DFS Soccer 101: Getting Back on Track

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Updated on December 30, 2015 9:53PM EST

With the first half of the season over it's time to look back at the top fantasy players heading into the new year and try to see which players should continue their success and which ones might soon burst out of their funks. One of the things to recognize as the calendar flips is that several players have had good runs throughout the season; Jamie Vardy, Odion Ighalo, Romelu Lukaku, Harry Kane and Olivier Giroud have all been through goal-scoring streaks, while the likes of Sergio Aguero, Diego Costa and Alexis Sanchez have been relatively quiet compared to their performances last season. In today's article, I wish to tackle a few top performers to determine which ones should expect to have a strong January and which ones may not.

Romelu Lukaku
With 15 goals on the season and one more match under his belt than Vardy, Lukaku is now the joint top goal scorer in the Premier League. It's hard to imagine that at just 22 years old Lukaku has already proven himself as a force to be reckoned with in both fantasy and reality. He's among the leaders in touches in the penalty area, big chances and shots on target. With 10 goals in his last 9 league games (and 11 goals in his last 11 games overall) Lukaku has been a valuable target for fantasy squads over the last two and a half months.

Lukaku	Goals	Shots	Shots on Target	Chances Created	Assists	Touches in Final Third	Touches in Penalty Area
Season	15	68	27	27	4	571	135
Last 4 Weeks	4	18	6	9	0	140	32
Percentage of Total	26.0	26.0	22.0	33.0	0.0	24.5	23.7

The table shows that over the last four weeks, which is 21 percent of the Premier Leageu season so far, Lukaku has scored 26 percent of his goals, taken 26 percent of his shots and had roughly 24 percent of his touches in the final third and in the penalty box. That means that over the last four weeks Lukaku has been especially active in attack and has been excellent in creating opportunities for himself and capitalizing on them. Additioanlly, he's created 33 percent of his chances over that span. Needless to say, Lukaku is in excellent form and his recent goal-scoring binge is proof of it.

His opponents for the next four weeks, however, may be the ones to slow him down (though maybe not stop him). Over the next four weeks Lukaku is playing at home against Tottenham, away to Manchester City, away to Chelsea and home to Swansea. Sprinkled in there are some none league matches including a home-and-home series with Manchester United in the league cup, a home fixture in the FA cup to Dag and Red of lower division League 2. While I don't know if Lukaku will play all these matches, you can expect that he'll at least miss some of them for rest.

Lukaku started all of the reverse fixtures, finishing three while subbing off early in the Tottenham match at 69 minutes. He didn't score any goals but took 12 shots, with six coming against Swansea with no conversions. It would be hard to bet on Lukaku not scoring goals in the coming four matches, but I would suspect that he will score in two of the four upcoming matches if he continues his 4.5 shots per game rate.

Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy
It only makes sense to group these two, as together they have taken Leicester to second place in the table, level on points with first-place Arsenal. They've both had some excellent runs, and with Mahrez being the caretaker of penalty kicks, and Vardy being a dead-eye striker, they each can carry an equal share of the success of Leicester through the first half of the campaign.

Mahrez	Goals	Shots	Shots on Target	Chances Created	Assists	Touches in Final Third	Touches in Penalty Area
Season	13	48	26	32	7	474	73
Last 4 Weeks	6	11	10	2	1	91	12
Percentage of Total	46.2	22.9	38.4	6.3	14.2	19.2	16.4

Vardy	Goals	Shots	Shots on Target	Chances Created	Assists	Touches in Final Third	Touches in Penalty Area
Season	15	62	29	21	3	474	130
Last 4 Weeks	1	7	3	3	2	74	17
Percentage of Total	6.7	11.3	10.3	14.3	66.7	15.6	13.1

Mahrez and Vardy have been even throughout the season, in the last four matchweeks (15 through 18) Mahrez has been the more dominant performer, with Vardy having a significant dip in his numbers. In fact, while Mahrez has only scored two goals in the last four weeks off of penalties, he has continued an excellent run of efficiency in front of goal with 10 of his 11 shots on target, and four of those 10 converting to goals. Nevertheless, the opponents factor in these performances for sure.

The last four weeks Leicester played at Liverpool, at Everton, home to Chelsea and away to Swansea. Of course, with three of their previous four on the road, that makes for some correction on the overall potential of these two players. I suspect that as Vardy plays more at home you will see more shots from him with more potential goals.

Over their next four matches to start the new year, Leicester play host to Bournemouth, then at Tottenham, at Aston Villa and then host Stoke. In the reverse fixtures, these two combined for 22 shots, 15 chances created, five goals and three assists; I expect them both to continue their excellent attacking run and to continue to contribute to their team's positive results.

Gylfi Sigurdsson

Yes, it's unusual to see his name here after the exceptional list I just went through. However, it doesn't take a genius to identify Lukaku and the Leicester duo as good plays going forward. I am here, however, to try to convince you that Sigurdsson is a player worthy of attention. If you ignore Matchweek 20, when Swansea visit Manchester United, Sigurdsson will be facing four consecutive teams that have allowed a combined 25 goals in four weeks. Additionally, in this last four-week period, Sigurdsson has been the most consistent producer for a Swansea squad that hasn't been able to get much in terms of goals, scoring just two in four matches.

Sigurdsson	Goals	Shots	Shots on Target	Chances Created	Assists	Touches in Final Third	Touches in Penalty Area
Season	2	42	14	26	1	369	37
Last 4 Weeks	0	13	9	9	0	106	15
Percentage of Total	0.0	30.9	64.0	34.6	0.0	28.7	40.5

Sigurdsson had some of his most productive outings in the last few weeks but those have not translated to any goals or assists. And with his opponents in the upcoming weeks being weak defensively, you can expect that he will get some goals or at least some assists that should create some of the best chances for a run of positive results for his fantasy owners.

Top Cash Game Plays

One of the things that makes someone a reliable cash game play is the increased chances to deliver crosses and shots for his team. The following is a list of the top-10 crossers over the last four matchweeks, along with whether they are a primary corner-kick taker:

Player	Teams	Crosses in Last 4 Weeks	Takes Corners?
Kevin De Bruyne	Manchester City	42	Yes
Jordan Veretout	Aston Villa	41	Yes
Willian	Chelsea	35	Yes
Mauro Zarate	West Ham	32	Yes
Chris Brunt	West Brom	31	Yes
Daley Blind	Manchester United	29	Yes
Mesut Ozil	Arsenal	26	Yes
Gerard Deulofeu	Everton	26	Yes
Leighton Baines	Everton	26	Yes
Gylfi Sigurdsson	Swansea	25	Yes

A few other players who didn't make it on the list but are also worth considering for your cash teams in the next few weeks: Moussa Sissoko, Xherdan Shaqiri, Jason Puncheon, Ben Watson, Matt Ritchie, Aleksandar Kolarov and Ryan Bertrand.