The Late Fitness Check: EPL Week 2 Fantasy Injuries and Suspensions

It has been a crazy week here at the day job so I'll be making this fairly brief and getting to the point as much as possible (with full knowledge that there is a segment of the audience that will be applauding the fact that time constraints have conspired to keep my efforts brief).

As I mentioned in The Week Ahead, there aren't a ton of match-ups to love this weekend with Manchester United's home date with Fulham, Swansea's home match with West Ham United, and Spurs hosting of West Brom being the most modest of potential highlights. With that backdrop, here's all the injury news you need to know and how it might impact your fantasy team:

For all the gory details of team news, here is the consolidated list from ESPN SoccerNet - for our part, we'll focus on the few that have a potential impact on your team:

• Chico has a groin problem (which always sucks) and faces the dreaded late fitness test. Fantasy Managers HATE this sort of news because unless we hear something before the deadline it leaves a potentially valuable defender uncertain as well as an entire defense possibly compromised. I'm going to go down to the wire looking for news on this one and hoping it turns out OK. I'm not particularly interested in his replacements and even less so because it isn't clear whether Garry Monk or Kyle Bartley would be that replacement.
• Matt Jarvis should start but as much as I liked his work at Wolves, I'd rather see him with West Ham once before making any moves. I'm also very interested in seeing Modibo Maiga as a potential BD candidate.
• Gabby Agbonlahor, Richard Dunne and Marc Albrighton are all still out for Villa meaning that Everton are an even better bet than you might have thought.
• It says that Nikica Jelavic is has a minor injury concern which makes me think he'll start but know that there's at least a little doubt.
• Manchester United's central defense other than Vidic is still out (that's Smalling, Evans, Jones, and Ferdinand if you're keeping score at home). In my mind, that depresses the value of both DDG and Vidic significantly. United just weren't United with Michael Carrick trying to play CB.
• Clint Dempsey is still out so, um, don't pick him.
• Watch to see if Jose Bosingwa makes his debut but it isn't certain enough that you'd want to buy in - even less so because he isn't likely to be the difference between 5-0 and a clean sheet and he's never been the attacking RB we all wanted him to be.
• Jean Beausejour, a favorite from last season, is uncertain but could be interesting in the post-Victor Moses era at Wigan. When Beausejour was the focal point of the wide attack for a while last season he was incredibly productive.
• Jan Vertonghen is likely to start with Younes Kaboul out with a knee injury. No word on whether K2 will start or not so you might want to hold off on buying him this weekend even if you think it seems likely he'll play.
• You know about the Aguero injury and Daniel Agger's suspension but shockingly there's nothing all that terribly interesting other than that between Liverpool, City, and Arsenal other than line-up rotation questions that the injury news isn't going to help with clearing up.

Best of luck picking your team and we'll be where we always are - here on the blog chatting live - tomorrow and Sunday for the matches. We hope you'll join us.