EPL Grind Down Matchweek 12

by Hesh Hambazaza (hambazaza) Last Updated 2017-11-19 12:42:54

We are back from another international break and it feels like it’s been forever since we had a real EPL slate to work through. Of course last time out we had one of the worst slates of the season with only one of the top six teams in action. This left the slate with plenty to be desired, but no worries, this one is an exciting one though, plenty of good matches with four top 6 teams playing and a few goals expected on the slate. This will make our player selection important and we may even see some good game stack opportunities.

This slate has seven matches with six of them starting at 9AM CST and one starting late at 11:30AM CST. The late game is a good one too so you can’t ignore it completely as there will be some fantasy relevant plays to make in that one.

The Grind Down will follow the same format that we’ve used in recent weeks and we’ll start off first by looking at the matchups through the lens of the odds.

Top Six Teams

Four of the top six teams are in play this weekend, our fantasy selections should try to get as many players from these teams as you could as these are the teams that are likely to control possession more than most. Of course, this section should help you figure out which teams to focus on.

Manchester City

We’ll start our analysis with the top scoring team in the league and the one that I think will score the most goals this weekend. This team is stacked and it’s very hard to pick a single player from the squad who we think will outperform the rest of the team more than 50% of the time. In fact over their last three matches, City scored 10 goals total, and these players have all scored goals for City: Kevin De Bruyne, Sergio Aguero (2), Gabriel Jesus, Nicolas Otamendi, John Stones, Raheem Sterling (2), Leroy Sane, Fernandinho. That’s eight total players who all scored goals. Pep’s offensive strategy revolves around swarm attacks and that leaves the majority of the players capable of being in position to score goals at any time. And a 4-1-2-3 formation gives them five players that can push the attack forward at any time. For that reason, there are not any players on this team that I would heavily consider for cash games (50/50s and h2hs) and would look to City for mostly tournaments. Another thing to consider is that City have a midweek Champions League competition to consider increasing the chances that Pep Guardiola will rotate the squad a little. In that case there will be some potential value in Ilkay Gundogan depending on whether there are many absences from the lineup that can put him in a position to be effective in a matchup.

Speaking of matchup, With City on the road against Leicester, their matchup isn’t really fool proof but thy are big favorites on the road, so you can expect that they will come away with the win from this match, but that it won’t be easy as Leicester had been playing better entering the international break after the change in their manager earlier this season.

Chelsea

Next we’ll look at another team that is playing on the road in the defending champions, Chelsea visit West Brom in a match that should be easy for Conte’s men. Just before the break, Chelsea came away 1-0 winners against Manchester United. Conte deployed a 3-5-1-1 formation with Hazard as a central support advanced midfielder behind Morata. This led to three central defensive midfieders in Fabregas, Bakayoko and Kante. That formation allowed for Bakayoko to get more touches in the final third than he usually gets. I don’t expect this formation to continue in a matchup against the Baggies, and instead they’ll likely revert to a 3-4-2-1 with Hazard being supported by Willian or Pedro and Bakayoko likely missing out.

For fantasy however, there are some options here. Cesc Fabregas is probably the closest thing on this team to a “high floor” player, he takes the majority of the corners for the team and is very capable of placing his teammates in scoring positions. The most likely goal scorer on the team is Alvaro Morata who can produce some solid scores if he gets a goal, otherwise he can be a dud if he doesn’t get a goal in the match. Moreover, Zappacosta, Hazard, Marcos Alonso and either of Pedro or Willian are potential tournament options in a matchup against a West Brom side that gets more fantasy respect defensively than they probably should.

Liverpool

I like Liverpool in matches where they don’t play a top team, and this week they have a matchup against a Southampton team that is very dull in both construction and performance. I fully expect Liverpool to come away winners in this one, especially at home, but the big question remains on whether they field a full squad and sub everybody out early because of the midweek matchup with Sevilla, or whether they field a secondary squad that gets close to 90 minutes. Jurgen Klopp is likely to want to secure 3 points from this one early and then shift focus and energy to the UCL on Tuesday.

