Leicester City were the chief beneficiaries in the title race during the week as Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur all dropped points. The Foxes will fancy their chances of securing another 3 points on the road when they travel to bottom club Aston Villa while Arsenal visit Stoke City, in what is a difficult looking game on paper. Spurs and Manchester City look to have the pick of the fixtures and we would expect fantasy football managers to be focusing heavily on these two sides.

A case can clearly be made for including defenders or attacking players from either side with such favourable goal projections. The games at Southampton, Liverpool and Swansea all promise to be low-scoring affairs, so selecting defenders who are set to feature in these matches might not be a bad call.

However, the fixture that caught our eye was Newcastle United versus West Ham United. The Magpies put up a spirited second half display against Manchester United and have added some much needed depth to their midfield with the captures of Jonjo Shelvey and Henri Saivet. It’s a statement of intent by Steve McClaren and its likely impact on their survival chances is discussed in this WhoScored article. Team news could be very interesting and If Shelvey slots straight in he is sure to shake up set-piece proceedings. Dimitri Payet and Enner Valencia both scored with direct free kicks for the Hammers in the win at Bournemouth, so we’re seeing the potential for a high scoring encounter here, in what promises to be an end to end game.

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