Five empty Gameweeks down, four – potentially – to go.
The deadline for Gameweek 34, which was poised to be a ‘double’ had coronavirus not stopped play, passed on Saturday morning, with a small but not insignificant band of Fantasy managers again taking the opportunity to dip into their free transfer allowance.
Despite football being suspended indefinitely and some way from a resumption date being set, Fantasy Premier League have decided to stick with the original deadlines for Gameweeks 30 to 38.
While it’s possible that all outstanding fixtures will be absorbed into a super-Gameweek 38, it would make a lot more sense for extra Gameweeks to be tagged onto the end of the campaign – although that, of course, all hinges on FPL having the technical capacity to do so.
FPL’s decision to leave the Gameweek deadlines as originally scheduled means that Fantasy managers have the luxury of clearing out any deadwood with their abundance of free transfers (we are presented with a fresh one every Gameweek, despite football being on hiatus) or even carry out a larger-scale revamp of their squads.
TRANSFERS
There were 66,152 transfers made ahead of the Gameweek 34 deadline, almost exactly the same number we had last week.
What we are mostly seeing now are the luxury transfers and the continuation of the so-called ‘slow Wildcard’, with the more pressing matters – i.e. the sales of flagged players – having generally been taken care of in the early stages of lockdown.
The injured Ricardo Pereira (£6.3m), for example, was the most-sold player of Gameweek 31, but only ranked 21st for sales in Gameweek 34.
Bruno Fernandes (£8.6m) was the most-bought player for the fifth Gameweek in a row, with Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£6.5m) again placed second for transfers in.
Nick Pope (£4.9m) continues to mop up the purchases for those in the market for a new goalkeeper, meanwhile.
The ten most-bought assets of Gameweek 34 are listed below, with their respective positions in the Gameweek 33 ‘transfers in’ table listed in the final column to see how trends are changing.
Todd Cantwell (£4.7m) featured in both the top ten for transfers in and out in Gameweek 34.
| Player | Club | GW34 Transfers In | GW33 Position |
| Fernandes | Man Utd | 3,489 | (1) |
| Calvert-Lewin | Everton | 3,255 | (2) |
| Pope | Burnley | 2,079 | (3) |
| Vardy | Leicester | 1,750 | (5) |
| De Bruyne | Man City | 1,749 | (4) |
| Wan-Bissaka | Man Utd | 1,691 | (7) |
| Martial | Man Utd | 1,647 | (6) |
| Jimenez | Wolves | 1,378 | (9) |
| Cantwell | Norwich | 1,290 | (15) |
| Richarlison | Everton | 1,238 | (13) |
Danny Ings (£7.1m) was the most-sold asset for the third Gameweek in a row.
The top four for Gameweek sales, indeed, remained unchanged.
Mohamed Salah (£12.7m), curiously, leapt up to fifth for transfers out, although the numbers we are talking about here represent a tiny sliver of his overall ownership.
| Player | Club | GW34 Transfers Out | GW33 Position |
| Ings | Southampton | 3,344 | (1) |
| Aubameyang | Arsenal | 2,670 | (2) |
| Traore | Wolves | 2,092 | (3) |
| Soyuncu | Leicester | 1,372 | (4) |
| Salah | Liverpool | 1,151 | (14) |
| Rico | Bournemouth | 1,145 | (8) |
| Mahrez | Man City | 1,123 | (9) |
| Cantwell | Norwich | 1,098 | (16) |
| Grealish | Aston Villa | 1,084 | (5) |
| Jota | Wolves | 1,079 | (19) |
Following the deluge of price changes at the beginning of the month (there were 113 between April 3-6), we haven’t seen a single riser or faller since then.
Price prediction site FPL Statistics gave their interpretation of events in a bulletin a fortnight ago, when the market was particularly volatile.
DEADLINES
The deadlines for the remaining ‘blank’ Gameweeks are as follows:
GW35 – Sat 25 Apr 11:30 BST
GW36 – Sat 2 May 14:00 GMT
GW37 – Sat 9 May 14:00 BST
GW38 – Sun 17 May 14:00 BST
