Launched in late March, the official Fantasy Challenge game is offering managers a fresh twist for Gameweek 36.
Separate from the main Fantasy Premier League (FPL) format, Fantasy Challenge is essentially a series of independent weekly Free Hits. Yet each one comes with a stipulation.
In Gameweek 36, players are rewarded with two points for every shot.
ENTER YOUR GAMEWEEK 36 TEAM HERE
Point-scoring is the same, it’s still a 15-man squad and the budget remains £100m. A captain and vice-captain need picking too, with prizes on offer.
But two big differences are that you’re allowed up to five players per Premier League team and the line-up can be edited at any point up until there are less than four teams left to play in the Gameweek.
FANTASY CHALLENGE GAMEWEEK 36: SCOUT PICKS
Now this challenge is quite interesting. And because it takes place in a Gameweek where all 20 teams play exactly once, our eyes aren’t immediately glancing towards doublers.
Instead, the ideal candidates combine a season-long reliability for taking lots of shots with a notoriously leaky weekend opponent. As well as general FPL attractiveness, of course.
The individuals with the most attempts are Darwin Nunez (£7.6m), Erling Haaland (£14.1m), Ollie Watkins (£9.0m), Dominic Solanke (£7.2m) and Mohamed Salah (£13.5m). As Darwin is being rotated and Solanke has a daunting trip to the league’s best defence, let’s back Haaland to start versus Wolverhampton Wanderers and Salah to re-enter Liverpool’s line-up against Spurs’ unconvincing backline.
When focusing on recent shots over the last six Gameweeks, Cole Palmer (£6.2m) is ahead of Salah in first place. Marry this with Chelsea hosting a West Ham United side that’s conceded the third-most shots on target (214) and big chances (101), he leads the way for captaincy.
Slightly behind Rodrigo Muniz (£4.5m) in fourth place is Alexander Isak (£8.3m). Although we’ve looked into how his goals are much more frequent at home, the penalty-taker travels to 19th-placed Burnley. The Clarets have just two clean sheets and are consistently poor in underlying stats.
Meanwhile, of this campaign’s regular players, Crystal Palace’s Michael Olise (£5.6m) has one of the better minutes per chance rates (24.1). Only Palmer has more points per start (7.8), so he’ll relish facing Manchester United – the third-worst for allowing shots (600).
A midfielder playing up front, Kai Havertz (£7.5m) has eight goals, six assists and 100 points from his last 11 outings. That’s hard to ignore, as is Chris Wood‘s (£4.8m) match at Sheffield United, the league’s worst defence. The New Zealand international missed two close-range sitters against Manchester City last week.
At the back, it’s a battle between picking defenders who shoot often and those who have a decent chance of a clean sheet. For example, Pedro Porro (£5.8m), Virgil van Dijk (£6.7m), Trent Alexander-Arnold (£8.4m) and Fabian Schar (£5.7m) are the top four for attempts but the first few face each other, plus the Newcastle United centre-back is injured.
Arsenal’s Gabriel Magalhaes (£5.4m) brings four goals and some serious set-piece threat, as Harry Maguire (£4.2m) awaits on the sidelines.
Finally, the goalkeepers. This pick isn’t based on attacking threat, as Nick Pope (£5.3m) is the only one to register a shot this season – Gameweek 3 versus Liverpool. And it’s hard to predict which are more likely to come up for a late corner. So team-mate Martin Dubravka (£4.3m) gets the nod because he is cheap and able to collect a clean sheet.
ENTER YOUR GAMEWEEK 36 TEAM HERE
JOIN THE FANTASY FOOTBALL SCOUT MINI-LEAGUE
By the way, you can join the mini-league that we’ve created.
Simply follow this link and you’ll be added automatically once you’ve entered the game.
League Code: 59d69w
FANTASY CHALLENGE PRIZES
END-OF-SEASON DRAW
- Trip to New York City
- Exclusive tour of the NBC Studio
- Includes flights and accommodation for five nights
Eligibility to win this random draw requires you to have joined the game and entered a team before 2023/24 ends. Each Gameweek team entry is an entry to the prize draw.
WEEKLY PRIZES
The top three each receive an official Premier League Nike match ball, the EA SPORTS FC game and a bundle of FPL merchandise that includes a rucksack, t-shirt, mug and more.
On top of this, the weekly winner will get a signed Premier League shirt.
