Alright, guys.

Here’s my final Gameweek 37 team:

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ℹ️ There are fewer than two weeks until the season ends.

What does this mean for your premium subscriptions, and what’s the summer plan? See the article below (spoiler alert: you don’t have to do anything):

Another quick turnaround (Friday evening deadline), so let’s jump straight into team selection.

This stage of the season demands transfers, and there are often several strong picks, even with only 2 gameweeks left.

My team is no exception.

Gameweek 37: 1 free transfer now, or 2 next week?

Here’s my Gameweek 37 bus team:

1 free transfer and £0.5 million in the bank to spend.

At this transfer crossroads, I have only two options: use 1 FT in each of the remaining GWs, or roll this week and use 2 FTs in Gameweek 38.

The only thing I’m willing to see burn this season is Arsenal’s title hopes.

There are 3 questions to ask:

1️⃣ Do I need to do anything?
2️⃣ What’s the opportunity cost of not making a move?
3️⃣ What’s an advantage of making moves next week?

As for the first question, there are two important factors: squad quality and potential rotation.

There are several players I’m not too keen to start this week: Marcus Tavernier (£5.4m), James Hill (£4.2m), Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£5.8m), Pascal Struijk (£4.2m), and I also have some doubts about Antoine Semenyo (£8.1m).

The reasoning is straightforward.

I won’t play any Leeds players to avoid clashing with my Brighton stack of Verbruggen, Van Hecke, and Hinshelwood – as you know from previous articles, I’m not only bullish on their defence but also on Hinshelwood, who has been one of the best-performing midfielders recently. There’s no way I’m benching any of them against a team that’s firmly on the beach.

As for Bournemouth, the City match-up puts me off, as it’ll likely cap Tavernier’s upside, especially given that penalty duties seem to have been handed to Junior Kroupi.

I’m somewhat willing to play Hill, as the Cherries are strong at home: there’s a chance it will be a tight game, and a DEFCON two-pointer feels like an 80% certainty (he has a 77% success rate in the post-Christmas sample).

Assessing Antoine Semenyo (£8.1m) is a proper headache.

Manchester City are facing the following schedule:

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Sensible and boring usually pays off.

But the things you will truly remember as an FPL manager are James Tarkowski’s 15-pointer when betting against DGW players, or Jack Hinshelwood scoring goals at 6% effective ownership.

While I’m not a fan of overly forced differentials during the regular season, the endgame creates room for well-timed plays to chase ranks: manipulating effective ownerships, stacking for specific match-ups, and going for the ceiling rather than the steady floor. You know the drill.

Some picks even let you forget DEFCONs for a minute. Refreshing.

Let’s see some fun ones.

Palace vs Everton: Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall on the rise

Recently, I outlined 3 general rules for picking a sensible differential. These were:

• aim for teams that still have a lot to play for

• favour players with similar EVs but lower EOs than more popular picks

• … and go for a combination of synergies + the final product

I used Everton players as a case study simply because they checked all three boxes.

And, funnily enough, they ended up involved in one of the most entertaining matches of Gameweek 36. As they say, you don’t defend on the beach. The beach is for fun stuff.

Going deep into the match-up analysis doesn’t automatically mean the game will follow a pre-written script. A single game involves an absurd amount of variance (luck), which is why it’s important to make good decisions week in, week out, and not to worry too much about misfortune.

This time, however, it panned out pretty well:

1️⃣ The corner routines were, once more, centred on James Tarkowski (£5.7m), who recorded 4 shots from them, scoring one goal. With an assist and 13 defensive contributions on top of that, he finished GW36 with 15 points – despite Everton conceding twice.

Michael Keane recorded two shots but failed to meet the DEFCON threshold, resulting in a 1-pointer.

2️⃣ Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall (£5.2m) continued the trend of making each shot as dangerous as possible.

He missed this chance:

Interestingly, he and James Garner (£5.2m) shared set-pieces equally, each racking up 5 corner kicks. Before the game, Garner was on 41 and KDH on 8 this calendar year.

3️⃣ Beto (£5.0m) returned straight back into the starting line-up and recorded yet another close-range shot, slotting it through Henderson’s legs.

With Sunderland (h) and Spurs (a) still to come, it’s reasonable to expect their picks to grow in popularity. However, they should still remain low enough to secure pretty nice rank gains, even among the engaged player pool.

