FPL GW38 Team Selection

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Welcome back for another article.

Congrats to all of you that are Arsenal fans. 22 long years, the depths of the banter era and coming so close repeatedly, and we've finally done it. Hopefully see a few of you at the parade on the 31st.

The other event coming up is this Sunday, I'll be at the Thirsty Bear in London for an FPL meet up. I highly recommend going even if you don't know anyone, it's gonna be great.

From an FPL perspective a poor gameweek and a poor end to the season but it's an easy pill to swallow still riding the high of Arsenal winning the league, currently 29k and a top 50k finish a good season all things considered, that will be my 7th and it was always going to be hard to match last year's 3K finish. Saka came in for Palmer which worked out perfect as the top scorer in the team as captain, but Cherki benched and Joao Pedro not in the squad not ideal. Plus Van Hecke playing a really poor backpass in stoppage time without seeing DCL there who rounded Verbruggen and wiped the double clean sheet. Absolute pain. Lot of points benched having started double Brighton defence over Leeds, and that was Leeds first shot on target of the entire game.

So Arsenal are champions and that will probably only add to the carnage that is GW38, where they'll definitely rotate a few players, and we might see the same from City.

There's very few Arsenal and City players that are safe, even the keepers could be at risk. I would strongly recommend making your transfers as near to the deadline as possible as there's bound to be team news and leaks that drop early which could dictate what you do. If you're able to be around near the deadline anyway. I'll be live as always for the deadline, going live at half 12 for 2 hours til the deadline passes then will be heading in to London for that meet up.

Lastly, honourable mention to Mukiele who has surpassed Lundstram's 144 points by a 4m defender. Though that's with defcon so we won't count it, Lord Lundstram remains king. If that was before your time, it was the 2019/20 season where they classified him as a defender by mistake and he played as a box to box mid, Sheffield Utd kept loads of clean sheets for a promoted team and he got a bunch of goal involvements. Was a gamebreaker for a large part of the season.

So, for the last time this season, let's take a look at your submissions for the best and worst scores.

Thurgz says Champions! With his team winning the league, had a huge gameweek with 81 points and on top of that he had the player that helped seal it for Arsenal last night Kroupi with the 8 pointer

TTC Watchout says I'm fine. 42 points all out and a huge red arrow, with blanks from Verbruggen, Tarkowski, O'Reilly, Van Hecke, Semenyo, Wilson and captain Gyokeres. Very unlucky as that's not a bad team

Blake says Painful looking at my bench. 56 points all out, with Osula's 13 pointer, Van Dijk's 14 pointer on the bench plus Hill for 28 points benched.

Lastly FPL River who went for the GW37 bench boost and nailed it, with 22 points bench boosted and a total score of 98. Says 98 on BB and into top 100k 💪

Thanks all for the submissions. And for the last time this season, let's run through the team selection and transfer plans.

🧤 Goalkeeper

• A choice to make between Verbruggen and Darlow goal.

• Got it wrong last gameweek albeit a bit unlucky with Leeds registering their first shot in stoppage time and something like 0.3 xG conceded.

• Going for Verbruggen again with the home fixture but it's not a great one, playing Man Utd.

• Man Utd are the only team in the league that are gridlocked positionally, they can't move up or down so perhaps motivation levels will be lower and a lot of the squad will have one on the world cup and not getting injured.

• For Brighton it's one of the biggest in their history, they could finish in the Europa League, Conference League or even no Europe at all.

🛡️ Defenders

• In defence it's Hill, O'Reilly and Gabriel. ⚽

• It's one of the biggest games in Bournemouth's history as well, they're in a good spot where Europa League minimum is guaranteed but if they were to batter Forest they could end up in the Champions League so they might as well go for it however unlikely.

• They trail Liverpool by 3 points, Liverpool would need to lose to Brentford and Bournemouth to win.

• O'Reilly potentially a big risk this week, it's a dead game for City now.

• Nothing to play for and Pep might use it as an opportunity to rotate a few players, for example Ait-Nouri in at left back.

