Week 14 Midweek Live Chat: Squad Rotation Edition

In light of the rotation issues and a challenging upcoming schedule for league leading Arsenal, I've made some bold moves with my team for this week, chiefly dropping Mesut Özil from my team altogether. With upcoming matches against Everton, Manchester City and Chelsea, I feel like the match against Hull City is the ideal time to give the German a rest. I'm sure Arsenal will play well against their next three opponents, but there will be better matches to choose players from that should have the potential to match or exceed the points put up by the former Madrid man.

Call me crazy if you like (and I'm fully prepared to hear from you when he scores big over the next couple weeks), but Özil hasn't been in the same form as he was upon his arrival to the Premier League, and really only has one standout match to his name so far this season with his 29 points at home against Norwich in Week 8, where he scored his only two League goals this season. Don't get me wrong; Özil is an exceptional playmaker, but he seems to be more interested in pulling the strings and playing the killer pass than taking on the goalscoring responsibilities for the team. That works out well sometimes in the form of assists, but for quite a few matches this season he's been the guy making the pass before the pass, which doesn't translate into fantasy returns.

I need to make up ground after some poor weeks have left me in the 3000s overall, and differentiating my midfield will either prove to be the way to do it or just another case of falling further behind. We'll see how it works out for me this week and for the rest of the calendar year, but I feel like Özil is just as much a week-to-week buy as any other midfielder in the game, and as such would be worth paying a little extra for on weeks when Arsenal have favorable matches.

Ok, rationalization over. I'm sure I'll regret it at some point, but dropping Özil this week has allowed me to bring in all the players I wanted for my Week 14 team. Without further ado, here it is:

Lloris, Ward, Caulker, Debuchy, Lallana, Willian, Coutinho, Lampard, Walcott, Rooney, Suarez(c)

Bench: Jerome, Oviedo, Kelly, Gazzaniga

It's certainly unorthodox, but full of players I believe will start and have strong potential to earn points regardless of the results of their respective matches. I hope my gambles pay off, but if not I'm happy knowing I've done something different. It is only a game, after all, and I get a real sense of satisfaction from owning my team and choosing the players I want.

Have you taken any major risks this week or are you going for players who should be sure starters? Whatever choices you made, I hope you had fun making them and I hope your score reflects it! Good luck!