Week 35 – A look ahead to the Cup Final

Ok, following a short break here is a slightly belated summary of Week 35 – a defensive 5-3-2 formation this week with Strikers generally mis-firing, E. Eze (£3.9m) continues his run of form with two goals against European focused Tottenham and picks up his first Star Player of the Week award of the season, although he has made the team four times previously.

He’s joined in the Team of the Week by his team-mate and highest points scoring defender in the game, D. Munoz (£2.7m), more on the best Palace and City picks later…

J. Gvardiol (£4.5m) makes his debut in the Team of the Season in reflection of City’s uptake in form, in particular their defence. J. Bowen (£5.3m) and the aforementioned E. Eze (£3.9m) also come into the Team of the Season.

However, Gvardiol and Bowen are quite expensive and would ‘bust’ the £50m budget so, they are replaced by N. Milenkovic (£2.7m) and A. Iwobi (£3.5m) in the Affordable and Available Team of the Season, page 2 on the Player Stats Portal :-

Whilst lazing on my sun lounger I came across this useful tool providing the odds on clean sheets :-

I’ll probably include it into the visualisations for next season I reckon. It helps to highlight the case for City defenders. Looking ahead now to the remaining fixtures:-

We can see that if you had any transfers remaining, swapping out any Villa, Chelsea, Spurs or Utd assets to those of City and Palace would get you an extra two games due to the Cup final in week 36.

Because of the Cup final, City and Palace have an extra league fixture and thus top the Fixture ticker charts in the Telegraph version of the game.

The return from injury of the games most expensive (flop?!) player in E. Haaland (£8.5m) resulted in 5% of gamers gambling on transferring him for the final fixtures, although that gamble didn’t pay off (yet!) for the game against bottom of the table Southampton with Haaland and City attacking assets surprisingly blanking.

So, looking at the recent form of City and Palace players, we’re combining analysis from the three form guides on the portal:-

From City the standout picks are from the much improved defence (5 clean sheets in their last 6 games) – J. Gvardiol (£4.5m) and R. Dias (£5.2m), followed by a keeper change perhaps to Ederson (£4.6m).

Only O. Marmoush (£4.9m) shows any attacking form but that has tailed off in recent game weeks. That said, there is a reason why E. Haaland (£8.5m) is the most expensive player in the game… should you be chasing in your league or need a differential, he maybe worth the gamble for the final fixtures…

From Palace, E. Eze (£3.9m) is the standout pick. Following him would be I. Sarr (£3.5m) and the keeper, D. Henderson (£2.8m). Whilst D. Munoz (£2.7m) hasn’t been particularly on fire of late, he would still merit inclusion were you not to have him already.

Good luck for the last chance to double up (IF you have any transfers remaining ) in penultimate Game Week 36 !