UCL FANTASY MATCHDAY 14

Champions League football continues this week which means UCL Fantasy does too!

In our UCL Fantasy newsletter you will find lots of our essential articles in the lead up to the deadline.

Firstly Over at FFC we have a BRAND NEW PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP For JUST £12 per year you will have access to UCL Fantasy, and FPL top picks and team reveals for every single round!

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Before we take a look at some of our fantastic articles for Matchday 14, international fantasy football whizz @FPLReaction reveals HOW TO GAIN RANK this week!

Hey guys, Matchday 14 is here, and it’s getting tougher to gain rank.

An example of how tough it is, is the fact I had Lewandowski captain, owned Raphinha, Yamal, Kvaratskhelia, Mendes and Dembele and still didn’t gain rank, crazy right?

So with that in mind, I’m going to provide some aggressive ways you can gain rank, let’s dive straight in:

CHECK THE LINE-UPS

Checking the line-ups is absolutely essential this week. I already discusses Barcelona’ potential to rotate this week on the pod (if you caught it). The Catalans are already 4-0 up so not rotating doesn’t make sense when their locked in a tense title race with Real Madrid.

We have already seen rumours that Lewandowski will be rested for in-game midfielder Ferran Torres, so having a plan before that line-ups come out could be wise. I think just acting on that and swapping him for Vini Junior, Marcus Thuram, Lautaro Martinez etc could be an instant rank gainer. Trust me, a lot of top managers can’t always react to line-ups news in a one-hour slot before the games start, so it does work.

Bulking up on Defences

Last round we didn’t see many clean sheets at all. In fact, two teams many thought were nailed to conceded (Arsenal and Barcelona) both kept clean sheets. A lot of managers avoided their defensive assets for that reason, but some were brave, backed them and flew up the rankings.

I mean…look at this guy below, crazy defence! I think my whole defence blanked bar one player last week.

There are plenty of ways to do it, You can go 2, 3 even back four of one defence. Real Madrid have the best clean sheet odds this week, so backing Rudiger, Asensio, and Courtois is just one example of how you can be aggressive.

Most teams will already have double and triple ups of defences like Inter and PSG, so going all out on their backlines isn’t going to be hugely rewarding if they keep a clean sheet, risks are there to be taken, we only have a few rounds left!

Singular Differentials

Single differentials are also a good way to gain rank, although less effective than bulking up on defences.

There are lots of different players you can go for, I think it makes sense to focus on Lewandowski since he’s very unlikely to play. I personally think many will look to Doue of PSG which is still a good move if he starts, but the ultimate differentials will be the Inter attackers.

Maybe some will opt for Lautaro Martinez considering he’s a similar price to Lewa, but Marcus Thuram is someone I think could do well on the counter against Bayern. Thuram has returned in all of his last four Champions League games, and also comes in at €7.4m, leaving you money to play around with.

There are plenty of good differentials you could pick this week: Arsenal’ Merino playing out of position up front, Aston Villa attackers like Ollie Watkins, Marcus Rashford, or even the more popular Morgan Rogers, along with Barcelona’ Gavi, Ferran Torres and Fermin Lopez if they start.

Captaincy

This is a simple one, differential captaincy means not captaining Lewa if he starts, Raphinha, and Dembele on the first night. This also comes with risk, but if those players blank or score less than differential picks like Kvaratskhelia, Yamal and Guirassy, and your differential captain does well, then you could take a massive boost.

Wednesday is also a great day for differential captaincy options. If you want to gain rank don’t captain Mbappe. At this point Saka is still a differential, so either giving him the armband or Merino, Bellingham, Thuram, Lautaro could be a great move.

Oh, the articles below are must-reads to get you ready for the new round, if you are yet to sign up to premium, it’s fully worth it!

NOTE: PREMIUM COSTS JUST £1 PER MONTH, SIGN UP HERE AND GET ACCESS TO THE ODDS SHEET, TEAM REVEALS AND MUCH MORE!

There are so many key injuries this week, and you can find them all here:

We brought in some experts to reveal their teams ahead of the new round:

Check out our predicted line-ups for Matchday 14:

We take a look at the best Wildcard team for the new round here:

If you are looking to go different to others then we have some of the best differentials for the new round below in which everyone has access to:

In the article below we picked out the best captains and share several differentials for those who want to back against the crowd: