Fantasy Planning - Man United

[Guilbert53]

Hi all,

You will be glad to know this will be the last update you get from me about "Fantasy Planning" for particular teams. I will have covered the 6 "big clubs", and the only team I have not covered who are in Europe are Everton.

So after adding updates about the teams that finished between first and fifth last season (Chelsea, Spurs, Man C, Liverpool, Arsenal) - here is one about the team that finished sixth - Man United.

Because they won the Europa League last year then this year Man Utd are playing in the Champions League.

I think most Man U fans will be happy with last year, they won the League Cup and the Europa League, which gave them access to this years Champions League.

However they only finished 6th in the Premier League (24 points behind Chelsea), so if they had NOT won the Europa League they would have missed out on the Champions League again this year.

Man U had the second best defence in the Premier League last season, letting in 29 goals, three more than Spurs who let in 26 goals. Man U also kept 17 clean sheets, the same as Spurs, which was the best of any Premier team (and remember goalies score points for clean sheets)

Man United's good defensive record is even better when you consider they chopped and changed their defence all season as they had so many games. They used many defenders including Valencia, Blind, Bailly, Smalling, Jones, Darmian, Young, Rojo, Fosu Mensah, and Shaw).

This chopping and changing defenders meant that apart from Valencia they had no high scoring fantasy defender. Contrast this with Chelsea who used the same 5 defenders almost all season so had the three top scoring Telegraph fantasy defenders (and Luiz was 7th). Moses played in defence for Chelsea but in fact was often a midfield players in fantasy terms.

This season the Telegraph fantasy has ELEVEN Man U defenders so picking one means there is a good chance that the player will miss quite a few games while the defence is chopped and changed.

Last season in midfield Man U did not have one player in the top 23 of the Telegraph Fantasy midfield players. As an example Liverpool had SIX players in the top 23, Arsenal, Chelsea and Man City had 3 each, and Spurs 2 (Alli and Erikson who were second and third, Sanchez was first)..

Last year the best scoring Man U midfield player was Pogba but he was only the 33rd best midfield player. In fact the BEST Man U midfield players last season was Matic (who scored one more than Pogba) but he was playing for Chelsea last season !

So maybe picking a Man U midfield player is not the best fantasy selection.

The main player who has left was Wayne Rooney to Everton. A few other players have gone (sold or loan) but none of them were major first team players.

Ibrahimovic's contract ran out at the end of the season. However he is injured so cant sign for anyone. There has been talk of him re-signing for Man Utd when he is over his injury, we will have to wait and see.

There has been talk of Martial leaving but nothing has been agreed yet.

Man United have bought three new players,

Lukaku, striker from Everton for about £70 million
Matic, midfield from Chelsea for around £40 million
Lindelof defender from Benfica for around £30 million

They do have some injuries though. Rojo, Shaw and Young are all out with major injuries and have not taken part in any pre-season games.

Man U do have a large squad, and do tend to rotate players a lot, so deciding which players to have in your fantasy team is difficult. De Gea is a good choice in goal, Valenca at right back is also a good choice, and Lukaku up front will score goals.

Pogba is a possible player to have in your fantasy team, but for the money there are players who may score more fantasy points than him. Lets wait and see.