During the 2018/19 Premier League season, Draft Answers will be bringing you monthly updates to help you with your Draft Fantasy Football team! From the best of the previous month’s polls, to teams, players and trades to target, I hope to give you advice that keeps you competitive in your league. These articles will also announce the Kante points player of the month!

Teams to target 🎯

Watford – Bournemouth (H) Wolves (A) Huddersfield (H)

Having had a great start to the season, they defied my advice for September and got results against Spurs! In comparison, their fixtures for October look very promising, and you are justified to fill your 5th Defender, Midfielder or Forward spots with Watford players. As will be shown later in this article, Capoue is offering great point returns if you are using TI (kante) scoring and is well worth a consideration for a 5th Midfielder spot (or 6th if you can flex 💪). With such a low ownership, Hughes (11.4%) is likely to be available and can pop up every now and then with an assist.

(Note, this article was written at the end of September, before the defeat to Bournemouth)

 

Brighton – West Ham (H) Newcastle (A) Wolves (H)

Murray and Groß aside, not many Brighton players are likely to have graced many Draft Fantasy Teams. (Matt Ryan is the 3rd highest owned player at 25.5%)

However, their upcoming run of ‘Draft friendly’ fixtures runs through November until early December, and a pickup of one player may prove to be what it takes to give you a win in your head-to-head matchups. That 1 player is Knockaert (12.2%). 1 goal and 3 assists before facing Manchester City, this man is getting involved in their attacking moves. Again, flexing him in to your team, or using him as your 5th defender, is unlikely to harm your Draft Teams’ potential!

 

Arsenal – Featured in last months’ article, their fixture friendly run of games continues throughout October.

 

Players to target 🎯

Any defender facing any of Cardiff, Huddersfield and Newcastle, the 3 teams yet to win a game this season. Prioritise them in that order. Admittedly, given Cardiff’s October fixtures only Fulham in GW9 are likely to have available defenders for you to pick up. Cardiff have only scored in 3 games this season, 2 of those have come in their last 2 home games. Despite playing Fulham at home it could well be worth choosing one of their players as your 5th defender this week.

Look to target an available Burnley defender in GW8, and a Watford defender in GW10. Although scoring in every away game so far, Huddersfield remain a good team to target when choosing your streaming defender, but for the opposing team! Watford, as mentioned above, are just a good team playing well so if you can get one of their defenders on your books, do it.

Finally, Kevin De Bruyne has started training after his knee injury. Some leagues may have him on waivers/free agency and now onwards is the time to start looking at him. He is a 1st round Draft pick and if you can get him into your team for 2/3 game weeks before he returns to the match squad that seems like a fair trade-off. It may be too much of a push to get a trade accepted for him as the manager with him has likely carried him in their team for too long to simply give him away so close to his return! – (Get in contact if you do manage this!)

 

Trades to look for 🔄:

Much like Ozil last month, Alexis Sanchez owners are likely feeling pretty cheesed off by his lack of fantasy football output. He has the highest percentage ownership of any Manchester United midfield player but is only averaging 2.5 points per game.

Owners have 2 choices, stick or sell. Given his low output, his price is not going to be very high at all. It is likely impossible to trade for a player of similar draft position. However, if you believe that his form will improve (they face Chelsea and Man City from the ‘big 6’ before December), then there is every chance that you can trade him in to your team at a ‘cheap’ price.

Poll requests featuring Sanchez have already begun coming in, so pay attention to @DraftAnswers on Twitter to see who or what the community think is a good trade for him!

 

Kante King of the Month 👑:

1)  Gueye 10 Interceptions; 31 Tackles – KB Score: 9

=1) Capoue 17 Interceptions; 12 Tackles – KB Score: 9

2) Billing 12 Interception; 15 Tackles – KB Score: 8

(KB – Kante Bonus)

Gueye gets a shout out here as he got a whopping 4 KB points in each of his last 2 games! Given the change in format to Kante scoring this season, this is a very impressive achievement. His score in the last 2 weeks are on par with a midfielder scoring a goal (6, 7). He is a viable option if you use this scoring system.

 

Thank you for reading October’s article! Check back on the blog towards the end of October for next months’ article. Remember to get involved in the polls that will be posted on Twitter in the coming weeks.

If you have any Draft Fantasy Football starting XI problems, questions about who to trade in/out etc. then send a DM, or tweet @DraftAnswers, and I will poll the Draft community! Good luck!

#HelpMyPLDraft