TSB% at the time of writing this are: James Tarkowski 11.5%, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall 6.7%, James Garner (3.8%), Beto (3%).

The highest EO risk is with Dewsbury-Hall, as it was already around 10% in some engaged rank groups.

I’m going to keep hating on Iliman Ndiaye (£6.2m), even though he showed some final product on Sunday. It’s because he didn’t do much in those 12 games before then. If he fails to meet the DEFCON threshold (now the third game in a row) and doesn’t get a penalty, you’re facing a very realistic blank.

Anyway, this section was intended to remind you of the process and to set the tone for the rest of the article.

Now, let’s discuss the folks many of you have forgotten about.

Keane Lewis-Potter & Nathan Collins: Who’s the one?

Unless stated otherwise, I’ll use data from February onwards, covering 12 games, to provide a recent sample while filtering out noise. In the proper context, it’s enough.

In the previous section, I mentioned that the Palace vs Everton clash was a lot of fun.

Just look at the shot map:

Everton’s xG is not through the roof (though the StatsBomb model, via FantasyFootballScout, has it at about 1.60), but you can clearly see that Palace allowed quite a lot of shots close to goal.

They have nothing left to play for in the Premier League – Oliver Glasner was vocal about this – and will face Brentford away next, squeezed between two demanding games against Manchester City and Arsenal.

It’s a strange situation. Palace remain a solid defence, boosted by excellent Dean Henderson (£5.1m), yet the current sentiment is far from bullish. The reluctance to pick their players for the final double gameweek of the season said it all.

It’s hardly surprising, though – fatigue has set in, all eyes are on the Conference League final, and they will face a team that:

• will constantly try to exploit them in transitions

• will bomb them with long throws they can’t defend

• is solid at set pieces, while they’re not

Let’s discuss it in a little more detail.

1️⃣ Transitions: Brentford have accumulated the highest xG from counter-attacks this season. They also scored 12 goals from them, the 2nd most after Manchester City, who managed 4 more. Makes sense when you have you-know-who.

Similarly, it’s not rocket science to guess who benefits most on Brentford’s side.

It’s Igor Thiago (£7.3m).

However, he’s not a differential.

2️⃣ Long throws: You’re about to discover some of the best stats you’ve come across this season.

It’s something you can tell your mates in the pub, and they will think you really know the ball.

Brentford are topping another metric for how they create havoc in the final third of the pitch: they maintain the highest xG from long throw-ins. I have already covered this in one of the previous deep dives, but since then… well, let’s say they’re not slowing down.

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Alright, guys.

It’s time for our next Q&A.

❗ Please leave your questions in the comments, and I’ll make sure to answer them all by the Friday deadline (Fri 15 May, 19:30 CET).

I’ll address most of them …

Read more

Alright, guys.

Here’s my final Double Gameweek 36 team:

Read more

ℹ️ There are fewer than three weeks until the season ends.

What does this mean for your premium subscriptions, and what’s the summer plan? See the article below (spoiler alert: you don’t have to do anything):

Alright, guys, let’s cut to the chase.

The only time I tilt playing FPL is when I’m convinced I made a mistake. Late clean-sheet wipeouts, penalty misses, injuries and red cards, none of this hurts too much anymore after all those years. A good old decision-making error, on the other hand…

All the more so if the mistake is well documented.

In last week’s articles, I was raving about what a great opportunity it is to stack Bournemouth’s defence for their home clash against Crystal Palace, citing several compelling arguments for going there*. On top of that, it was a beautiful opportunity for my own team, as all of Marcos Senesi (£5.2m), James Hill (£4.2m), and Marcus Tavernier (£5.4m) were low-owned differentials.

*Most of it then panned out: Senesi’s attacking threat, a strong likelihood of a clean sheet, Palace rotating, DEFCONs for both Senesi and Hill, etc. Cheat code of a game.

Tipping the scales the other way was Cole Palmer (£10.4m), whose recent performances I hated, but Forest were expected to miss a few key players, and the xMins predictions were decent. The Englishman is also a designated penalty-taker, so I reluctantly played him instead of Hill.

At the end, his effective ownership in my rank group was a nice thing to see after the deadline – 27.1% for Palmer, 24.7% for Senesi, and 19.1% for Hill.

We all know what happened next.

This would make a great bench boost, wouldn’t it?

