Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 34

Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 34

Roll up, roll up – it’s double game-week time again! We’ve had a couple already but none quite as appetising as this one as four teams all ply their trade twice this week and two of them are actually quite good! Ok, so that’s maybe a tad unfair on Liverpool and Hull. And may be lavishing praise too highly on Leicester. But at least Chelsea are in form and scoring for fun… We jest of course. The last DGW made a fool out of many and a hero of out of a few so don’t be fooled this time around – you learned your Benteke / Austin / Phillips lessons the hard way. At least that’s the popular theory. The reality is that chasing any DGW can be a double edged sword, especially when there are so many teams involved. If you have a wildcard you could in theory field a team of 11 DGW’ers this week. It’s a mad theory but you could very well do it. We aren’t suggesting you do of course but many will be tempted to load up to the rafters, wildcard or no wildcard, so let’s go take a closer look at all four teams involved and see whether they are worth a look for the double and just as importantly what the future holds beyond GW34 for them as a DGW’er isn’t just for the DGW, he’s for life. (Ok, not for life but for a few weeks until you can sell him)…

Dates for your diary

It’s well and truly DGW season now and those who have still got their wildcard should be quids in if they play it right! Let’s go through all the dates you need to be aware of.

GW34 –  This weeks DGW sees Chelsea, Hull, Leicester and Liverpool all feature twice –

Hull play Crystal Palace (a) and Liverpool (h)
Leicester play Burnley (a) and Chelsea (h)
Liverpool play West Brom (a) and Hull (a)
Chelsea play Arsenal (a) and Leicester (a)

GW37 – Arsenal and Sunderland go into the penultimate game-week of the season with a double –

Arsenal play Man United (a) and Sunderland (h)
Sunderland play Leicester (h) and Arsenal (a)

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Of course other teams do actually play this week and beyond so let’s begin with a very straightforward fixture tracker featuring them all…

We have colour coded the fixtures in a simple fashion to allow you to judge your transfer and team selection plans accordingly:

[highlight_blue]Blue[/highlight_blue] – These teams have either a double or a blank game-week to consider.

[highlight_green]Green[/highlight_green] – We deem these to be winnable fixtures for the given team and should, in theory at least (!), harvest good fantasy points for you in the opening games. Aim to have a good nucleus of these players in your squad.

[highlight_yellow]Yellow[/highlight_yellow] – These are the fixtures that could go either way and do not stand out as being either particularly good or poor. If you have a player from a team in this category then do not be afraid to play them but take a considered view that it may or may not not be an explosive week for them.

[highlight_red]Red[/highlight_red]- These are the teams that we consider to have a difficult fixture and as such may be best avoided from a fantasy perspective. Aim to minimise any players that have a run of reds in the opening games.

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Your 4 double teams this week look like this…

Chelsea
Arsenal (a)
They are very nearly there and let’s face it they soon will be. Which makes us think that away at Arsenal they may well just keep things tight and go for a draw or a narrow win if they can sneak it. With Arsenal now being their nearest rivals in the title race a draw would probably suit Jose down to the ground and as we know from the past it’s whatever works for him at this stage of the season as he’s the master at getting his sides over the line by any means necessary. What we are saying then is to perhaps not expect anything too expansive from them in this game. Should they take the lead we will probably see a similar game to the Man United one. Chelsea surrendered possession to such an extent that they actually recorded their lowest % on record at Stamford Bridge since OPTA began in 2006 at just 29% against Man United . Given that Arsenal have resorted to a similar tactic recently against the ‘big’ teams we could well see a rendition of that infamous Monty Python ‘philosophers’ sketch!

Leicester (h)
In theory this is a Chelsea win all day long but Leicester are putting up one heck of a fight. How Leicester approach this one may depend largely on how they fare in their first game of the week against Burnley. A win there and they may just take this one to Chelsea and see what happens. If they do we’d expect a high scoring game as they’ll surely get picked off by Hazard and co at the other end.

Chelsea have won their last five away games. They are joint top scorers on the road and have the 2nd best defensive record away from home and no team has won more away than them this season (10).

Beyond the double – Crystal Palace (h), Liverpool (h), West Brom (a)
Two home games on the bounce await Chelsea and they are still unbeaten at the fortress Bridge this term. An away trip to West Brom looks good too but the party hats could well be on by then and whether they maintain concentration once the league is sewn up remains to be seen and will have to be monitored closely! It’s a salient point though as we don’t know what a post-pressure Chelsea side looks like just yet. It could be one on it’s holidays. It could be one full of fringe players. It could (hopefully) be a full strength one which plays with reckless abandon…

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Liverpool
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[/three_fourth]West Brom (a)
Having been dumped out of the FA Cup by Villa on Sunday Brendan and his team have only one goal left this season and that’s to somehow get themselves back in the top 4. It looks and feels like mission impossible now as they are 7 points adrift of it but all they can do is win their games and hope the others slip up. They have possibly the ‘best’ DGW of the four teams though which begins with a trip to West Brom. A timely win at Palace last time out may have masked what has been a poor run for the Baggies as of late having lost the previous three games and two of those were at home and they conceded seven goals in the process against Leicester and QPR of all teams. Presumably Pulis spent the entire of last week drilling his defence and if so it was time well spent but even so they have the joint worst defensive home record in the league. Want to know how bad it is? It’s joint with Sunderland… Liverpool should and probably will score a few in this one.

