EPL Daily Plays: Saturday, August 11th

by Hesh Hambazaza (hambazaza) Last Updated 2018-08-10 22:52:22

Welcome back to the brand new season of Premier League Soccer! After a fun-filled summer with World Cup action, I’m sure we’re all ready to get back into the weekly swing of things with Premier League contests.

The season officially opens up on Friday with Manchester United vs Leicester City. But the big slate for EPL is Saturday with a five-match slate that will have some interesting decisions for us to make. Of course, this being a World Cup year, we’re faced with the challenge of squad rotation and some World Cup stars returning from their vacations a bit late, even those that return a bit earlier may be suffering from fatigue especially if they played close to 100 matches last season and only get 3-4 weeks of rest, but we’ll get to these potentialities in our team by team analysis as part of the Grind Down.

So what’s in store for this season’s coverage of EPL? This article will be meant as a quick look at top plays across the board while highlighting key stats to target and which players are likely to fill the statsheet as well as score vital goals. There are several things to take into account when building our teams, we should take a quick look at the pre-season matches the team has played, any residual effect from the World Cup (players resting, performance dip, etc) and any public statements released by the manager in the last few days that can help us identify any key contributors on the team in the first few weeks.

The first week’s matches feature three newly promoted sides, Wolverhampton, Cardiff, and Fulham. With promoted sides, we have to be careful as there is always a risk in trusting their Championship performances too much, instead, they need to be given some time to adjust to the realities of the Premier League and the pace and quality of play of their opponents. That said, some things, like defense, do translate well to the Premier League, however, that usually just results in defensive teams being very boring teams to monitor for fantasy purposes.

This season, Cardiff looks to be one of those teams, while Wolves will try to carry over their offensive prowess into the Premier League after lighting up the Championship last year. Fulham have done a good job adding some Premier League quality players in the summer to indicate they are serious about trying to stay up this season. For DFS purposes we’ll likely spend a lot of time considering Fulham and Wolves this season with Cardiff being a team we will tend to ignore their matches because of their potential play style.

As for the rest of the matches, we have some good ones with Chelsea, Crystal Palace, and Everton in play who all could put up 3+ goals, though, I don’t expect Chelsea or Everton to have their scoring legs under them quite yet as the teams are under new managers, though, I’d trust Everton to score goals more than Chelsea at this juncture because of their continuity and Marco Silva was appointed early enough in the summer to not be rushing.

The biggest differentiator in DFS soccer tournament play is goal scoring, so if you can find the goal scorers and fit them into your lineups you have a chance to win the big money payouts on opening day. For cash games the focus is primarily on peripherals, crosses, shots, and shots on target. For all these, touches in the final third is the biggest indicator and has been the highest correlation coefficient to all three of these statistics.

The table below shows the top fifty players in touches in the final third at the end of last season, along with important statistics such as goals, shots, assists, and a couple of advanced statistics such as xG (Expected Goals) and xA (Expected Assists). This table is a good reference to see which players performed well enough to merit consideration for our fantasy lineups.

Here are some of my favorite players from this week:

Wilfried Zaha, Crystal Palace, M/F, $8,300 DK, $10,500 FD – Zaha’s price tag is up there, and Crystal Palace are slowly becoming one of my favorite teams to target this week because of their matchup with Fulham. And despite playing on the road this week, I think that having Zaha as a top target is worth the time as he’s poised to have a solid season in continuation of his performances last season where he was a part of every win the team had, despite missing a good chunk of matches early on. What Zaha provides is the ability to create in the midfield for his teammates, and he has the instinct to go for goal or pass off to his teammates. Another option on this team would be Andros Townsend who is cheaper, ($7,200 DK, $7,500 FD), Townsend potentially has full responsibility for set pieces on this team, and Palace should be putting pressure on Fulham for the majority of this matchup, though the contest will be close and I wouldn’t be surprised if Fulham emerge victorious.

Ryan Fraser, Bournemouth, M, $8,900 DK, $8,000 FD – Fraser is a better DFS play than a real life play. He’s priced as the third highest play on this slate on DK and he may not be in the top 20 in terms of skill this week. Fraser does some things very well for this Bournemouth team though. He crosses the ball, he handles set pieces and corners and Bournemouth are at home against arguably the worst team in the Premier League, Cardiff. Fraser is even more valuable an asset if Stanislas doesn’t get the start this week (which all indications seem to show that he will not start)

Pedro, Chelsea, M/F, $6,600 DK, $10,000 FD – The toughest decision you’ll have to make for Saturday’s slate is what to do with Chelsea. On the one hand, Chelsea are entering a season with a new manager where they should play a more open attack-minded brand of football, nicknamed Sarri-ball, an homage to their new manager and his attacking-goal scoring ways in Napoli for the last few seasons. On the other hand, in their pre-season matches, Chelsea have gone to penalties on three occasions and are still going to be missing some key players at the start of the season after the World Cup. Hazard, Kante, Giroud, and Willian may all be sitting out this first week’s matchup. The key players that will be worth targeting are Fabregas, Morata, Marcos Alonso and Pedro. I think Pedro is the player that has his starting spot most in jeopardy, meaning he’ll want to truly impress his new manager. Pairing Pedro with Fabregas is a solid strategy in this slate, or even throwing Morata in would be a good tournament tactic to employ. For cash options, Fabregas might be the appropriate play in this case, if Willian starts, then Willian gets the nod over Fabregas. It’s worth noting that Chelsea will likely play in a 4-3-3 this season with a high press led with Jorginho and Kante and pushing the ball forward for Hazard, Fabregas and Willian on the wings.