Anyway, let us focus on the more pleasant component of the picture above.

Jack Hinshelwood’s (£5.1m) 7-pointer on the bench is actually a great thing. It’s another mental model to help you handle the stuff that tends to get under your skin – instead of being annoyed about those benched points, reframe them:

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⭐ Welcome to your Data Dribble deep dive!

This week pays tribute to Bruno Fernandes and Bukayo Saka.

Other FPL content includes how to handle Crystal Palace, whether to sell or hold Chelsea players, how to stack Bournemouth, Brighton and Everton effectively, my new favourite under-£5m pick, and a player with the potential to become a club legend.

Only three weeks of FPL remain, folks.

That said, the season’s far from over and has the potential to finish strongly, with several exciting battles to be fought and won across the league table.

❓ Last week, I published a wildcard guide that included 11 sensible ways to differentiate for the rest of the season. We’ll discuss many of these, as well as other ways to extract value from upcoming gameweeks.

Bruno Fernandes: Watch and enjoy this mastery

My writing style is best described as analytical storytelling.

These two things might seem like an odd pairing, but somehow they work perfectly. Sometimes, there are events that make this an easy job for me.

Like every time Bruno Fernandes (£10.4m) steps on the pitch.

In the Gameweek 35 clash against Liverpool, the Portuguese racked up five passes that led directly to a shot, totalling 1.18 expected goals assisted (xGA), a figure bettered only by Bukayo Saka’s 1.26.

However you look at it, it’s elite production in a single football game. But Bruno produces this kind of creative final product regularly.

Since Michael Carrick’s appointment as United’s head coach, Bruno has recorded 99th+ percentile xGA in 71% of gameweeks.

Since Gameweek 22, when he stepped into the more advanced role permanently, he’s on 0.47 xGA per 90, the highest among players with at least 600 minutes played during that time. His ability to set up a teammate for a big chance is simply unmatched this season.

If you trust Bruno with captaincy in most weeks that are not affected by doubles or by some heavy-hitters playing Burnley, you’re essentially betting that he’ll continue to provide this volume of final passes, which will lead to assists.

This is what I’ve included in that “sensible differential list” last week:

Extremely simple idea, yes.

Still, somehow underutilised for FPL purposes.

Bruno set up Šeško as early as the 6th minute of the game, and man, what a chance that was:

A few moments later, the two combined again – this time, Šeško redeemed himself, while Bruno earned a fantasy assist:

There was another set-piece synergy between him and Casemiro in the 71st minute:

Look at the area where Casemiro received the ball…

When there’s a creative player, you can often spot a standout partnership right away. This season, it’s Rayan Cherki and Erling Haaland, or the understanding between David Brooks and Antoine Semenyo before Semenyo moved to Manchester City.

With Bruno, it’s more complicated, as he creates for everyone. Of the total xG he created for his teammates, these are the shares among the most popular FPL assets:

• Benjamin Šeško: 20.4% of the total xG Bruno created (1.622 minutes together on the pitch)

• Bryan Mbeumo: 17.40% (2.661)

• Matheus Cunha: 14.60% (2.200)

• Casemiro: 13.40% (2.400)

You can see they work exceptionally well together with Benjamin Šeško (£7.3m), and it’s not too shabby for Casemiro (£5.8m). Who cares that most of it is from set pieces? Just look for good match-ups.

What about Sunderland and Forest that come next? Yes, they fall firmly under that category.

Brighton? Not so much, but hey, I was cautious about that Brentford game, as they defend dead-ball situations magnificently, and Casemiro ended up scoring anyway. Plus, it’s DEFCON season, so the floor is there, which is nice.

It’s a shame Šeško was hooked off at half-time with a shin problem, so let’s see about updates later this week.

Bukayo Saka: He’s back, and he’s great

I’m glad I discussed Bukayo Saka last week, before his Fulham haul, so this section doesn’t appear reactionary:

If he gets proper minutes in the run-in, he’s another player who will create a ton of dangerous shots.

What about goals?

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Alright, guys.

It’s time for our next Q&A.

❗ Please leave your questions in the comments, and I’ll make sure to answer them all before another Saturday deadline (Sat 9 May, 12:00 CET).

I’ll address most…

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With the 2025/2026 season ending in three weeks, I wanted to share my summer plan for Data Dribble with you.

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Alright, guys.

