What an absurdly good, somewhat lucky gameweek it was!
77 points all out, which takes the team up to 3.4K overall. 🌍
Tons of points coming from unexpected places. I was saying in last week's article that the attackers will need to do heavy lifting because we're not likely to get much from a defence that has the likes of Burn and Wan-Bissaka. In the end the opposite happens with the front 3 doing absolutely nothing, Wissa, Mateta, Isak 4 points between them. Burn and Wan-Bissaka both get an assist and a clean sheet for a double digit return. Was a bit surprised that it was just my third best gameweek of the season in terms of gameweek rank. Eze with a brace, Sarr getting an assist, captain Mbeumo with an assist, at least he didn't blank anyway. Very lucky to get on the right side of 50/50's like Martinez vs Raya and the same with Saliba and Konate who were tempting to start. That's the frustrating thing about this game when you're on the wrong end of it, loads of you had the likes of Forest defenders for an undeniably better team on paper, and many of you had the likes of Burn and Wan-Bissaka on the bench which made sense. It's such a high variance game week to week.
So, 2 more gameweeks, 2 more free transfers. Let's get into the team for GW37.
Got to go with Martinez in goal this week after consecutive clean sheets. 9 and 8 pointers, he's been pivotal. We're seeing more controlled performances from Villa as of late and it has equated to some clean sheets which were massively lacking earlier in the season. In the first half of this season he literally kept 3. It's Spurs home where he's been given a 36% chance of a clean sheet. Here are your odds for GW37: Everton top on 47%, Chelsea 42%, Man City and Villa on 36%. So the clean sheet odds favour him slightly over Raya who has Newcastle home and 31.5%.
In defence it's Gvardiol, Saliba and Wan-Bissaka.
I'm faced with a decision between Konate and Wan-Bissaka. Liverpool are a far better defence, though loads of the squad have been seen away on holiday again this week, they're barely even training, apparently 1 session last gameweek, perhaps similar this week. Konate has Brighton away, Wan-Bissaka home to Forest. It's Wan-Bissaka starting, since Potter took over West Ham in GW21 he's provided 4 assists which is joint most among defenders along with Munoz. He's been playing wingback and was absolutely class against Man Utd.
So the staple pick Gvardiol has Bournemouth home which comes after the FA Cup final. I've got 3 players in total that will play in the final this weekend before their GW37 fixture, so I'm not too overly exposed. Top 5 is far from secure still so we may see more measured performances from City too, they've kept 5 clean sheets in their last 7. Bournemouth are no pushovers either.
Huge game at the Emirates, Arsenal secure champions league football and basically secure 2nd place with a win, whereas a Newcastle win will see them move up to 2nd place. So I'm happy to be exposed to that fixture with Saliba and hedge with Martinez in goal rather than double Arsenal defence. Hoping Rice is back next match or he'll be a huge miss as he was vs Liverpool.