An Arsenal Preview

Arsenal are one of the favorite teams from which to draw drawing FF players. Arsene Wenger doesnt rotate the squad too frequently and generally persists with a favoured starting line-up, so you can get a clear idea of which players should expect big minutes. They are also a very attacking team, most of which seems to go through Adebayor.

Additional to these team traits, this season Arsenal have a fantastic opening list of fixtures. They open the season with West Brom at home, followed by Fulham away, Newcastle at home, Blackburn away, Bolton away, Hull at home and Sunderland away on 4th October. They have by far the best opening run of the Big Four teams.

So clearly, having some Arsenal players in the squad is a good idea. But who?

Almunia in goal isn't the best choice for £6.0 million. Arsenals weak points in FF terms is that they tend to concede late goals, which keeps precious Clean Sheet bonus points away from defenders and keepers. Also Almunia wont be called on to make a lot of saves this season, so there will not be many points for Saves or Bonus Points, since he probably wont be called into action often. Plenty of other keepers out there for that money.

Defensively, Clichy or Sagna make the best choices as they are both defenders who will play every game, like to push forward and provide the odd cross and assist. Both are excellent choices. Gallas and Toure are also likely to play a lot, and Gallas even chipped in with 4 goals last season.

In the midfield, Fabregas should be a certaintly in any team that doesn't feature both Gerrard and Lampard. However, Fabregas has picked up a thigh strain and will miss the opening game against West Brom. Rosicky and Diaby are also both injured, Song is at the Olypmics with Cameroon, but Nasri is expected to be ready for the opening of the season. Fabregas should be making big points by the time the season ends, but he wont be making any points in the first week. Nasri and Denilson are the two best picks from the Arsenal midfield for the opening round.

Up front, the talents of Adebayor cannot be overlooked. Ade will start every game and is the Arsenal penalty taker. The bookies have installed him as the second favorite to be the leading goal scorer this season, behind Torres. But where Torres has Keane to share the goalscoring duties with him, Adebayor is accompanied by the somewhat injury plague Robin Van Persie. Old RVP struggled with injury last season, with Walcott playing more minutes. Eduardo is also injured, although £8.5 million spent on him is, frankly, a waste. The definitive choice for an Arsenal striker is Adebayor.

So a good opening fixture list but a bad opening injury list. Could be an surprisingly tough campaign for The Arse in 08-09, which relies on one or two key players to bring in their points. This might be a Fantasy goldmine for those players!