Here’s my final Gameweek 35 team:

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⭐ Today, we’ll discuss captaincy, Brighton’s match-up against Newcastle, benching decisions for GW32 wildcarders, Cole Palmer, and my Free Hit 34, which worked quite nicely.

There’s also a Wildcard 35 draft.

Let’s do this.

It feels as if there hasn’t been a proper captaincy decision in ages.

This week, there’s at least some competition.

It’s Erling Haaland vs Bruno Fernandes vs Dominic Calvert-Lewin vs Igor Thiago, with an opportunity to review some recent data.

For many of us, the Portuguese has been something of a perma-captain since Gameweek 24, unless it was a special occasion, such as the weeks when chips were popular.

This time, he’s once again one of the best picks, facing Liverpool at home in a battle for third place. Liverpool’s defence is probably better than most make out – it's a firm part of the City, United, Palace and Brighton group that’s trailing only Arsenal.

They are not terrible. It’s one of those overblown narratives.

But wait, there’s another one:

Some people think that Bruno will be a worse option because, in his pursuit of breaking the Premier League assists record, he’s not going to shoot anymore. Plus, if he’s gonna take a penalty, he will pass the ball.

Look, I’m pretty confident he will simply make the best decision in any given moment, whether it’s a shot or a pass. As for the second claim – don’t make me comment on that.

I would attach zero importance to that.

Bruno will still be involved in pretty much everything that happens in the final third. The floor is nice. At the same time, it’s not such a great match-up that you can’t look away from the captaincy, should there be another option with better haul potential…

And there’s one with Erling Haaland.

Since Christmas:

• Only six other sides conceded more goals than Everton

• Only four allowed more expected goals

• The Toffees have a clear positional weakness in the central areas inside the box and in zone 14, as they often struggle to handle passes into those areas

• Additionally, they conceded the most goals from quick transitions in the Premier League (tied with Burnley)

• Jarrad Branthwaite is out

This creates nice conditions for Haaland to return.

He’s my #1 captaincy choice this week.

❗ Yes, he’s looking much better in the August–December sample than in the January+ one. But that’s simply because his first halves of the season are outrageous. The most recent 15 games look worse, no disputing that. However, his performances are still amazing – you’ve just been comparing two Haalands, not Haaland vs other strikers.

If you, for some reason, need a differential captain, I’d go with Rayan Cherki, Igor Thiago, or Dominic Calvert-Lewin, depending on your preference.

It’s fairly close between them. But yeah, likely in that order.

Still, most of the time, I’d just slap it on Haaland.

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New life goal unlocked. I want my content to be as exciting as PSG vs Bayern last night. I mean, this was exclusive stuff! Quite literally, I was on my feet at times during the game.

Anyway, the chip season continues, and two things are clear.

Number one, the Premier League rejected Manchester City’s proposal to move the Bournemouth game to Gameweek 36, so there are no more unanswered questions about fixtures:

The Premier League have also confirmed that City’s visit to Bournemouth and Chelsea’s home match against Spurs will remain in Gameweek 37. No more blanks this season.

Number two, it’s the last big opportunity for a wildcard.

It’s an exciting part of the season when you know how far you are from completing your rank and/or mini-league goals, and what risks you need to take. That means it’s impossible to build a single draft (the best draft, as they say) that suits everyone’s needs.

Also, your selection is heavily dictated by two factors: when you play, you Bench Boost (those two chips usually go hand in hand), and how many FTs you have on a scale from 1 to 5.

This article can provide a sensible, signal-not-noise analysis of players and teams, giving you all the important information you need to work with.

City & Arsenal: You can gain an edge by being boring sometimes

The happiest people are often those who know how to find joy in the ordinary.

Wildcard 35 gives you the chance to go for the full dose of ordinary while gaining a proper edge over the rest of the field – loading up on players from two elite teams battling for the Premier League title.

Plus, you can properly load up on Palace if you wish, but let’s discuss that later…

There’s a large group of managers who wildcarded in Gameweek 32 and will struggle to field all the City, Arsenal, and Crystal Palace players due to a lack of free transfers, so there’s an edge even with template picks.

Manchester City’s player pool is straightforward. Just pick 3 from:

• Erling Haaland (£14.5m)

• Antoine Semenyo (£8.2m)

• Rayan Cherki (£6.4m)

• Nico O’Reilly (£5.1m)

… depending on whether you prefer a 3x ATT or a 2x ATT/1x DEF structure.

