Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 35

Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 35

A double gameweek can be a cruel mistress. The last one offered up the likes of Benteke, Austin and Phillips. This one has offered up the likes of Moreno, Schlupp and Bruce. We are only half way through it so we will reserve a final judgement, as the aforementioned three amigos all really just shone in the second half of theirs, but we aren’t holding out much hope for the other fallen trio! The landscape could be very different come Wednesday evening and Chelsea may have almost crossed the title line but there is still much to play for elsewhere. Arsenal and Sunderland have differing agendas but one thing very much in common – DGW37. We shall attempt to make sense of it all here as we take a look at the schedule ahead and study which teams have good fixtures and which teams we feel will struggle from now until the end…

Let’s begin with a very straightforward fixture tracker…

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.

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Dates for your diary

GW37 – Just the one DGW left then as Arsenal and Sunderland go into the penultimate gameweek 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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FAVOURABLE FIXTURES
Arsenal – Hull (a), Swansea (h), Man United (a) & Sunderland (h)
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[/three_fourth]Arsenal will now become the most talked about team over the next few weeks as fantasy managers everywhere look to capitalise on their upcoming double gameweek in 37. The good news is that both prior to and after that particular week Arsenal have decent fixtures so you can happily start investing in them now safe in the knowledge that any players you bring in can stay with you for the remainder of the season. They begin with a trip to a Hull side who finally woke up last weekend and realised that they were in a relegation battle and managed to pull of a bit of a shock 0-2 win at Palace. Their form prior to that showed them without a win in the last six though and you’d have to expect that Arsenal can go there and take all three points.

It’s then Swansea at home in GW36 and Arsenal are undefeated in their last 10 games at the Emirates. They have scored the 2nd most home goals in the league and prior to the bus turning up on Sunday they had scored 9 goals in the last 3 at home including four against Liverpool. Once again we think Arsenal will win this one. We shall deal with the double gameweek itself in more detail nearer the time but suffice to say it’s the main reason that Arsenal players will be transferred in at a steady rate of knots over the coming weeks.

Defensively Arsenal have been good overall and outside of Chelsea and Southampton they have the best record of the rest with just 32 conceded all season. This is the cheapest route into their team of course but there seems a degree of uncertainty surrounding the personnel with the likes of Debuchy and Gibbs returning from injury to offer up the potential for rotation. Further up the pitch is most likely to be the center of most manager’s attentions though. Top scorer Alexis Sanchez should be on most peoples wish list but will his £11.2m price tag prove prohibitive? If it does then perhaps some combination of Ozil (£8.9m), Ramsey (£8.6m) and Cazorla (£8.2m) will have to suffice. All have their merits but perhaps it’s Ramsey who has caught the eye a bit of late with 2 goals and 3 assists in his last 4 games before the Chelsea encounter, which doesn’t really count as a game. That’s if he can stay fit this time. And that’s a big IF. Up top it’s Giroud all the way and 7 goals in his last 9 games tells you why. Ignore him at your peril.

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Liverpool – QPR (h), Chelsea (a), Crystal Palace (h)
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[/three_fourth]”Liverpool did what Liverpool always do and let everybody down”. That’s a direct quote from an infamous Liverpool fan* after the first of the DGW34 encounters saw them draw a rather disappointing blank at West Brom. Whether that trend continues against Hull remains to be seen and we can all but hope and pray it doesn’t! The truth of the matter is though that they were very unlucky on Saturday and on another day could have had a few at least. The question now is what to do with their players after the double. Well the good news is that you can probably just keep them if you want as certainly two of the next three games look good for them and the other will either be extremely dull or exceedingly comedic.