• That said, it is Pep's last ever game in charge of City, he'll be desperate to finish his City career on a win won't he.

• So O'Reilly gets the start and let's hope for the best.

• Even Gabriel who has been completely nailed for Arsenal could be a risk, again there's nothing to play for in this one now, and one of Arsenal's most important matches ever comes a week later - the Champions League final.

• On the one hand it's a healthy gap so Arteta could go pretty strong and will want them to take some confidence into that final, on the other hand if he loses a key player to injury it would be devastating.

• Again, going to start him and hope for the best.

• More confident in him than O'Reilly.

⚽ Midfielders

• The midfield is a minefield as well, it's Bruno, Cherki, Saka and Tavernier. 🎯

• Cherki's a strange one, he was playing fantastic, lots of goal involvements, good underlying numbers, then he gets hooked at 59 minutes vs Brentford, benched vs Palace, benched in the FA Cup final and then benched against Bournemouth.

• 3 benchings on the bounce in all comps after an early sub.

• Only 1 free transfer so he'll just get the start and hope for the best once again.

• Feels like this gameweek will go one of two ways, absolute disaster and half the team are benched or get lucky and the likes of Cherki start and do well and it ends up a good final gameweek.

• 17 points inside Top 50k so it's comfortable and the pressure is off anyway.

• Saka I'm looking to sell now unless Joao Pedro straight up injured and not going to play.

• Think there's a very good chance Madueke starts this one, and it could be Dowman off the bench when Arteta makes a sub there.

• There's really no point risking Saka in this one so he's likely straight back out of the team.

• That means Tavernier reluctantly comes in to the starting 11 as well in place of Trossard who ended up a bad transfer, came very close after hitting the post and a couple of great moments but no returns.

• Tavernier's been absolutely terrible from an FPL point of view but beggars can't be choosers in a week like this!

🎯 Forwards

• Up front it's Thiago, Haaland and Joao Pedro. 🪑

• The original plan was a straight forward Thiago to Bowen switch but that's probably not happening now.

• Bowen does look fantastic for GW38 though.

• Going to keep an eye out for any City leaks just in case Pep doesn't start Haaland but I'd expect he will do so he's my captain as well.

• There is one player I'm thinking of bringing in and captaining, more on that in a sec.

• So Joao Pedro wasn't even named in Chelsea's squad vs Spurs and that was a huge game.

• Mcfarlane said the following: "Joao Pedro had a slight knock. Nothing that we're massively concerned about. It wasn't worth risking him".

• Sunderland? "It's definitely a wait-and-see. We're hopeful."

• He was photographed training as well so it seems like he's got a decent chance if he was able to train.

🪑 Bench + Transfer Plans

• So the bench is Darlow, Van Hecke, Bijol and Trossard.

• Worst case scenario Van Hecke and Bijol aren't terrible auto-subs or if multiple players are out and I have to start one, both have been good for defcon.

• One free transfer and there's so many options.

• Van Hecke to Pedro Porro looks really strong, Thiago to Bowen I like a lot.

• Tavernier to Anthony has potential.

• The current plan is Saka to Palmer and stack on the Chelsea attack, hope to get lucky with a goal fest in that game.

• After beating Spurs Chelsea have put themselves in a position to secure Europa League with a win over Sunderland, if they win and Brighton draw or lose.

• Or they could even just draw if Brighton lose to Man Utd.

• Mcfarlane said they didn't want to risk Colwill and James just after the final, perhaps with that extra rest they both come back in and Chelsea go full strength vs Sunderland.

• Palmer's not been his usual self as of late though so it is a long shot, the thing is there's a lack of appealing alternatives, it's basically Szoboszlai, Anthony, Palmer.

• I have to use the transfer on the benching risk so that narrows it down to selling Saka.

• Plans could go completely out the window if there's a leak that one of my other players don't start, or if Joao Pedro is out again for example.

• Either way, will make the final transfer of the season during the deadline stream that's for certain.

Thanks for reading these team selection articles over the season and following my story. Wishing you the best of luck with your teams. See you soon for the next one.

Please note my team and plans aren’t locked in and can change!