Planning Your Future With Arsenal

Both Stoke and Fulham have a double header on Gameweek 20, after missing out on Gameweek 17. Arsenal and Bolton are the other teams that gameweek who benefit from the revised fixture list.

The tricky part for a lot of players is that by now many have shaped their teams into something close to what they would like, making the dilemma not so much about who they should transfer in, rather who they will transfer out. However, this is where the points are made in the EPL Fantasy game - by picking up the players that are about to do well, rather than having the same players as everyone else who are consistently useful.

To further complicate matters, Gameweek 20 is Drogba's final game before leaving for the African Cup Of Nations. If you are one of the 38% of managers with him in your team, you should consider reserving one of your transfers to account for his prolonged absence. There are better ways to spend £11.5 million than leaving it on the bench for a month!

So our question becomes which players from the GM20 double teams will bang home the most goals, set up the most assists or scrape together some tasty bonus points? The surrounding fixtures will need to also be useful to justify their transfer, as a one week wonder will not be as useful as a player going on a 3 or 4 week run of points. You may also need to use a transfer to cover an African Cup of Nations player, so our choices should be able to bring in some points for the weeks around the double header if need be.

Fulham's lead up to and including the double gameweek is fairly grim. After Burnley away this week, they play no game in week 17, followed by Man Utd and Tottenham. The gameweek 20 double sees them face off with Chelsea and Stoke. Perhaps it may be time to unload Hangeland...

Stoke have a mixed bag, facing both Birmingham and Fulham in the GW 20 double, but do not play in 17, then face Aston Villa and Manchester City away. Etherington, Shawcross and Sorenson are the best choices from Stoke, although that is hardly new knowledge as they are all top performing cheapies. In fact, 44% of teams feature Sorenson! Any of these three would make a good choice.

The Bolton fixture list is marginally better, facing West Ham, Wigan, Burnley and Hull mixed with some Arsenal away and Man City. Their individual form statistics do not make flash reading, and while they are a team very capable of scoring, the goals have been evenly spread which means outside of Kevin Davies there is no obvious choice. They are competing with Portsmouth for last place and while two wins would catapult them up to mid-table, their points are too spread amongst the team to make any player worth grabbing. If you are inclined to a gamble then Davies could be worth a punt when he recovers from his current injury, otherwise there are better options out there than the motley Bolton crew.

It seems the best option for both Gameweek 17's short week and Gameweek 20's double is Arsenal players. In GW 17 they face Burnley away; in GW 20 they face Portsmouth away and Bolton at home. After this weeks challenging trip to Anfield they have Hull, Villa, and Bolton again. Even though Arsenal clean-sheets arent a guarenteed thing this season, budget priced Traore (£4.0m) may be worth a shout if Clichy's injury takes longer to heal than expected. Given the run of fixtures and the double header thats coming up, every team should have at least one of Fabregas and Arshavin. After his 11 point haul this week, Arshavin's price is going to rise as everyone hopes lightening strikes twice. Thats unlikely this week as Arsenal face Liverpool away, but beyond that expect to see the good times roll.