With just four gameweeks left, the right approach is to go for the maximum upside those players offer, rather than trying to pick City’s differentials.

It might be tempting to go for someone like Jérémy Doku, but I feel you’re leaving EV on the table. The edge is in not doing it.

💡 If you need to, you can always differentiate elsewhere in your draft.

Shield yourself with players who can go big at any time. The season can come down to goal difference, and they are certainly capable of scoring with Everton, Crystal Palace, Brentford, Bournemouth, and Aston Villa coming up next.

With Arsenal, being at least partly boring is a sensible strategy.

Including Gabriel Magalhães (£7.2m) in the wildcard draft is non-negotiable. I struggle to find a single reason not to do it, so I’ll just throw some basic numbers:

Across the season, Arsenal have conceded just 0.75 xG per game. In the world’s most competitive league, that’s frankly absurd. When it comes to total xG conceded, Manchester City, Arsenal’s closest competitor, has allowed 11 more expected goals so far.

When a TV presenter says “this was a 100% chance”, they often mean something like a 0.30 xG chance. To put it into perspective, Arsenal have allowed 37 fewer of those chances.

The Gunners have already scored 22 goals from set-pieces (and are 2nd for sp xG), three more than Manchester United. Gabriel is the most frequent recipient and the biggest goal threat among their defenders overall.

When you own Gabriel, you’re betting that the Gunners will keep a few clean sheets.

But if he’s your only piece of their defence, David Raya is always a rank threat to you because of his 34.0% ownership and likely a massive effective ownership around your rank.

And because Jurriën Timber (£6.1m) is still not fit, Saliba’s lack of the final product, and uncertainty over minutes with other defenders, Gabriel & Raya double-up has a lot of merit.

The last piece of the puzzle is where it gets interesting.

You can double down on the set-piece threat with Declan Rice (£7.2m). Even though he averages just 0.85 shots per 90 minutes over the last fifteen games, he adds solid open-play creativity and DEFCON numbers, so it’s hardly a bad move when in a 3-man stack.

A hardly exciting pick, but a good price point to pivot to someone else towards the end of the season.

But let me tell you something.

One thing I love about FPL is that a single week of action can change a lot. That’s partly why I don’t like artificially adding elements like chips in the first half of the season, or DEFCONs, as they increase variance for no reason – football already involves a lot of it, and it’s unnecessary to add more to FPL. Those natural unpredictables create decisions.

They create FPL moves.

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Alright, guys.

It’s time for our next Q&A.

❗ Please leave your questions in the comments, and I’ll make sure to answer them all before another Friday deadline (Fri 1 May, 19:30 CET).

I’ll address most o…

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Alright, guys.

Here’s my final Free Hit 34 team:

(if anything changes, I’ll let you know in the Substack subscribers chat before the deadline)

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Alright, folks.

This has been a crazy week of football (and fantasy), and it’s not over yet.

Liam Rosenior is no longer a Chelsea coach.

Cole Palmer and João Pedro went AWOL just in time for the Double Gameweek.

The Manchester City vs Arsenal clash was actually entertaining, and, as always, there was also less enjoyable stuff, like people on X posting soulless, random AI pictures of footballers.

But don’t you worry – Data Dribble is a safe space amid all the chaos and a ridiculously fast-approaching Gameweek 34 deadline

Before we get to the most important stuff, let’s do a brief DGW33 recap.

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Sadly, this is most likely the final Free Hit guide of the 2025/2026 season.

If you’re a long-time Data Dribble reader, you know my history as a daily fantasy sports “pro” and that I’m going to enjoy this one.

Firstly, we will analyse all 7 match-ups to identify even the smallest edges, and then create a draft based on these.

Simple as that.

So let’s dive straight in:

Sunderland vs Nottingham Forest

This shouldn’t be too cagey an affair.

Among the teams fighting to secure Premier League status, Nottingham Forest arguably have the trickiest run of fixtures. After Sunderland, it’s Chelsea (lol, I know), Newcastle, Manchester United, and Bournemouth. They need three points from this upcoming one.

Sunderland escaped relegation as a newly promoted team and are only 4 points behind the Europa League spot at the time of writing.

This odds-defying season can only get better, and it is a good opportunity to be brave and regain momentum before they face Wolves in GW35.