They begin with QPR at home this week so most manager’s will be happy enough to play their DGW Liverpool contingent in this one. We all know about QPR’s terrible away form and the problem they have now is that they are running out of games and points so may need to go chasing in which case we’d expect Liverpool to be able to pick them off quite nicely. Next up it’s a potentially tricky trip to Chelsea. We can’t call this one as it may depend largely upon whether the hosts have managed to win the league already by this point. If they have, then it could be an open entertaining game. If they haven’t, it’ll be 0-0. The third game in the sequence is Palace at home who have been marginally better on the road this season but even so it’s not a terrifying prospect for the Reds.

*it was Kop himself

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Chelsea – Crystal Palace (h), Liverpool (h), West Brom (a)
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[/three_fourth]Another team fresh off the back of a DGW and another team who recorded a 0-0 in the first one. What the second one brings we shall see but either way many manager’s will be housing three Chelsea players in their squads as a result and much like Liverpool they have a decent run of games. As we alluded to above it’s difficult to know what will happen with Chelsea once the title is eventually sewn up but one thing is for certain is that there will be something riding on the next game at least against Palace at home. Should they beat Leicester it’ll mean a victory gives them the league and with it being at home we would expect them to go for it.

The message here is that you would be wise to hold onto your Chelsea players at least until after the Palace game. If that one seals the league then we honestly can’t tell you what they will do beyond that. There is no World Cup or Euros in the summer so there maybe won’t be a clamour to rest players as there might have been but we wouldn’t be shocked to see a few of the promising youngsters handed run outs as they have had a few on the bench as of late and Jose seems keen to blood them. But only when the serious business is done, of course.

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UNFAVOURABLE FIXTURES

Crystal Palace – Chelsea (a), Man United (h), Liverpool (a)
Palace were flavour of the month a few weeks back having won four on the bounce and seemingly scoring for fun but two very disappointing 0-2 home defeats to West Brom and Hull has us wondering if Pardew has brought the Newcastle handbook with him – ‘secure league status in mid-April and knock off for the remainder’. Either way, they’re safe, and have difficult fixtures ahead as you can see, so feel free to lighten the load of Palace players.

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Hull – Arsenal (h), Burnley (h), Spurs (a)
The lesser of the DGW34 teams, but if you found yourself compelled to take a punt on say N’Doye, then you deserve a huge pat on the back and it could get better yet as they still have a game left. Beyond that though you may want to reconsider as they face Arsenal, Spurs and Man United in three of their last four with the other being Burnley at home in GW36. On the plus side they are far from being safe so will presumably be playing as such and may pick up the odd win on the back of that but we wouldn’t bet on it. It’s not the sort of run in any side faced with relegation would desire.

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West Brom – Man United (a), Newcastle (a), Chelsea (h)
You probably won’t have many from West Brom, let’s face it who does, but if you do then you may want to sell them or hide them on your bench as their run in is awful! Man Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal make up three of their last four with the other being away at Newcastle. They may get something in that one – most teams do – but the others don’t feel winnable and much like Palace they are pretty much safe so won’t exactly be pulling out all the stops.

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DGW37 – Arsenal & Sunderland
It’s early days yet but many conscientious managers are planning this and the next few weeks transfers with an eye on the next DGW already so we just wanted to highlight the run that Sunderland have prior to that DGW37. We’ve covered Arsenal above and Sunderland don’t really fit into either category given that they have the double ahead but that’s their one saving grace really, because if they didn’t, they would be in the ‘Unfavourable’ category in all honesty…

Sunderland – Southampton (h), Everton (a), Leicester (h) & Arsenal (a)
Having finally slipped into the relegation zone Sunderland need to scramble a few results together and fast, as the likes of Leicester have done, but quite where they will find them is anybody’s guess! They travel to a notoriously tight Southampton this week before entertaining a resurgent Everton. The double itself offers up Leicester at home in a sure fire 6-pointer before travelling to Arsenal. All of that suggests two things – 1. They won’t win many, and 2. Don’t bother with them for the double unless you find yourself desperate ahead of GW37.

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Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 35 – Fantasy Premier League 2014-15. This article was written by inittowinit

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