Aventum Fantasy Football - Manager of the Month December

The busy December schedule once again proved significant in the Premier League title race, as Manchester City separated themselves from their rivals and put themselves in a commanding position at the season’s mid-point. With Liverpool losing star forwards Mo Salah and Sadio Mane in January to the Africa Cup of Nations, and Chelsea’s absentee list growing ever longer, City could yet extend their lead in January. After winning all seven of their Premier League matches in the busy December schedule, they are unquestionably the league’s form side, and their defensive displays have made regular starters Cancelo and Dias two of the top three scoring defenders this season (as well as made Ederson the top scoring goalkeeper with 11 clean sheets in 20 games). Given the array of City’s attacking talent, it leaves managers with the tough task of picking from a range of possible goalscorers and assist-makers. Fortunately, Bernardo Silva has this season added more goals to his game and been their standout attacking player. Now a regular starter, he represents great value at less than 8m.

With Salah absent for most of January, these City stars are the obvious players to transfer in (if not done so already). However, as always, the points these popular players score are likely to be neutralised by most other managers also benefitting from these points. Making gains in January will likely come down to shrewd decision making on unfancied picks and keeping a close eye on the fixture lists – both for teams with multiple matches in a gameweek, and in case COVID-19 or weather leads to any more postponements.

In a month of frantic fixture congestion and last minute COVID-19 related postponements, there was a lot for our Fantasy managers to juggle in December. Rodrigo Botelho from Amwins was the manager best able to do this, successfully dodging the postponements with clever transfers to ensure he posted above average scores almost every week. Congratulations Rodrigo, a bottle of champagne is on its way to you.

In the overall standings, Mark Horgan has established himself as the league leader for the last few months, and remains best placed currently for the end of season Apple Watch top prize. He has a 32 point lead on his closest challenger (having been 46 at the start of December), with the rest of the chasing pack a further 20 behind. However, it doesn’t take much in Fantasy for these gaps to be suddenly reduced. With Salah out for most of January, managers are going to have to shake their teams up, freeing up a lot of cash to splash. There are many routes managers could go down, just as Ronaldo, Lukaku and Kane have all shown glimpses of form. Throw in new star signings entering the game through the January window, and it’s certainly all still to play for.