In Gameweek 38 of the official Fantasy Challenge game, only one player per club can be selected by managers.
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.
ENTER YOUR GAMEWEEK 38 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.
One usual difference is that your line-up can be edited beyond the first match but, with all 20 teams playing simultaneously on the closing afternoon, this will not be relevant for Sunday.
FANTASY CHALLENGE GAMEWEEK 38: SCOUT PICKS
Many season-long FPL squads are currently tripled up on Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea assets and this task is designed to make managers think harder. Some positions are tougher to fill and, arguably, fewer than 11 teams have an appealing fixture.
Therefore, having concluded that Gameweek 38 is traditionally very high-scoring, our latter picks may have to be attack-minded defenders from elsewhere. If final-day clean sheets are rare, there’s no point in wasting valuable top-team coverage on these spots.
The good thing is that we’ll see the teamsheets from all 20 teams before we finalise our selection, so if any of the below don’t start (eg Messrs Lamptey and Isak), we can replace them with teammates.
So where to start? Well, for Spurs it has to be a midfielder. Opponents Sheffield United have broken the record for goals conceded in a Premier League season (101) and love a heavy home defeat almost as much as Spurs enjoy a final-day goal bonanza away to a relegated side. Son Heung-min (£10.0m) is their focal point.
Over at Chelsea, penalty-taking Cole Palmer (£6.3m) gets the nod over Nicolas Jackson (£7.0m) because he’s the individual with most points (238) and double-digit hauls (10) throughout FPL. Erling Haaland (£14.2m) is preferred to Phil Foden (£8.5m) but it’s a trickier call at Arsenal.
The Gunners have a supreme backline aiming to keep an 11th clean sheet in 15. But instead, let’s select Kai Havertz (£7.5m). His latest 13 matches have yielded a whopping eight goals and eight assists, blanking just three times.
Meanwhile, for budgetary reasons, Trent Alexander-Arnold (£8.4m) pips Mohamed Salah (£13.4m) to the role of Liverpool representative in Jurgen Klopp’s emotional farewell. He’s the defender who’s created the most big chances (16) and had the second-most shots (43).
After that, it’s about picking players from fairly even-looking matches: Brentford v Newcastle United, Crystal Palace v Aston Villa and Brighton and Hove Albion v Manchester United.
Successive double-digit scores have arrived for Michael Olise (£5.7m) and he has this season’s best points per start rate (8.8), narrowly ahead of Palmer and Haaland. Yet team-mate Jean-Philippe Mateta (£5.0m) has six goals from five outings. Furthermore, Alexander Isak (£8.4m) tends to be better on the road than many of his travel-sick teammates.
As for Brighton, they’ll target Man United’s leaky defence in order to bag a fifth consecutive league win over them. Only Sheffield United have allowed more attempts (650) than Erik ten Hag’s lot and full-back Tariq Lamptey (£3.9m) set up four Seagulls chances on Wednesday night, including a close-range Pascal Gross (£6.1m) miss and a testing Joao Pedro (£5.2m) header.
Opposing goalkeeper Andre Onana (£5.0m) might need to make plenty of saves.
The final picks target relegated sides Burnley and Luton Town. Morgan Gibbs-White (£5.7m) has set up three recent Nottingham Forest goals, similar to Fulham’s Timothy Castagne (£4.5m) grabbing attacking returns in Gameweeks 34 and 35.
ENTER YOUR GAMEWEEK 38 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
STAY TUNED FOR EURO 2024 COVERAGE!
A reminder that we’ll be covering the European Championship in great detail this summer.
Part of that coverage will be the usual team-by-team guides on all competing 24 nations in Euro 2024.
But we’ll also have team reveals, strategy guides and much more. The official UEFA Fantasy game will be the main game we’re covering, which you read about below:
There’ll also be £500+ worth of prizes if you join our mini-league! Click the below to sign up:
If you want to be part of our coverage and are a fan of one of the countries competing, do get involved via the below:
