Welcome back for another article.
Bench boost active and a pretty good wildcard! 69 points all out and lots of positives, Brighton clean sheet very fortunate with 2 goals ruled offside for Burnley, 9 pointer from Verbruggen his second biggest score of the season. Gross with a fantastic assist that game as well who came into the wildcard in preparation for his double, Palmer hit defcon which was a pleasant surprise, Bruno also finished on 4 points with an assist and booking. O'Reilly 14 pointer thanks to a goal, clean sheet and couple bonus points, though now he's a doubt for the DGW. Will talk about the plan with him in a sec.
But actually the highlight was opting for Thiago on the wildcard despite no DGW33, the alternative choice I considered was Calvert-Lewin. It's too early to call that a success because DCL has the double next but an 11 point headstart so to speak is fantastic.
Despite a good wildcard, unbelievably in my case it actually resulted in fewer points solely because of Mukiele. The late decision to activate was because of concerns over a few player's minutes, Ekitike and Mbeumo, mainly Ekitike, they were both benched and a loss in confidence in delaying the wildcard to target Palace's DGW. I may even end up with no Palace assets by the time we get there now. It's hard to gauge which chip strategy would have been better though, because the bench boost is active for this week whereas instead I'd have been free hitting this week, fielding a weak BGW34 team and then wildcarding GW35 before bench boosting GW36. Honestly both strategies are likely to do well.
So let's move on to the bench boost team for DGW33.
🧤 Goalkeeper
In goal 3.9m Darlow comes into the starting 11. Leeds were really impressive at Old Trafford despite missing the likes of Rodon and Stach. That said, they haven't lost a game Rodon didn't start, and in Stach's case lost 1 of the 6 he didn't play in at all. Farke has done a fantastic job; a win over Wolves should be enough to secure another season in the Prem. Darlow had a good game against Utd, which is a relief, as Perri has been fantastic in the FA Cup recently. 🧤
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🛡️ Defenders
The back 4 is Struijk, Van Hecke, O'Reilly and Hill. 🛡️
So if we pull up DGW33 clean sheet odds from my app:
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Leeds: 42% chance against Wolves, and a 16% chance vs Bournemouth.
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Combined Odds: I've calculated the probability of keeping at least one clean sheet. Man City's combined odds is 65%.
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Leeds are second with a 52% chance. That's the equivalent of a fixture like Arsenal home to Burnley, which shows the potential there plus extra appearance points.
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Brighton 39%, Bournemouth 38%, Chelsea 37%, then Burnley 19%.
Which Leeds defender is the best is very up for debate. I opted for Struijk given he feels most nailed. Van Hecke has a tricky double, but with a CB like him there's always a reasonable chance of defcon. He's averaged 8.76 per 90 which is lower compared to many other CBs, but a 37% hit rate over the season is solid.
I saw a really interesting graphic from RobT tracking Hill and Senesi's rolling 5 gameweek rate of defcons. Hill's 5 gameweek rolling average has only been behind Senesi twice. They're both great though; I've got a call to make this week on buying Senesi, or a Leeds defender, or rolling.
