Welcome back for another article. 📖
Double Gameweek 33 up next, who are the best players to buy this week? What's the best free hit team? What do we do with O'Reilly?
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Bournemouth play Newcastle away, Leeds home 🍒
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Brighton play Spurs away then Chelsea home 🔵
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Burnley play Forest away, then City home 🧱
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Chelsea play Man Utd home, then Brighton away 🦁
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Leeds play Wolves home, then Bournemouth away ⚪
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Man City play Arsenal home, then Burnley away 🏆
All teams have one away and one home fixture. Ranking them best to worst on fixture quality I'd go Leeds, then City, then Chelsea, Bournemouth, Brighton, Burnley. Lots of opportunities in those fixtures. How many players have you guys got doubling this week? It's a very popular week for the free hit, and also the bench boost.
🧤 Goalkeepers
For GW33 Donnarumma leads with 7.6 projected points, a convincing win and clean sheet at Stamford Bridge, keeping a clean sheet. The biggest game of the season coming in the first part of the double, Arsenal home. Could equate to a cagey lower scoring game which won't be a bad thing defensively. However if you're free hitting you might be better off using that valuable City spot on a defender or midfielder, that's how I'd shape up a free hit team.
Darlow is second on the table with a promising Wolves home fixture to start the double gameweek, for 3.9m he's the perfect DGW enabler. Darlow and a City defender is stronger than Donnarumma and Struijk because the City defenders basically have more chance of a goal involvement than a Leeds defender generally speaking. Last match two scored for City in fact O'Reilly and Guehi.
Verbruggen is third top this week on 6.5 points, then Petrovic 6.0, Sanchez 5.7 and Dubravka 5.6. It's slightly surprising that Verbruggen is ahead of Petrovic, Tottenham are in dire form but it really is make or break and if they keep a clean sheet away vs Spurs that could be curtains and relegation, Chelsea home will be tough as well. Bournemouth have to travel away to Newcastle which in fairness is a tough fixture too, although Newcastle are in poor form too you'd realistically expect them to score home to Bournemouth, who are actually worst in the league for xG conceded in away games with 35.6 xGC on the road. Only 13.4 xGC in home games though is second best after Arsenal.
🛡️ Defenders
So O'Reilly went off injured vs Chelsea. Bizarrely not a single journalist thought to ask Pep in the post match press conference how he is, so we don't have a solid update. He's received a yellow flag which has added a penalty to his projected points on FPL Review.
Therefore Nunes and Struijk are joint top this week with 8.0 points each. If O'Reilly is out for the double then Nunes and Guehi the obvious replacements, Ait-Nouri not worth the long term risk. Nunes has 8 goal involvements this season in 26 starts, Guehi has 7 goal involvements in 29.
Comparing their underlying data on Scout, O'Reilly's 6.52 xGI is top, he's shot the most Guehi's second with 5.99 xGI, 28 shots. Nunes 2.36 xGI, 7 shots, Ait-Nouri 2.13 xGI, 7 shots as well. Nunes leads for crosses. If I were picking one I'd opt for Guehi, Nunes very close second best.
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Senesi is just behind Nunes, Struijk and Guehi this week with 7.7 projected points, Hill is on 7.1 based on 90 minutes in both games and just misses out on the table, he's such a strong option for 4.2m.
Recording this before Man Utd vs Leeds. If Bijol makes the 11 then he's a very good option for cheap at only 3.9m. He averages 10.27 defcons per 90 which ranks top among all Leeds defenders. Struijk is the best pick if you've got the money for his nailedness however. The only slight risk with Bijol is that Rodon is expected back at the end of April or early May which could make him a slight risk for Burnley home in GW35 where you want your Leeds defender starting. Doing the same comparison of Leeds defenders and attacking data Bogle is top with 3.77 xGI, then Struijk 3.28 xGI, then Gudmundsson, Justin and Bijol.
You can access my data tables for free on Scout, they're doing 21 days free premium membership right now. https://s.id/FPLFocal