Fantasy Football tips for gameweek 11: Harry Kane, Son Heung-min, Mohamed Salah, Reece James, Jamie Vardy
Last updated on .From the section Football
Antonio Conte's arrival at Tottenham this week has brought a real buzz to the Premier League and that has been mirrored in the Fantasy Football community.
A lot of managers were already targeting Son Heung-min and Harry Kane before some decent-looking Spurs fixtures from gameweek 12 but now that's being done with genuine expectation of an upturn in form rather than just nervously hoping.
But who do you pick if you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket by going for both?
Son is a midfielder so gets an extra point for a goal and a clean sheet, he's almost £2m cheaper than Kane and he's been in better form this season with an impressive 55 points to his name.
Kane has the advantage of being Tottenham's penalty taker, he's outscored Son by almost 100 points over the past five seasons and he's owned by just 6.6% of managers at the time of writing, offering you a little bit of differential - although that may not last long if he finds his form.
It's also quite difficult to find a centre-forward who's regularly scoring at the moment with the goals drying up a bit for popular picks such as Michail Antonio, Jamie Vardy and Ivan Toney.
You then have to ask if you want to jump in straight away and try to get an edge on some of your rivals by bringing Son and Kane in for Tottenham's trip to Goodison Park on Sunday.
That looks tempting as Everton have not been in great form recently. But maybe it's safer to wait and see what effect Conte is able to have on the team first, particularly as we have an international break around the corner, when injuries can leave our well-laid plans in tatters.
If you are committed to making a move for Son or Kane come what may, though, then I would say do it now and get them in for that Everton game. To dare is to do, as the Tottenham motto goes.
It's also worth thinking about your long-term strategy when making the transfers. If you're considering going back to Cristiano Ronaldo or Romelu Lukaku at some point, then having Kane in your squad makes that a pretty simple switch whereas you would have to use at least a couple of transfers and create some funds if you were making that move from Son.
Statman Dave believes the star centre-forwards just aren't justifying their hefty price tags at the moment so his advice on the Fantasy 606 podcast this week is to go for Son. The problem I've got with that is that I'm now 37 points behind him and need to find a few different players to make up that ground. But it's tricky to do that when Dave, like me and like most managers, are captaining Mohamed Salah every week.
There are other options in gameweek 11 if you want to take the gamble - Brentford's Toney has a home fixture against Norwich, Vardy and Leicester go to Leeds, who've only kept one clean sheet in the Premier League this season, and Arsenal's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has scored three goals in his past five games and has a home fixture against Watford.
And how about one of Chelsea's flying full-backs at home to Burnley? I'm actually toying with the idea of bringing Reece James in as my one transfer this week to join Ben Chilwell in my squad.
That may seem a little reactive to James' 21-point haul at Newcastle last week and risky as well given the potential rotation issues, but with 78 points between them in the last four gameweeks, it feels as if it's worth the punt and owning both could provide that Statman Dave differential I'm looking for.
If you can hold off on making a transfer this week, though, it's always handy to have two coming off the back of an international break. It might be worth having a look at the Brighton and Crystal Palace squads, even if it's just for bench options within your squad.
Goalkeeper Robert Sanchez and centre-back Shane Duffy are already popular picks at Brighton but Tariq Lamptey (£4.4m) is gradually coming back from injury and offers a serious attacking threat, as does left-back Marc Cucurella (£5m) who's impressed when I've seen him.
I still think the best bet at Palace is Wilfried Zaha (£6.9m) despite Conor Gallagher's (£5.7m) excellent form this season. Zaha is clearly not a bench option at that price but he is on penalties and the fixtures look good for Patrick Vieira's team in the long-term.