On paper, this is a clash between two evenly matched teams.

To get a general idea about teams’ strengths based on the quality of chances they create and concede:

• In the whole-season sample, Nottingham Forest are ranked 16th for expected points (xPoints), while Sunderland are 18th, with just about 3 points separating them.

• In this calendar year (the last 14 games), both teams are on 15 non-penalty xPoints.

The magnitude of the game and the overall defensive strength of both clubs are not the only reasons to avoid those defences.

Forest’s centre-back Murillo (£5.2m) was forced off in the 42nd minute of Sunday’s match against Burnley and will fight to be back on Friday evening.

Not only does it significantly weaken their backline, but he’s also a player with the highest DEFCON potential this season in that group, averaging 9.44 contributions per 90 minutes and a 40% success rate (since Vítor Peraira took over, i.e., in the last thirteen games). The closest is Nikola Milenkovič (£5.1m), who meets the threshold 33% of the time. 

❗ Under the new coach, they are the worst-performing team in the Premier League at creating set-piece threat. It’s an ongoing trend – over the whole season, they are ranked dead last for both xG and actual goals scored from these.

When it comes to Sunderland, their defenders are a great value as long-term picks. However, I’m not too sure they stand out in this particular match-up.

They are amazing for defcon’s and attacking threat, while Forest are poor at defending set-pieces, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Nordi Mukiele (£4.5m), Omar Alderete (£4.1m, might miss the game because of a knock) or especially Dan Ballard (£4.7m) clinch a return*. It’s a clean sheet potential that doesn’t feel too great.

*It happened in the reverse fixture, when Omar Alderete scored a winner from a corner. If you have a Sunderland defender in a non-FH team, it’s a nice differential.

Defensive stacking is a crucial concept when building a Free Hit team, and I’m not too confident about having 2 or more Sunderland defenders this week.

The way I see this is that Forest will try to put Sunderland under sustained pressure with a slow, positional build-up and will avoid aggressive pressing out of possession to limit Sunderland’s opportunities to counter, as a) the Blackcats are good at it and b) Forest can’t really defend against them.

Eventually, someone will make a mistake.

The only pick from this game I’m bullish on is Morgan Gibbs-White (£7.5m).

If you read my articles long enough, you know this isn’t a knee-jerk reaction and goes far beyond his hat-trick against Burnley. He was my “6th” midfielder in some parts of the season, long before that.

For me, an important part of the Free Hit is to go for goals aggressively, and he’s made for that under Pereira (per 90 minutes):

• 2.50 shots

• 0.25 non-penalty xG

• 0.42 post-shot xG (as per StatsBomb numbers via FantasyFootballScout)

… with the following shot map full of central attempts:

Unfortunately, I don’t see much stacking in this game.

I already spoke about the defence, and the midfield spots are scarce this week. One stack I’d be somewhat open to would be the one featuring Callum Hudson-Odoi (£5.7m), who has the best on-pitch chemistry with MGW, but the latest news has made that impossible:

I’m not convinced by Omari Hutchinson, and while Elliot Anderson (£5.6m) is a great long-term pick, I’d opt for someone with a higher upside in the Free Hit draft. So I’d say just go with MGW or snub the game entirely.

Fulham vs Aston Villa

One of the nicest things about building Free Hit drafts is that you can immediately exploit injuries and suspensions.

And Alex Iwobi (£6.3m) pulling up his hamstring in Saturday’s clash against Brentford should be one of the week’s most discussed topics. The Nigerian is the heart, brain, and engine of Marco Silva’s group.

He’s one of those players whose immense value in the final third of the pitch can’t be measured in goals and assists. Most of his direct threat comes from his left-sided set-piece delivery, aided by excellent striking technique that allows him to score from not-so-favourable positions. But most of his value lies in his distribution and a taste for getting the ball into areas that truly matter.

💡 He does it in two ways: long passes and deep crosses, often allowing someone to run into the cutback zone, AND running from deep and distributing high. It may not sound too exciting, but he executes it brilliantly, so Fulham lose a fair share of creativity when he’s not on the pitch.

If you want it visually:

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Alright, guys.

It’s time for our next Q&A.

❗ Please leave your questions in the comments, and I’ll make sure to answer them all before the Friday deadline (Fri 24 Apr, 19:30 CET).

I’ll address most of t…

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It only took one game for some mavericks out there.

