Our team of Hall of Famers and guest writers provide Fantasy Premier League (FPL) tips and advice throughout the season. Here, two-time Indian FPL champion Lateriser looks at the threat of rotation as we approach Double Gameweek 34.
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Gameweek 32 showed a fair amount of rotation across the league. Fixtures are piling up quickly, especially for the big teams we are all casting an eye on.
With that in mind, I thought I’d take an overview of the fixture congestion and schedules for some clubs.
SCHEDULE OVERVIEW
This lovely table from @RadarFPL will help us visualize easily.
ARSENAL
Let us look at Arsenal first.
The Gunners have an evenly poised UEFA Champions League tie against Bayern Munich, delicately balanced at 2-2.
In fact, the period before the game against Aston Villa at home is the longest rest period they have in a while – four days. After that, there is only a two-day rest before the fixtures against Bayern Munich away, Wolves away and Chelsea at home. After that, they have a match against Tottenham Hotspur away.
Bukayo Saka (£8.9m), who was struggling in the period prior to the Munich game, did get rested against Luton Town at home. His minutes in the last few league starts read: 63, 77, 90, 45, 75, 68 and 66. Keeping that in mind, I won’t be surprised to see managed game-time in one of the two fixtures in Double Gameweek 34. You’d think that 90 minutes (or more) against Bayern Munich is almost nailed on for him.
The other marquee attacker, Kai Havertz (£7.3m), has seen more action of late. Only once, against Luton, has he been taken off before the 75th minute. He has now started nine league games in a row, so you do wonder if a rest is due for him, but all the games are so important that maybe it could just be a case of managed minutes. Or maybe one rest. Arsenal do have the likes of Gabriel Jesus (£7.7m) as options but Mikel Arteta himself recently stated the importance of Havertz:
“He’s certainly having a huge impact on the team, I think his overall performances have been really good and now his numbers in terms of goal contributions, are really, really high. He needs to maintain that level, I think the understanding between the attacking players today was superb – I think they had real purpose and connection, and a lot of clarity to attack against them, and we created many chances.
“A lot of the time players decide where they have to play, and we can have certain ideas, but then you see certain relationships and some things flow. And when it flows, you have to let it go, and I think Kai at the moment is flowing and he’s feeling really comfortable [as a striker], the rest of the team is comfortable with him there and things happen naturally.” – Mikel Arteta on Kai Havertz
In the Gunners’ last six league matches, Havertz has clocked four goals and four assists. It’s worth noting that he’s on an xG delta of +4.07, which means he’s performing well above his expected data. That said, he does have the most encouraging underlying numbers of all Arsenal’s attackers.
If you want to play it safe from an expected minutes perspective, the two centre-backs are the best bets. You shouldn’t even contemplate zagging against Gabriel Magalhaes (£5.4m) based on this table below alone:
Ben White (£5.9m) has looked fairly advanced and really attacking of late. However, given the fixture schedule, I do think that William Saliba (£5.9m) is a little more secure than him for expected minutes. Takehiro Tomiyasu (£4.5m) is back in the frame, so there could be the odd random benching for White.
LIVERPOOL
Liverpool’s schedule looks even more condensed. They have only two days of rest before their next three Premier League games. That makes you think that bar Virgil van Dijk (£6.6m) and maybe Mohamed Salah (£13.4m), none of their players are secure for minutes. That goes doubly so with Trent Alexander-Arnold (£8.4m), Diogo Jota (£7.9m) and Allison (£5.7m) back in the fray.
If you’re getting the likes of Darwin Nunez (£7.7m) or Luis Diaz (£7.6m), my expectations would be two starts and maybe a 30-minute cameo from the next three league games. I wrote about Diaz in my differential article last week and the case for him is very strong, given his recent minutes, form, general fitness levels (he was sprinting in the last minute against Manchester United) and underlying data. I think he is very likely to feature in my Free Hit team in Gameweek 34.
OTHER DOUBLE GAMEWEEK 34 TEAMS
Out of the teams that double in Gameweek 34, both Crystal Palace and Everton have only two days’ rest before their games in Gameweeks 34 and 35.
They have an extended period of rest before their first matches in Gameweek 34, however, which works in their favour.
It is the same for Bournemouth, except that they have an extra day’s rest before their Gameweek 35 tie against Brighton and Hove Albion.
Note that for Palace and Everton, two of the three games in Gameweeks 34 and 35 are home fixtures. That should ease the burden a little.
That is all from me this week. Until next time!
