The big match in Premier League this weekend is no doubt the clash between Liverpool and Manchester City Sunday evening. What is more fitting than this week’s full round fantasy competitions being decided by the encounter between number one and two in the table?

Premier League round 8 will start already on Friday, when West Ham takes the trip to Brighton for a very open fixture. As usual, such an early match is not included in the full round tournament, but there is a single-match competition, so you can get warmed up for Saturday.

It is very easy to predict who will be chosen as captain by most fantasy managers: HARRY KANE (14.9M). There is just no two ways about it – if you want the guy with the biggest chance of getting a lot of points. Cardiff will visit Wembley on Saturday and the Welsh outfit has five losses in a row. Some of those losses came against tough opposition, but last weekend they could not even get a point at home against Burnley. No team in the Premier League has conceded more goals this season than Cardiff and that is good news for owners of Kane. The man himself has scored three times in the last two matches, and his form seems to be getting better. However, there are some negatives for those who want to speculate. Firstly, he has scored two out of his three last goals from the penalty spot. Secondly, Tottenham are playing an extremely tough Champions League match in midweek against Barcelona. Thirdly, Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli are both struggling with injuries and could miss the Cardiff match. That will surely reduce the number of Kane’s goal chances. On the other hand, Burnley managed to score twice on Cardiff, so how hard can it be?

As usual, we have some suggestions for who to put on your dream team. Perhaps our good form from last week will spill over to this one. In our quest to find cheap value options, we recommended James Maddison (7 points), Jamie Vardy (7 points) and David Brooks (5 points). Only Roberto Pereyra did not get either a goal or an assist. Additionally, we predicted a Wolverhampton clean sheet and as for captain, we mentioned three candidates: Sergio Aguero (7 points), Raheem Sterling (13 points) and Alexandre Lacazette (7 points).  

Captain Kane or Hazard in charge?

EDEN HAZARD (12.8M) is a decent alternative. The Belgian ran away and scored a nice goal against Liverpool, and we do not have to backtrack longer than to his third latest Premier League game to find a hat trick! Hazard has been playing well for the whole beginning of the season, and it is only right that he should get some goals for it. Southampton is perhaps not the easiest of opposition – they are in ok form – but Chelsea have impressed us, and it will be a surprise if they do not win.

Budget options

We like GYLFI SIGURDSSON (8.3M) for one of the spots in our “bargain” section. While it is true that Everton are facing a Leicester team in very nice form, the Toffees impressed us in their 3-0 win over Fulham. Even though Sigurdsson made a very rare penalty miss, it was never really a match that could go both ways – Everton were just too dominating. Gylfi himself made up for the miss by scoring twice, and showed absolute top form for the third match in a row. At this price, the Icelander is definitively worth a shot.

Although Fulham were pretty weak against Everton, we saw positive things from ANDRE SCHURRLE (6.8M) for the third time in a row. The left-winger has been struggling for a couple of years after being a hot name on the German National team. He is only 27, so it is still time to find back to his best moves. Arsenal have surprisingly kept a clean sheet in the last two matches, but normally their defence is shaky. Their left-back Monreal likes to make really deep runs forward, so maybe Schurrle can catch him out a couple of times and either score or make an assist to ALEXANDAR MITROVIC (7.3M) who as we know is Fulham’s main goal getter. He had no shots on target against Everton, but we doubt that his nice form already is gone.

The advantage of not playing in the Champions League

While most of the top teams in the UK are playing midweek, matches in the Champions League this week, Chelsea are occupied with the far less important Europa League. Not only that, but their Thursday match is a very soft one. Hungarian Videoton used to be good, but these days they go by the name of Vidi and they are not a threat to Chelsea or any other English team. We expect Chelsea manager Sarri to make wholesale changes for the encounter, so most of the team regulars can stay fresh for Sunday’s trip to Southampton. Looking to pick players from a big team that is not affected by Champions League fatigue? Look no further. Besides the already mentioned Hazard, we like their defence too. The Londoners have let in only five goals so far this season, and that is impressive. Their back four is settled too, so it should be safe to pick anyone of them, perhaps with the exception of DAVID LUIZ (8.6M), but we do believe he will start again. MARCOS ALONSO (9.8M) is an all-time favourite for fantasy managers and should be picked, although his form is not great in terms of offensive impact. ANTONIO RUDIGER (8.9M) and CESAR AZPILICUETA (9.5M) are clear candidates too, and the price of KEPA (9.0M) is nice. Too bad we can only pick three from Chelsea!

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