But the real carnage began after Saturday’s Premier League slate.

Yes, that was enough time for some people to claim that one of the chip strategies “has won”, even though some weren’t even deployed – such as Wildcard 33, which we’ll discuss today, among other things.

1️⃣ You cannot claim which route performed better after half a gameweek
2️⃣ You can’t berate someone’s team without knowing its nuances

Anyway, the data clearly showed that people, once again, were overreacting:

Anyway, rather than drawing dumb conclusions from small sample sizes, let’s focus on improving our decision-making process and learning to work with data properly.

The chip season is still in full swing, and there are still so many moves we need to make.

Let’s do this:

Free Hit 33: You start with the obvious one (but you can let loose a bit)

Last week, I published a detailed Wildcard 32 analysis that discussed all the key players who will feature heavily in the Free Hit 33 team, as one of the perks of that strategy was to be prepared for what’s coming up this Saturday.

If you still haven’t had the chance to read it, I highly recommend doing so before you play your Free Hit this week.

I believe it gives you a good feel for all the viable picks you could use this week:

Alright, let’s build an exciting draft.

As last week, the backbone will be Manchester City players.

There are several ways to handle them, but given that one of the games is against Burnley and the sheer volume of attacking talent in Pep’s team, you want to chase that upside.

Another argument is that there are enough other defenders who:

• have a pretty solid attacking threat

• can deliver DEFCON 2-pointers

💡 It’s the current meta: defensive contributions stem not from defensive quality but from the volume of these actions, meaning Premier League defenders across the league table are achieving a high success rate. It also somewhat alters match-up analysis, as the defcon defender’s floor is now higher, even in tougher games.

A nice example of the current enshittification* of an FPL product.

*This term came to my mind as I recently read a great article by Nikola Vuković – subscribe to his newsletter for some nice analysis on investing and building in sport.

At the same time, this doesn’t mean I wouldn’t play a balanced 1 DEF - 2 ATT stack, as City’s clean sheet odds are highest in Double Gameweek 33. Despite Nico O’Reilly’s (£5.0m) potential injury, there are still players to choose from.

Marc Guéhi (£5.1m) is a boring and obvious choice, but for a very good reason.

Since he became City’s player in Gameweek 23:

• No other City player has more set-piece shots, and it’s not even close

• He averages 1.50 shots and 0.18 non-penalty xG per 90 minutes, which is simply amazing for a centre-back

• He’s heavily involved in the build-up with 69 passes per game, which is 3rd most, just behind Rodri and Bernardo Silva. He scores highly in all VAEP passing models (which measure how his actions increase the probability of scoring a goal and decrease the chance of conceding), and he can draw the ball forward with his runs – meaning he often plays a dangerous pass that leads to a shot.

Guehi is certainly an enough-EV play. The only instance I’d snub him is if his effective ownership (EO) is too high for your liking and you prefer to differentiate in this specific position (for example, when chasing in a mini-league).

In that case, Matheus Nunes (£5.3m) is there for the huge volume of final passes, but it comes at the cost of almost no goal threat and an even lower DEFCON hit rate.

Rayan Aït-Nouri (£5.7m) is riskier, but – when it comes to attacking threat – probably a better-performing version of Nunes. Let’s wait for more information on him later in the week.

💡 While we needed to play sensibly when building Wildcard 32, when it comes to a Free Hit, you can be more creative and adjust your aggression to suit your current needs. Of course, you can’t go overboard and pick differentials just for the sake of it, but a few novelty picks certainly won’t hurt.

There’s little disputing that the highest-upside City triple-up is Erling Haaland, Antoine Semenyo, and Nico O’Reilly. However, doubts about the young Englishman opened another route to a great Free Hit punt – Rayan Cherki (£6.3m).

Let’s face it – I will never find a better comparison for him than the one I used during the pre-season:

That’s the fact.

Now, when I look at his creative data, it’s even better than I’ve ever imagined…

He’s not shooting as much as he could from more advanced areas, which is a bit of a shame, given how amazing his striking technique is. But do you want to know why the volume is low?

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Alright, guys.

Here’s my final Double Gameweek 33 bench boost team:

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Alright, folks.

It’s a period of two extremes.

Having wildcarded in Gameweek 32, I’m on Bench Boost this week. That means there aren’t too many decisions to make, but it will be followed by a Free Hit …

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