Lee Peltier, Cardiff, D, $3,700 DK, $5,000 FD – A true punt play, of course, it’s hard to tell at this moment, but Peltier might be the cheapest starting fullback on the slate, of course, that doesn’t mean he’s going to knock in 10 crosses and record an assist and clean sheet. But, for $3.7K, I think Peltier can come away with 5-8 points, especially with his repertoire as a crossing fullback. This is purely a price play, and if salary presents itself in other places, I wouldn’t hesitate to discard Peltier altogether, especially considering that his team won’t get much of the ball and won’t be pushing forward very often.

David Zappacosta, Chelsea, D, $5,500 DK, $4,500 FD – Given the lack of players coming into the line for Chelsea to start the season, players who spent some time on the bench last year should get an opportunity. Zappacosta is a crossing fullback who likes to attack more than he likes to defend. The matchup against a weak Huddersfield is perfect for Zappacosta to make a difference if he’s given the opportunity.

Diogo Jota, Wolverhampton, M/F, $8,500 DK, $8,500 FD – Jota is part of the Portuguese contingent in the Wolves’ roster. What makes Jota interesting is that he’s very similar to Hazard and Richarlison in that all three of them enjoy dribbling the ball through the defense and trying to get the ball moving quickly down the middle to the edge of the box before dumping it to a teammate and continuing their run. Jota’s speed makes him an excellent player and a subject to hard tackles which lead to fouls. Jota is a tournament player who should get his fair share of opportunities to score goals this season, he has Champions League experience and international experience with Portugal, the challenge of the Premier League will be a good test of his abilities.

Gylfi Sigurdsson, Everton, $6,400 DK, $8,500 FD – Siggy should be back to his old self this season after a down year with Everton last year. But with the changes at Merseyside, Sigurdsson should get more opportunities to take free kicks and corners. He’s also going to be an important part of their open play, either through crosses or creating chances for his teammates. He can be paired with Tosun, Walcott or new addition Richarlison. The team should be pushing for a top 6 finish this season and if they want to achieve that, they’ll have to win away matches to newly promoted teams, even if Wolves are not a typical promoted team.

Other Players to Consider?

There are obviously many more players to look at when building your lineups. This week, I think the biggest question marks may belong to those who were recently signed. Most teams won’t rush their new signings into a starting role as they probably haven’t had a practice with the team. Goalkeepers are likely to start right away. That said, players like Joao Moutinho ($4,800 DK, $7,000 FD) should be an interesting option as he’s going to be slotted in the midfield, but watching him in previous seasons he’s the type of player to push forward and get involved as part of the attack. I suspect he’s also going to be taking corners and free kicks.

Another player to consider is Ryan Sessegnon ($7,300 DK, $8,000 FD) who should get some relief from defensive duties as his side have finally sought the services of a fullback giving him room to play as an attacking winger. Sessegnon is an up and coming 19-year-old that should be on your radar this season. He tore up the Championship and will likely draw some interest from some Premier League sides if he has a similar year with Fulham.

Potential Value Plays?

One value play sticks out this week, Chelsea’s Callum Hudson-Odoi ($3,300 DK, $6,000 FD) might get the start as an attacking wing. He did play some preseason matches and didn’t look bad for the team. If Willian is sitting the first week, then I can see Hudson-Odoi getting the start this week for Chelsea as they take on a Huddersfield team that has better odds of being relegated than staying up this season.

Other than that, look at any starting fullback or winger for a home team to consider for your team to make some salary space.

Goalkeepers

Goalkeepers are a tough pick to make most weeks as the position is highly volatile. If you take an expensive goalkeeper hoping for the clean sheet and win, then you are sacrificing save opportunities and hoping that the keeper does indeed get the clean sheet and his team can cement the win. If you instead want to save salary then you go with a keeper that might not get the clean sheet or even the win but will instead make saves. In this case, you want a keeper that will be under pressure but won’t actually concede 4-5 goals in an outing.

This week, the choice for keeper comes down to three options for me.

Asmir Begovic ($5,300 DK, $5,500 FD) is one of those keepers, he’s facing a Cardiff side that will struggle all season. I don’t think this Cardiff team will score many goals, in fact, I have them as the 20th ranked offense on the season. This means that every time they take the pitch, the opposing keeper has a great chance at a clean sheet. Begovic is a solid keeper in his own right and should hold strong in this matchup.

Kepa Arrizabalaga (o Pricing yet, check on Friday evening) is the new addition to the Premier League. He’s likely to get the start this week for Chelsea, and while Chelsea in general are undergoing plenty of changes this season, they should perform well against teams that are destined to get into relegation battles. I believe that Kepa’s first match as Keeper for the Blues will be a successful one, which means he’s got a good shot at 10 points and maybe a save or two.

Jonas Lossl ($3,900 DK, $5,000 FD) is my final pick for keeper this season, he’s the cheap option that is playing at home. He’s playing a Chelsea squad that is supposed to be offensive minded this season, so that will scare plenty of people away from him. However, Chelsea still haven’t worked out the kinks in their new Sarri-ball system and will probably take a few matches before they truly sort it all out. Lossl in return should see his fair share of the ball as a keeper for a big underdog at home. I expect that he’s going to lose the match 1-0, but he might get 3-4 saves that push his score up, and for the price savings make him a better option than a keeper that is over $5K on DK.

Image: Reuters