Welcome back for another article.
I've been dreading this one. In all the years playing FPL and making articles I don't recall a week quite as bad as this. A perfect storm week where basically all the high owned players that I didn't own returned, Joao Pedro hat trick and assist, Semenyo goal, plus I've seen auto-subs like Senesi's 11 and Andersen's 12 off the bench but in my case O'Reilly and Andersen didn't play a minute so no-one off the bench. Rice hit defcon but then suddenly went from 13 defcons to 11 and missed out. Bruno was just over 100% effective ownership so his 8 points didn't help, Haaland blank as captain.
Anyway, 41 points all out and a huge red arrow, rank tripled 8K to 24.8K. 📉 Obviously still a great rank to build on but terrible weeks suck at any rank, and it's where we were ranked back in GW15, where it took 12 weeks to finally break 10K so if the aim is to finish there it'll need to be done quicker in the final 9 gameweeks. Given the crazy high ownership of the likes of Ekitike, Joao Pedro, Semenyo it's crucial that my players deliver. Oh and lastly Rogers, he finally gets a goal involvement for me, the 9th gameweek owning him only to end up ruled offside by a toenail. Absolute disaster pick he's been, thinking of selling this week despite not blanking in GW31 playing West Ham home.
🧤 Goalkeeper
Double Arsenal defence home to Everton with Raya and Gabriel, before the blank in GW31. The last time Arsenal lost to them at the Emirates was 6 years ago in the 20/21 season, Arsenal have 4 clean sheets in the last 6 meetings. 🧤
🛡️ Defenders
So yeah Gabriel in the back 3, the other two defenders are O'Reilly and Van Dijk. Arsenal top of the GW30 clean sheet probabilities given a 52% chance, then it's Liverpool and Brentford on 40%, then Man Utd, Bournemouth and Brighton on 32%.
Alisson was missing from Liverpool's Champions League squad that faced Galatasaray reportedly due to fitness issues, hopefully he'll be back between the sticks for Spurs home. It's a great fixture right now, Spurs have lost 6 consecutive matches in all comps for the first time in their entire history. Did you guys see the Champions League game vs Atletico? Spurs were 3 - 0 down by 15 minutes in which triggered Tudor to take Kinsky off, Vicario conceded 5 minutes later and it ended 5 - 2.
Thinking of giving O'Reilly one final start and it'll probably be the final gameweek owning him this season. You might be thinking surely you'd have him for City's DGW? Although he's been great recently I think I'd just opt for Guehi and take the reliable safe minutes.
Obviously Crystal Palace vs Man City is one postponement that needs rearranging, so that will become a double gameweek wherever that drops in. Now that we've got the FA Cup draw we can paint a picture of the potential DGW33 fixtures as well. Here's a graphic I made with the list. So the teams that could double are Arsenal, Brighton, Bournemouth, Burnley, Chelsea, Palace, Leeds, Liverpool, Man City and Newcastle. 📊
Not the most appealing DGW fixtures honestly, but as it stands my strategy is still wildcard GW32, BB33, FH34. The teams that double in 33 would be expected to blank in GW34.
Either Crystal Palace or Man City are expected to get two double gameweeks this season, so that's positive if you've still got your triple captain, if Man City get the two doubles anyway. That's because Man City have that postponement vs Palace still to be re-arranged, plus have a chance of a second one if they knock Liverpool out of the FA Cup.
West Ham are still in the FA Cup so you might be wondering where they are, they play on Monday in GW33 which makes it really unlikely for them to double, the Premier League wouldn't make them play on Monday and again on Wednesday. So they would probably just play in GW34 still but the following midweek. But yeah it would be Guehi, Semenyo, Haaland for me I reckon.
One other thing to mention is that the Premier League could move that Man City vs Palace postponement into GW33. SO instead of Palace's second game being Liverpool and Man City's second game being Burnley instead Man City and Palace would play each other in that second fixture, and the GW34 postponement goes later. That would make a potential DGW36 absolutely bonkers for Man City, because they'd have Brentford home and Burnley away.
Anyway, that graphic gives you a good idea. We're likeliest to have 4 double gameweek fixtures so 8 teams from the list of 10 here. It could be 3 fixtures so just 6 teams though.