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Thread predicting Chelsea's line up and formation for their home tie against Newcastle. 1/14
#ChampManFPL
#ChampManFPL
Thanks for this one guys..... let me start by saying predicting Claudio Ranieri was tough in his Chelsea heyday let alone with CM01/02 AI thrown into the mix, but we like a challenge... 2/14
one thing i can be almost certain on is the formation. Home or away Chelsea line up in the staggered 3-5-2 already seen in both their league games so far, in fact i have only ever seen the length of the arrows on the wingbacks be shortened on rare occasions. Now 2 personnel 3/14
Quite frankly the only "nailed" (when i say nailed i mean over 90% because, you know, CM01/02) players appear to be Cudicini, Desailly, Zola, and Petit - in that order too. In the bracket just below i would put Hasselbaink, Gallas, Stanic, Terry and Melchiot also in order 4/14
Gronkjaer battles for LWB with Babayaro but usually wins. There are a host of other squad players who can come in like Ferrer or Morris etc but they are not worth talking about. Desailly is the safest pick for CS, so much so that if the AI thinks he needs to play a backline 5/14
of Melchiot, Terry, Gallas (or a randomer) Desailly will sometimes slip into CM (at 33 lol) rather than be rested. I still think Melchiot is a good pick at 5m due to his ability to play DC and the favored RWB role that can be so lucrative. Chelsea are also top 5 for CS in 6/14
most sims so the mix of attacking potential and CS seems good compared to a lot of other 5 or even 5.5 picks from other teams. Much depends on how strong your bench is as to if hes a good pick imo. Gallas has played a 5 (happens a lot with him for some reason) this sim and 7/14
seemingly dropped because of it, however i'm going to back him to come back into the starting XI simply because i have him only behind Desailly in all other sims for starts. Terry is young in this (20) but good so sometimes takes a while to get a place but usually claims it 8/14
to some extent - that means their most common back 3 is Desailly, Gallas, Terry with Melchoit occasionally replacing Terry rather than Gallas in the main. I could go on and on but i think people are most concerned with the Che Defence and Stanic. 9/14
Stanic usually only misses 1 game in a row if he does get benched so i also am backing him to come back in. His best position for fantasy is actually RWB where he thrives, however he can go into AMC pushing Zola up top resulting in a bench for Jimmys partner (usually Eidur) 10/14
or Jimmy himself (rare). Stanic can do well in that role too of course but usually not as well as at wingback. Stanic can also play in the two in CM, in fact if you look at how Chelsea played in their friendlies in this sim you can tell their positions by where their name 11/14
appears on the team ratings. Against Gentoran he played in CM alongside Lampard with Petit going to CB, this is also rare but common enough to mention. This also makes Stanic still a good pick for me, he can play 3 positions, 2 of which are great for fantasy points so again 12/14
i think hes still a good pick if you have your bench in order. For reference as Chelsea have such a deep squad and the Premier League only allows for 5 subs (1 of which is always a GK) this means a player like Stanic will often play or not be amongst the 4 like he was this 13/14
week so he is often protected from cameos and therefore bench point blocking. Anyway enough rambling Here are my 2 best guesses for the line up -i think either Melchoit or a fwd will miss out depending on where they play Stanic - Im less confident than Blackburn just FYI =) 14/14
