FanDuel Focus – Gameweek 29

Friday lunchtime finds us running the rule over FanDuel’s upcoming contests and prizes, along with a summary of our strongest line-up to help guide your selections.

Following last weekend’s reduced programme, FanDuel returns to the regular three windows for their contests this time around.

The full ten-fixture slate begins when West Brom welcome Arsenal to The Hawthorns for the 12.30pm kick-off on Saturday, which also marks the deadline for those contests.

The Saturday-only window then opens for five 3 pm encounters, ending with Swansea City’s visit to Bournemouth in the tea-time clash.

Sunday provides a trio of matches to select from. The deadline here is midday, with Manchester United rolling up to the Riverside Stadium for the day’s opener. The action ends at the Etihad Stadium as Liverpool drop in on Manchester City.

If you’re a newcomer to FanDuel, it’s worth checking out yesterday’s
Weekly Shop article and our line-up below for help with this Gameweek’s selections. For further hints on more general strategies to consider, there’s also our pre-season Strategy Guide.

My Strongest XI

Wayne Hennessey £6.8m
Geoff Cameron £6.5m
Maya Yoshida £7.5m
Gareth McAuley £8m
Adnan Januzaj £6.4m
Andre Ayew £7m
Son Heung-min £9.5m
Dele Alli £11.7m
Josh King £9.5m
Romelu Lukaku £12.9m
Alexis Sanchez £13.1m

The Key Picks

While there are several tempting options in goal this week, we’ve opted to save funds between the sticks and select the cut-price Wayne Hennessey. Crystal Palace have consecutive clean sheets on the back of a new-found resilience – influenced by defender Mamadou Sakho’s (£7.2m) introduction to the back-line. Hennessey scored 27 points in their previous home match – making four saves against Middlesbrough, while Watford pay visit having blanked in four of their last six road trips.

As always in FanDuel, we’ve hunted defenders that return steady numbers of clearances, blocks and interceptions (CBI’s), alongside tackles won. Normally this has us focus on defences who are also set to face a barrage of attacks, against stronger opponents.

Our first pick should be kept very busy holding off Chelsea’s frontline. Geoff Cameron has recovered from injury to play a prominent part in Stoke City’s previous two league matches. In nine starts this season, the kindly-priced American has registered five CBI’s and four tackles per match, which has contributed to a 16.8 point FanDuel average. Expected to be stationed in a holding midfield role for the Blues visit, his combative qualities should deliver us a healthy return.

The Southampton defence are set for a torrid afternoon at White Hart Lane. Spurs have recorded more goal attempts (284) than any other side at home, which has us look to the Saints’ Maya Yoshida for a berth in our line-up. The centre-back boasts an impressive average of 18.9 points over the last four matches – that’s consisted of 36 CBI’s (including 14 clearances at Watford last time out) and ten tackles won.

Our last defender is better known for his attacking output, having netted six goals this term. West Brom’s Gareth McAuley will be a key threat to Arsenal at The Hawthorns, but we’re also expecting him to produce big numbers for defensive actions against the Gunners. McAuley’s pair of goals, 40 CBI’s and 11 tackles won over his previous four outings shows he’s capable of picking up points at both ends of the pitch in the early kick-off.

We’ve targeted a pair of budget midfielders in order to fund big-hitters elsewhere in attack.

Sunderland’s home fixture against Burnley provides the basement-dwellers with a promising opportunity to secure some precious survival points. While Jermain Defoe would be our preference, we already had a trio of forwards in mind, so we’re turned instead to Adnan Januzaj as a budget alternative. The winger has served up two assists from nine chances created and fired five goal attempts to average 16.75 points over the last four Gameweeks.

We’re hopeful that West Ham’s Andre Ayew has been effective enough of late to finally earn a recall to the starting XI. The midfielder’s provided a pair of goals and assist in three substitute appearances since returning from the Africa Cup of Nations, producing a 20.5-point average over that trio of cameos. Leicester City visit the London Stadium having failed to win on the road this campaign – conceding 27 goals in 13 away ties. Ayew will get chances should he start, but we’ll need to have FanDuel’s late swap feature at the ready once the teamsheets are published.

Although we put Christian Eriksen forward as our preferred pick in the Weekly Shop, we’ve settled on a double-up of two alternative Spurs midfield assets for budget reasons.

Dele Alli has produced five goals and a pair of assists in six league matches at White Hart Lane to average an impressive 33 points in FanDuel over that run. We’ve combined him with Son Heung-min following the South Korean’s hat-trick against Millwall in the FA Cup last weekend – classed as a midfielder, Mauricio Pochettino is likely to deploy him in a striker’s role against Southampton in Harry Kane’s absence.

Our next pick also fired a hat-trick last weekend. Bournemouth’s Josh King now has seven goals in five outings ahead of Swansea City’s visit to the Vitality Stadium. Encouragingly, King scored in the Cherries 3-0 victory over the Welsh side earlier in this season, while his ten shots inside the box over the last four Gameweeks is joint top with Everton’s Romelu Lukaku among FanDuel forwards.

Lukaku also gets the nod as he seeks to score in a sixth consecutive match at Goodison Park. Only the sidelined Harry Kane has struck more shots on target (worth five points apiece in FanDuel) than the Belgian’s seven over the last four. The Toffees host a Hull City defence that have conceded the most shots in the penalty area (65) over the last six matches.

Alexis Sanchez completes the line-up ahead of his trip to The Hawthorns. Only Christian Eriksen (34) has created more chances than Sanchez (31) in away matches this season, while the Chilean has scored 11 of this season’s 17 goals away from the Emirates. Combined with his four assists, that gives Sanchez a 50% goal involvement on his travels.

This Week’s Contests

The full weekend slate once again offers the main prize pot of the weekend. The £2,500 Fan Favourite has a £5 fee per entry with first place claiming £500, while the top 120 of 588 entries receive a pay-out.

That slate also offers the £1,000 Big Double Up contest, which has a £10 buy-in with 50 players scooping a £20 prize.

On Saturday there’s a £500 special, which is £3 to enter. The top 43 of 197 entries win money, with £100 going to the overall winner.

Then on Sunday, the £777 special contest stumps up a £140 top prize. There’s a £7 entry fee with 29 of 144 nine participants claiming a reward.