Welcome back for another article. 📖
Who should we be buying this week? Whether it's one week punts before a Gameweek 32 wildcard or you're looking longer term we're going to take a look at the best picks, sorted nice and simple by position.
🧤 Goalkeepers
The stand out fixtures this week for clean sheet potential is basically just Fulham playing home to Burnley, and Newcastle home to Sunderland. Fulham given a 42% chance of a clean sheet, Newcastle 40%. Then the next best are just under 30% so those are the main two to target with keeper and defender transfers. So therefore Leno is top with 4.0 projected points, followed by Ramsdale with 3.9. 🧤
If you're buying a keeper I'd opt for one of those only, and my favourite is Leno. Down to opinion here but he's a more reliable keeper than Ramsdale, who has been in and out as second choice first choice, and of course it's the Tyne-Wear derby. Go back 10+ years it's always a heated fixture that promises goals and Sunderland tend to come out on top, Newcastle have one once since 2012 and that was in the FA Cup and their only clean sheet in any meeting since then. So all things considered Leno is the stand out GK this week.
The last thing to mention is that if you've got a GK combination like Raya and Dubravka, or maybe Sanchez and Dubravka I'd just stick it out. Sanchez isn't here because of the uncertainty in the #1 spot but it's probably Sanchez's again after what happened in Europe last week. If you've got Raya and Dubravka I'd really only look at selling Dubravka if you've got multiple free transfers, it's really hard to gauge this without complete information, but there's a good chance an extra transfer can be worth a lot more later.
This is a good opportunity to look at Mikkel Tokvam's updated season ticker, with the projected double and blank gameweeks. Especially if you've used a wildcard or saving it for later than GW32.
This shows the number of projected fixtures for each team for each gameweek, Palace, Man City, Arsenal and Wolves showing 0 for GW31, and you'll see in GW34 we're expecting blanks most probably for Newcastle, Chelsea, Brighton, Man City, Arsenal, Burnley.
That's because those GW34 fixtures have a high chance of moving into GW33 as a double, due to FA Cup clashes affecting GW34, therefore those same teams that could blank in GW34 would likely double in GW33. Arsenal, Brighton, Burnley, Chelsea, Man City, Newcastle. It's something to think about in particular as I say if you're not wildcarding in GW32 or 33, or likewise not free hitting in GW33 because your free transfers will need to count. And that takes us back to the point about how it may not be worth a transfer like Dubravka to Leno this week, unless sitting on multiple free transfers already.
The next round of the FA Cup is the weekend of 4th and 5th April, that's when we'll know about the doubles and blanks.
🛡️ Defenders
Moving on to defenders then, it's a similar story with Fulham and Newcastle dominating the table given their clean sheet potential. For the first time in what must be all season no Arsenal defenders, due to the blank gameweek so it's fun to see such a different list. 🛡️
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Andersen and Hall are the top two picks.
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Andersen back in Fulham's 11 last match, a clean sheet and defcon.
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Hall vs Thiaw is quite a close one, it's the same as Tete vs Andersen really one has higher goal involvement potential while the CBs are better for defcon. I would lean towards the CBs given defcon are a much more reliable source of points.
The two defenders on the table outside of Fulham and Newcastle are Cash and Van Dijk. If you're buying for one week then Andersen/Hall/Thiaw are favoured, if you're looking longer term as well then a Newcastle makes the most sense given they have the potential DGW33 from that diagram before.
If I was free hitting this week I'd go Leno in goal, Andersen, Hall and Thiaw back 3 and go all in on those two fixtures.
Van Dijk is obviously a solid pick though given Liverpool's defence is among the best, 34.9 xGC ranks third best after Arsenal and City. Newcastle are 5th best by the way with 34.7 xGC over the season. Stat table I made in the Scout members area, you can access all my tables plus their other benefits like award winning articles, ticker tool, player comparison, projected points and all the rest with the link here which also gets you 50% off membership. https://s.id/FPLFocal
