Last week I was looking at which teams are going to be playing numerous Bronze Match Days (BMDs) in the next 30 days.
With the CL knockout stages starting tomorrow there will be a few so I thought I'd try and take advantage of the situation.
Here are all the Bronze fixtures currently scheduled:
I'll briefly explain the colours, italics, etc...
Where possible, I colour coordinated all the teams with 2+ BMD in accordance with their kit colours just so I could see clearly how many games these teams were playing. But with a number of kits of similar colour: blues, reds, etc. this wasn't always possible. The main thing was to make it easier to spot.
Any team playing just the one BMD e.g. Frankfurt, Marseille, etc. were left blank.
Man C v West Ham and BMG v Koln fixtures are in italics as they are standard league games and unlikely to prove to be worth picking when up against the 1.25x multiplier for the CL/Europa matches that same day.
So what did I do with this info?
As you can see, there are quite a few teams playing 2 BMDs.
Chelsea (already played tonight), Spuds, Leipzig and Wet Spam all have 3 BMDs but not in the same 30 day window. So, effectively that's 2 also if you are geared more towards IPD.
Man City have 3 BMDs but the first one is just an EPL fixture and, as mentioned earlier, not likely to appeal when up against the two CL matches.
This just leaves us with Juventus who play 3 BMDs and Liverpool who have a rather juicy 4.
edit: I failed to spot Valencia also have three but that's now been fixed in the image above.
So these were the two teams I decided to delve deeper into.
Liverpool, starting tomorrow, play 6 games in the next 30 days and 4 of them are BMDs (18/2, 24/2, 11/3 & 16/3).
The FA Cup tie at Chelsea doesn't count but that's a decent set of fixtures, especially with 4 BMDs.
Looking at how their players have been doing this season...
I limited this to only players who regularly feature and then sorted it via PB Yield as I wanted to know what kind of percentage return I might get on my investment.
I already hold Henderson and was looking to pick up two other players but the issue with Liverpool is trying to find value; an almost impossible task with how well they have been doing.
Wijnaldum's better PB scores were with Holland, his Liverpool record is nowhere near as good, and at £1.37 I just think there's better value elsewhere.
Trent is obviously topping the PB wins plus the IPDs for all his assists but I'm not buying into him at £7+
I used to hold the Ox but sold him on a spike a while back and he's less likely to feature now that Mane's seemingly fit again.
Mane was actually the one I went into this thinking I'd end up buying but he's yet to win PB this season and, with a slight doubt about his fitness, I decided against paying £3+ a share. If this was a long term thing, I may well have plumped for him but my plan is only to take advantage of the BMDs; I can assess the situation afterwards.
In the end, I went for VVD. Sure, he's not cheap (£3.10) but he has the best Dividend Yield and that's a good starting point.
Looking at his numbers, he plays every game, has more minutes than any other player and he's 4th highest scorer behind the front three.
Speaking of the front 3, I just think Salah's a bit expensive at £4+ and Firmino (£2+) hasn't quite hit the heights of previous seasons. Mane I've already covered. Besides, Virgil has better PB scores than all of them this season plus both PB and MB wins this past month. As I'm mainly concentrating on PB/MB for these BMDs, I like my choice.
A bit disappointed I only ended up with Virgil, I also picked up Alisson (91p). With 9 clean sheets in his last 10 games, there's some IPD value there plus the chance of some MB if he performs heroics to win a game.
I then moved onto Juventus as they have 7 games in a 30 day window (22/2-21/3), one more than Liverpool, and do have 3 BMDs to try and take advantage of (26/2, 13/3 & 17/3).
I think there's much more value than you can find at Liverpool, or at most EPL sides really. And that's understandable due to how our current MB system works. But with the big CL nights coming up, there'll still be plenty of interest and reporting for the big teams like Juve too. Juve's fixtures:
As with Liverpool, their cup game doesn't count but a number of relatively easy opponents there.
Lyon, after a good run not so long ago are back in a bit of a slump and I expect Juve to see them off comfortably enough.
I then looked at how Juve's players have been performing this season...
Higuain is top of the PB Yield but his recent performances have been poor and he rarely plays a full game. I decided against it.
Dybala's price shot up ~50p on the back of his 340 score the other day. He's settled back down a bit but is still 34p higher than before the weekend and, with Ronaldo coming back in, Dybala will go back to playing second fiddle so he's not for me.
I can't ignore Ronaldo though. I don't really care how old he is, the guy is a beast.
PB, MB and IPD possibilities galore there. I've grabbed myself some.
I looked at Pjanic but, apart form an excellent couple of months before Christmas, his stats are pretty average. Apparently, he's fit despite coming off injured at the weekend only 8min after entering the field as a sub but I'm not interested in him, too risky. De Ligt was too expensive, while Ramsey, Rabiot and Matuidi don't play enough.
To supplement Ronaldo, I went for Cuadrado (58p) and Alex Sandro (87p). Both regularly play the full 90min and have good PB scores this season, both winning PB Divs on a Gold Day on Sunday. After their performances at the weekend (243 and 215pb respectively) both have also risen in price but only a little so there's potentially more there to come, hopefully.
But my main investment, in terms of shares bought at least, has gone into a 32yo CB.
Step forward Leonardo Bonucci. 57p for a guy with decent PB scores isn't bad. Like VVD, he's played more minutes than any of his teammates and, just like Big Virg, only the front three have scored more than him this season.
Am I expecting him to be a PB beast? No, of course not. But he tends to deliver on the big occasion and with a potential 7 opportunities (6 for me as I bought today before the 22/2-21/3 seven-game window) and 3 BMDs he has a decent chance of some Divs and maybe even IPDs. If he does well, I might hold through the Euros too.
My BMD players...
Well, there we have it. I'm sure you will all have different opinions on which teams to target and what players to go for.
Chances are that most of you will have bought the players you want already. Feel free to share your opinions.
This isn't a pump. As you can see, I don't hold many of each. It's more of a little experiment to see how I do.
But I thought I'd share the BMD fixtures I posted right at the top as I'm sure it will be useful to some.
