Playing the WC prior to DGW37

Playing the WC prior to DGW37

– Your Honour, the Plaintiff would like to change their plea!

– We’re on final allegations, counsel.

– The Plaintiff is well aware of that, but new evidence has just arrived.

– And what’s that?

– Well respectfully your Honour, another double game week has just been announced!

– Which are the teams involved?

– Everton and Crystal Palace your Honour.

– Humm … well, reluctantly, I’ll allow it.

Well, well, another DGW! Just the two teams involved but a DGW nonetheless. So, they still blank on GW35 but hey they play 4 times in two consecutive gws. Can’t ask for much more really and this surely dismisses any plans for a hypothetical WC36/BB37. Or does it?

Well, it does, in all honesty, but let’s give it a go for the sake of it.

Strategies regarding early WC (that is on GW32) or WC33/BB34 have been well documented and what they show is that you either play 15 doublers to take full advantage of the WC/BB or you mix it up a bit in order to keep a few big points hitters such as Mahrez, Kane, Alli and of course that man Vardy. Both options are valid ones but the former offers of course a bigger risk given that those with 15 doublers will be facing the last 6 GWs without several FPL key players.

My initial approach to this was that of building a decent enough DGW34 team with free transfers and play the BB on that DGW but keeping key players with a single game AND keeping my WC for DGW37. The reasoning behind this strategy is that I don’t think GW34 offers great fixtures for the teams with two games, except Arsenal and of course Man Utd, but they blank on GW35, which would lead me to deplete my squad on GW33 which I see as too early if compared to the (slim) returns I expect GW34 to produce.

Now, I’m leading my ML here and with a 40 points cushion, so maybe I can ‘afford’ to not go all in on DGW34 and save the WC for 37. If my opponents endure the WC33/BB34 path they will surely outscore me on GW34, but maybe not in GW33 and surely not enough to actually take the lead; and then I’ll still have my WC to deploy on 37.

And while Everton’s and Palace’s DGW33 must be considered, one can’t also overlook Arsenal’s TC potential in DGW34 which can’t be met by any of the DGW37 teams/players. All in all I still think this could be the best way to go for managers in this situation. Much depends of each manager’s situation and there are no right or wrong approaches here. Well, there are, but we’ll only know that comewhat May. Literally!

[divider_1px]

Let’s see, then, what does WC36/BB37 offer in terms of players/teams who could score big.

Firstly, we need to know which teams have a double and they are West Ham, Man Utd, Norwich, Watford, Sunderland, Everton, Liverpool and Chelsea:

One thing that springs to mind is that out of those 8 teams 4 have two home games (Liverpool, Norwich, Sunderland and WestHam) and the other 4 have two away games.

None of the combos is too appealing but maybe West Ham and Liverpool should be favoured here, with Chelsea and Everton also looking good on the attacking front.

Before we enter in any player discussions we need to also assess these teams fixture in GW36 and GW38 given it’s likely we’ll need to use most of them in all those gws:

[divider_1px]

Let’s look at these fixtures closely.

West Ham: Good double home fixtures for GW37 with the Swans and Man Utd and in deed decent away games at West Brom (36) and Stoke (38).

Man Utd: Difficult home game in 36 with Leicester, good away game at Norwich for the first game in 37, not so good second 37 game at West Ham and a great final fixture at home to Bournemouth.

Liverpool: Decent enough double home fixtures for GW37 with struggling Watford and Chelsea and decent away games at Swansea (36) and West Brom (38).

Chelsea: Tough home games actually in 36 and 38 with Spurs and Leicester respectively and not the easiest of fixtures in DGW37 itself.

Everton: Excellent home games to Norwich on 36 and Bournemouth on 38 sandwiched with not that good away games at Leicester and Sunderland in gw37 itself.

Watford: As good as it gets for 36 at home to Villa and a half decent game at Sunderland on 38 sandwiched with one tough away game at Liverpool and a decent enough away game at Norwich for DGW37.

Norwich: It’s Norwich, enough said. Oh, and they face Arsenal (away, 36), Man Utd (37) and Everton (away, 38) in the process.

Sunderland: It’s Sunderland, enough said. Ok, not as bad as Norwich given that their 36 and 38 games are against lesser opposition but still Stoke and Watford away don’t offer much.

So, how does that leave us? It leaves us no doubt with going for WC33BB34 I hear? Well, that’s seems sensible enough surely. Then again, if you didn’t chase that with these final games in mind you could do worse with the following:

3 from West Ham, 3 from Liverpool, 3 from Everton, 1 Man Utd, 1 Chelsea, 1 Watford and keep your 3 Arsenal that you’re carrying because they face Villa and Norwich at home in their last 3!

Here’s an example of your team could look like with a late wildcard:

That’s all folks.

[divider_1px]

Thanks for reading Playing the WC prior to DGW37. This article was written by DMC