Here’s Rob Reid with his fantasy premier league GW34 player picks to help you decide on your transfer. Rob has finished 3 of the last 4 seasons in the top 0.5% of FPL managers
Rob Reid with his fantasy premier league GW34 player picks
Hi everyone and welcome to Gameweek 34 Player Picks.
You may recall that last season I ran a weekly article where I selected an Ace, Banker and Joker pick each week. This season I’ve slightly changed the format but I’ll be making my picks along similar lines. The Ace will be a form player who I would heavily favour for captain this week. The Banker is a fixture pick and has an eye to the next few gameweeks. The Joker will be a differential pick where the only condition is that they must have less than 10% ownership.
I’ll be keeping an eye on how each player performs each week. After the success of GW1 & 2s Bankers, I’ve decided to go back on my original plan and I’ll now be following the Banker pick for 4 weeks again, like I did last season. I’ll also be running a weekly average on how well the selections perform each week. Finally, there will be Guest Picks again from time to time and I’ll be running some Twitter Polls throughout the season where Fantasy Football Geek readers and Twitter followers will be able to vote on who we’re going to pick in each category – keep an eye out for these as the season goes on and feel free to vote!
Here goes – wish me luck!
Previous Picks
Banker
GW30 – Mo Salah
GW30 – 5 points
GW31 – 2 points
GW32 – 5 points
GW33 – 6 points (1 goal, yellow card)
Average – 4.5 points
GW31 – Ryan Fraser
GW31 – 2 points
GW32 – 2 points
GW33 – 2 points
Average – 2 points
GW32 – Luka Milivojevic
GW32 – 11 points
GW33 – 10 points (1 goal, midfield clean sheet, 2 bonus points)
Average – 10.5 points
GW33 – Yan Valery
GW33 – 2 points
Overall Banker average: 5.43 points per GW
Ace
Jamie Vardy
16 points (2 goals, 1 assist, 3 bonus points)
Overall Ace Average – 6.17 points
Joker
Youri Tielemans
9 points (1 goal, 2 bonus points)
Overall Joker Average – 5.08 points
Gameweek 34 Picks
Banker – Heung-Min Son (TOT 8.6m) – HUD
Another gameweek, another Player Pick for a team playing Huddersfield! I won’t lie, my preferred Banker pick this week would have been Harry Kane if fit, his more secure gametime and penalty duties being the big attraction. Alas though it’s not to be, but the South Korean star could be set to profit from his absence and has a good chance of occupying the striker berth vacated by the absent England captain. His stats and returns had dropped off a bit after the Asia Cup, but he seems to like Spurs new stadium with 2 in 2 games so far. He should also relish playing an ailing Terriers defence and with a double gameweek in 35 and fixtures at home to travel-shy West Ham in 36 and away to a Bournemouth team who’s form has fallen off a cliff in 37, this looks an ideal time for Son to thrive.
Ace – Romelu Lukaku (MAN 10.8m) – WHM
I’ve mentioned Huddersfield being a target for opposing captain picks and it’s probably fair to say you could apply the same formula to West Ham playing away from home. Just 1 point away from home in 2019, 1 goal scored and 13 conceded – it doesn’t make for pleasant reading for Hammers fans. They may have been a bit of a bogey team for United in the past, but on this form they will not be looking forward to visiting Old Trafford and Solskjaer will certainly be keen to get United back on track following their reverse at Wolves in the second fixture of GW32. I’ve gone for Lukaku rather than Rashford for this week due his reputation as a flat track bully and he’s got more goals against West Ham in the Premier League than he does against any other club – 11 goals in 11 appearances with 4 assists to add alongside. He’s also likely to be overlooked by many on Wildcards this week, so if you’re after a 1 week punt or a premium differential pick, he could be a nice option.
Joker – Mathew Ryan (BRI 4.4m) – BOU/CAR
It would be crazy for me not have at least one double gameweek player in this week’s Picks and I’ve always been a believer that keepers are great double options. In most cases you get the security of a start, you’ve got 2 lots of save points to factor in and if the fixtures look nice, you’ve a fighting chance of a double clean sheet. And with Brighton, you’ve also got the added bonus of them having 2 consecutive double gameweeks – 4 fixtures in 2 weeks, what’s not to love?! To be fair, GW34 looks the better bet for clean sheets – Cardiff are struggling in the last of the remaining relegation places and as I’ve already mentioned, second opponents Bournemouth are in poor form at the moment. You could go for any of Duffy, Dunk or Ryan with the defenders possibly having a better points ceiling with their threat from set pieces. But I personally like the fact that Ryan can be a path to 2 playing double keepers in GW35 for those using their Bench Boost, whereas Duffy and Dunk can be replaced by slightly cheaper options from Southampton for example. Either way, I think it’s a sensible move to be covering the Brighton defence this week.
That’s all from me this week on Player Picks, best of luck for this week everyone!
Other stuff
If you’re needing to plan your FPL transfers use Joseph Crilleys google spreadsheet which is an excellent team planning tool.
See also 5 FFGeek contributors first draft WC teams plus another 3 contributors WC teams as well as the Geeks first draft wildcard team
There’s also Andrew Ferguson’s wildcard draft team. He finished with an OR of 715 last season
Follow FFGeek on twitter and facebook and instagram for article updates and news
Geek League links and details
Enter PIN: 836767
League PIN is SGDKX9Y3
