fantasy premier league GW35 review by Joseph Crilley

Fantasy Premier League, Gameweek analysis

After each gameweek, Joseph Crilley is going to be writing an article reviewing all the Premier League games from a fantasy perspective. He will be providing some stats and a brief summary on the performances and prospects of a few of the players. This is the fantasy premier league GW35 review. Last year, Joseph finished with an overall rank of 13k.

FANTASY PREMIER LEAGUE GW35 REVIEW

For each game, I will be providing a stats table containing the following: Goals (G), Assists (A), Shots (S), On Target (OT), Key Passes (KP), Bonus points (BP) and fantasy points (FP). Any statistic highlighted in yellow signifies that the player leads that category for his team. Blue highlight shows the players that registered a fantasy return (goal, assist or clean sheet) and green shows any player that scored 10+ points.

The tables also include the Expected Goals and Expected Assists for each individual player. This is in addition to the expected goals for each team in brackets within the scoreline. BBC Sport provided a very useful piece to help explain this statistic. Essentially each shot is given a score between 0 and 1 as to how likely it is to go in the net. For example, suppose a shot taken from inside the box is worth 0.56; this will be added to the xG tally of the player who take the shot and added to the xA of the player who passes the ball to him. All underlying stats are from the brilliant website understat.com. References to average position come from the twitter site 11tegen11.

 STATS TABLES

The stats tables are all available via the following google spreadsheet link and I will speak about a few key players during the gameweek.



KEY PLAYERS

Liverpool

Klopp had stated in his press conference on Friday that he planned to play ‘a strong team’ against West Brom despite the upcoming Champions League semi-final. However, there was still some rotation as Firmino and Robertson were rested among others with that midweek fixture in mind. The GW36 match for Liverpool at home to Stoke falls in between the first and second leg of the semi, so it will be interesting to see the line-up for that game.

Is it possible that Salah could be rested for that game? The Egyptian got his usual goal this week with a nice chipped finish, although it wasn’t his best game as his goal was his only shot on target. It was also a quieter game for Mané with his only bright moment being a cross which helped to create the first goal.

At the back, only Van Dijk out of the usual back 4 started and this seemed to affect Liverpool’s solidity as they conceded sloppy late goals to allow West Brom back into the game. Owners who picked up Klavan on their free hit will be especially disappointed because their man was on course for three bonus point before his side conceded.

Arsenal

Similar to Liverpool, there was plenty of information to be gained from the manager’s press conference as Wenger revealed his intention to field a side to warm up for the Europa League game. That meant no place for record signing Aubameyang, though he was bright after emerging from the bench and picked up an assist. Nonetheless, free-hit managers who elected for Lacazette after hearing Wenger’s words were rewarded with a late brace and 13 points.

Those brave enough to select Ramsey in hope of a start following his recent knock also received a haul of points as the Welshman put in a strong performance. Match-leading figures of 4 shots and 3 key passes helped him to a goal, albeit a fortunate one, and an assist – he’s been a great option when in the Arsenal starting XI this season. There was to be no clean sheet for the defence, however Monreal did score the first goal with a fine volley from a corner. He was one of my transfers in on my free hit as you’ll see from the FFGeek contributors article for GW35

Man City

A five-star display from the new champions who simply swept Swansea aside with some sensational attacking football. Typically, the orchestrators of the performance were Silva and De Bruyne and they both got on the scoresheet with a sensational strike from the latter. De Bruyne was withdrawn unusually early, which may be a sign of future rest during the remainder of the season for a number of players.

There were immediate signs of rotation in this game, though Pep did avoid starting any of his youth players. The major players rested here were Otamendi, Walker and Sané which would have caused frustration for people who picked them up with their free hit. Otamendi has now been on the bench for successive games and it’s tough to predict who is going to be benched for City going forward – I can easily foresee any player missing at least one game before the season end.

On the pitch it was Sterling who led the way with a close-range finish and an assist; he also won the penalty which was missed by Jesus. The Brazilian had a frustrating game at times as he missed another easy chance, but he finally got his reward with a late header. He still looks like the one player safe from rotation given his limited minutes over the season and the absence of Aguero.

Other Players

Zaha was a popular purchase this week but he failed to register a single shot or key pass – his major contribution was a booking that he picked up for simulation. He did almost register an assist after a free-kick won by the winger was struck against the woodwork by Milivojevic who also blanked.

At a similar price to Zaha, Arnautovic continues to produce the goods, even against tough opposition, with a fine finish against Arsenal. He lined up in the striker role and always looked the most likely West Ham player to cause problems.

Barnes sustained his fine form with a goal and a couple of points to punish those who let him go on their free hit. There were 4 shots and 4 key passes for Gudmundsson, but he was unable to maintain his run of assists.

FA Cup Notes

It was more big game disappointment for Spurs as they succumbed to another FA cup semi -final loss and FPL managers will be keen to see if the North London side can bounce back in their last 4 games.  They managed to do this after last season’s semi-final loss with 13 goals in their last couple of games and Kane led the charge then as he strode to another golden boot. It was another quiet game for the striker here though as he continues to show the affects of an earlier ankle injury. There are big decisions for managers regarding Kane this week as a home fixture against Watford in GW36 looks very promising, but he just isn’t showing the form.



In midfield, Alli scored after a wonderful ball in from Eriksen who has continued to be the main man for Spurs recently. Meanwhile, Son struggled to get things going on the wing and could still be a threat for rotation over the remaining games with the depth that Spurs have now.

Man United performed well after struggling to contain a strong start from Spurs in the first 20 minutes and were very resilient after taking the league. Smalling and Jones lined up at centre back which suggests that they are Mourinho’s first choice pairing.

Further forward, the key men performed as Lukaku and Pogba picked up assists, though the striker’s was rather lucky, and Sanchez scored the equaliser. It was a busy performance from Sanchez and will have caused much frustration for those that took the punt on him during the double gameweek.

On the Sunday, Chelsea ground out a 2-0 win over Southampton thanks to goals from their pair of strikers, Giroud and Morata. The former was the one chosen to lead the line from the start and showed some fine footwork to manufacture his goal after being played in by the lively Hazard. Meanwhile, the goal for Morata came from a familiar source of another header from an Azpilicueta cross. Willian rattled the bar in the early stages of the match but was withdrawn with just 64 minutes on the clock.

That concludes the GW35 review. Feel free to post any questions or feedback in the comments section or you can find me on Twitter.

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Geek Leagues

Fantasy Premier League: 5379-1967
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Sky: FFGeek 8310511
TFF Europe League PIN is 8000919 and the pass code 6296

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