Hull (a)
Their other DGW fixture is equally as enticing, despite again being on the road, as they face an ailing Hull team who have managed just 17 goals in 15 home games this season and are without a win in their last six games. For their part Liverpool have been decent away from home if not spectacular having won 8, drawn 1 and lost 6 with 20 goals scored and also 20 conceded. They are currently on a streak of having won 4, drawn 1 and lost 1 out of their last 6 trips away from Anfield.

Beyond the double – QPR (h), Chelsea (a), Crystal Palace (h)
Clearly having 3 Liverpool players for GW35 won’t cause too many headaches as they exit the double with a great fixture at home to QPR. GW36 sees a tricky trip to Chelsea but as we have said you just don’t know at this stage what ‘Chelsea’ that will be. After that it’s another winnable home game as Palace visit Anfield.

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Leicester
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[/three_fourth]Burnley (a)
Leicester have suddenly woken up! Three wins on the bounce has breathed life into them and they look like they might just have half a chance of staying up. The signs were all there when they went to Spurs and scored 3 despite conceding 4 and it seemed to galvanise them and instill a belief that they could score if they just attacked! Prior to that they had managed just 4 goals in 6 games in a series of draws and narrow losses. Since that they’ve scored 7. Their double gameweek is a mixed affair. They begin with a proverbial ‘six-pointer’ against bottom side Burnley at Turf Moor where the hosts like to keep things tight and make life difficult for their opponents whilst trying to nick the odd goal. Given Leicester’s new found propensity for attacking you’d expect they will be on the front foot here but space in behind will be at a premium. Burnley have scored the joint fewest goals at home. Want to know how bad that is – yep you guessed it it’s joint with Sunderland(and Villa)! Feels like a good opportunity for a clean sheet this one and if they’re getting one of those this week it’ll be in this game as the other one’s Chelsea…

Chelsea (h)
Playing a Jose team at any stage can be a thankless task, playing one that is on a mission to tie up the league may be nigh on impossible. You just never know in football but in all honesty you’d probably best hope that any Leicester coverage you have for the double pulled up some trees in the Burnley game because as much as we’d love to see a thriller here the reality is that Chelsea will probably win 0-1 or 0-2.

Beyond the double – Newcastle (h), Southampton (h), Sunderland (a)
Life’s not bad beyond the double for Leicester as they close the season out with 3 home games out of 4 and their only road trip is to Sunderland which feels winnable too. The one missing from the above is the final day of the season which sees them host QPR in what may prove to be a relegation decider.

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Hull
Crystal Palace (a)
Hull will be the least fancied of the double gameweek teams especially with so many Liverpool and Chelsea options and so few transfers! We’d go as far as to suggest that even those with a wildcard will think twice about even getting some token coverage. Hull have won a grand total of 6 games this season from 32 played which goes some way to explaining why they are perched perilously close to the relegation zone. But for their ability to eek out a few more draws than Leicester and QPR they’d be right in it and may soon be. The first game is away at Palace. With just 12 away goals in 17 games they have the 3rd worst away scoring record in the league – bettered only by… you know who. (And them too!). Palace’s away form has been significantly better than their home form which may be a crumb of comfort and was typified by a limp defeat to West Brom last weekend. This may come down to who wants it more and Hull certainly need it more for what that’s worth.

Liverpool (h)
Ok, we’ll be honest we lost interest in Hull as a DGW prospect around about the time we wrote the word Hull in the intro so here’s some interesting facts about Hull itself – It’s official name is Kingston upon Hull and people from there are known as ‘Hullensians’. Hull will be the UK City of Culture in 2017. The boiled sweet was invented in Hull. The LCD screen was developed by the University of Hull. Bored yet? Yeah, ok, let’s leave Hull there. They should lose this one and probably will.

Beyond the double – Arsenal (h), Burnley (h), Spurs (a)
The best we can offer is that 3 of the remaining 4 are at home. That 2 of those are Arsenal and Man United and the away trip is to Spurs suggests that they really are in trouble. The one winnable game is Burnley at home in GW36. Good luck Hull! Look forward to writing about you again in 2017 if you come back up…

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DGW37 – Arsenal & Sunderland
It’s early days yet but many conscientious managers are planning this weeks transfers with an eye on the next DGW already so we just wanted to highlight the runs that the respective teams involved have prior to that DGW37…

Arsenal – Chelsea (h), Hull (a), Swansea (h)
A tough one for Arsenal this week against Chelsea during the DGW34 but then a couple of games that feel much easier, as such, and you wouldn’t have an issues easing in their players gradually against either Hull or Swansea really. Feels like an easy landing pad ahead of DGW37.

Sunderland – Stoke (a), Southampton (h), Everton (a)
The same can’t be said of Sunderland really. Any fixture at all feels like a slog for them at the moment and the three above will be just that. We’d imagine that they will be a last minute throw of the dice ahead of DGW37 if anyone is getting desperate at that stage. If you have the odd ‘PvA’ now then maybe keep him tucked away on the bench and reel him out for the double but otherwise just plan for Arsenal.

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Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 34 – Fantasy Premier League 2014-15. This article was written by inittowinit

Follow @Inittowinit

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