games, he averaged 366 points, scored a goal, drew a penalty and shot on goal eight times. What’s also worth remembering is that he scored in seven consecutive games last season while on loan at Newcastle. Perhaps this goal will start a new streak.

Dejan Kulusevski (11.7m, Spurs): The Swede is on loan to Tottenham until the end of the season and showed what he is capable of in his starting debut last week. He scored a goal and set up one. During the week he also played a solid game and against Leeds he will want to show what he can do and why Antonio Conte wanted to bring him to Inter.

Christian Eriksen (10,5 Mio., Brentford): The Dane seems to have regained his full fitness and was able to set up both Brentford goals behind closed doors in the friendly against Rangers. He has already shown us how strong he can be at Spurs and with the Danish national team and should he be allowed to play from the start against Newcastle this weekend, then every SPITCH manager should have him on their books.

Attack:

Daniel Podence (4.6m, Wolverhampton): He is slowly coming into form and has been delivering consistently good performances for several games. At the weekend he scored his first goal of the season against Leicester and during the week he showed a good game against Arsenal, but could not prevent the defeat. Wolves will be looking to attack again this weekend and perhaps the Portuguese will manage to score his second goal of the season against the Hammers.
Armando Broja (1.8m, Southampton): The Albanian on loan from Chelsea is also starting to hit form. In his last three games he has managed to score one goal, record eight goal shots and average 218 points. Right on Friday, Southampton play against last place Norwich and at the price he is, he can definitely be considered as a cheap alternative.

Other alternatives:

Other players to keep an eye on are Lewis Dunk (12.8m, Brighton), who you can really always line up with an average of 280 points, James Ward-Prowse (11.2m, Southampton), who has been on a real roll lately and Jadon Sancho (15.3m, Man. United), who it seems has finally found his place with the Red Devils.

About me: I have been supporting SPITCH as an intern in the various divisions for several weeks now. Through my experience on the free pitches, I want to help you find interesting players that maybe not everyone has on their radar.