Week 31 – Swan Song for De Bruyne…?

A somewhat surprising Star Man of the Week – the hapless Saints’ goalkeeper – A. Ramsdale (£4.0m) top scores with 13 points ! This is despite conceding three goals – his seven saves, two from penalties offset those goals conceded.

H. Barnes (£4.4m) continues his goalscoring form with a brace and Fantasy Football royalty, K. De Bruyne (£6.7m) makes his third Team of the Week appearance (Weeks 2 and 20 were the others) with a goal and an assist, more on him and City later…

An unchanged Team of the Season this week, only change to the Available and Affordable Team of the Season:-

is V. Van Dijk (£5.1m) who was a constant in the Team of the Season for the first half of the season. J. Kluivert (£2.7m) was still missing as injured but is marked at 50%, K. Mitoma (£3.6m) is the next highest scoring Midfield option.

Firstly an assessment of the revised Fixture ticker, customised for TFF and available on the Player Stats Portal :-

We now have a view of all the fixtures for the season (subject to alterations dependent on Cup teams’ progress), except for the FA Cup finalists of course. I’d imagine City and Villa are slight favorites to make the final and, those two teams are top 3 ranked in terms of fixture difficulty so, let us deep dive into their form players…

The issue with Aston Villa players is that of rotation… due to their European commitments, Unai Emery has tended to rotate heavily for the domestic games, especially his forwards.

Therefore, M. Rogers (2.9m), E. Martinez (£3.9m), Y. Tielemans (£4.2m) and E. Konsa (£3.3m) seem to be the ‘safest’ picks from Villa….?

With no European distractions, City players aren’t especially subject to rotation. Injuries to Foden and Haaland mean the stand out picks from City are O. Marmoush (£4.9m), Ederson (£4.6m) who is at time of a writing a small injury doubt, and then K. De Bruyne (£6.7m) who may very well enjoy a final Fantasy Football swan-song for his expiring City contract. J. Gvadriol (£4.5m) would appear to be the safest defender bet.