There are some players that I would absolutely consider playing on this team if they start even if they are only going to feature for 60 minutes, Mohamed Salah and Coutinho are two of them despite their high prices. For cash, you can consider Moreno, for his touches and heavy on-the-ball involvement in recent weeks. I would steer clear of Milner with his price tag too high and with Coutinho being back likely taking over corners and set pieces. If there is rotation in the back, then Robertson would be a good play at defense.

On the opposing end, Liverpool have been weak defensively this season as evidenced by them conceding at least two goals six times this season with the latest being a 4-1 drubbing by Tottenham. Nevertheless, the team is prone to mistakes so that puts some added interest on some Saints players. Specifically, I would consider a player such as Gabbiadini or Boufal but only for tournaments.

Manchester United

Finally, we take a look at Manchester United who are playing the late game at home against Newcastle. The match should feature a strong home squad looking to recover from a 1-0 defeat to Chelsea last time out before the break. Newcastle have had some solid performances this season but they’ve only faced one top team (Liverpool) even though they came away with a result against them (1-1). Their last two matches were 1-0 defeats to Burnley and Crystal Palace. The expectation here is that Manchester United will come away with a few goals and will control the majority of possession giving plenty of fantasy options.

Chief among those is Romelu Lukaku and Marcus Rashford in the attack. Paul Pogba may return, but his performances usually don’t translate to fantasy scoring unless he scores a goal. Other players to consider are Juan Mata and Ashley Young. The biggest test of skill will be leaving room in your lineups for any last minute lineup changes or rotation plays given that United will be the late game. For this, you’ll have to put United players in the utility spot and/or pick players with multi position eligibility.

The Non-Top 6

The non top-six teams that are not playing top six teams will comprise this section, as generally, we handle matches that don’t involve top teams differently than we would every other match. This week almost half of our slate comes from here so it will be critical to analyze these games correctly as they will be the difference maker in our lineups.

Bournemouth vs Huddersfield

Bournemouth finally have a set of good performances in their record with two wins in their last three and their only loss coming against Chelsea where they still put up a good front and almost came away with points. One thing significant about the Cherries in recent weeks is how strong they have been defensively with holding their last six opponents to just 5 goals total and just 3 goals against their last 5 opponents. They are a good team to expect a clean sheet from this week, so that put Begovic in play in all formats as I still think he can face some shots on target but he is unlikely to concede.

The midfield for Bournemouth is missing some key players in Stanislas and Afobe both being out. Josh King is also a doubt after potentially getting an injury on international break. The team will likely slow things down significantly which limits the fantasy output for everybody involved on both sides.

The other side, Huddersfield should be trying to come away with a win from this match. Getting points from matches like this are what separate teams that get relegated and teams that stick around in the Premier League for a while. Huddersfield rely on Aaron Mooy for set pieces, but he will have just come back from international duty in Australia and likely will not start this match putting Tom Ince and Rajiv van La Parra in charge of set pieces. Neither of them are viable fantasy options.

For tournaments I’d likely consider Callum Wilson here as Huddersfield will be without Schindler (central defender) and that could give Wilson more room to operate and score an early goal or two. Pairing Wilson with Surman or Pugh or one of the full backs would be a viable tournament option as well. Huddersfield have Depoitre as a lone striker, but I don’t think he’ll get many opportunities to warrant a selection.

Burnley vs Swansea

This match is one that I don’t know what to do with. On one hand, Burnley feature a player with set piece monopoly in Robbie Brady, and they are currently in seventh place in the table with several solid performances in recent weeks. On the other hand, the over/under in this match is set at 2 goals, which is the lowest of the week.

Burnley are the likely team to score a goal in this one as the home team and the overall better team so far this season. Their opponents, Swansea, have lost five of their last six matches putting them in the likely position to lose this match. Burnley’s defense has been the biggest factor in their strong performances closing out opponents’ offensive attacks. Swansea has some skilled forwards in Tammy Abraham, but they lack in the midfield and in ways to get ball to Abraham consistently to create threats and chances. Renato Sanchez is a talented holding midfielder, but after the departure of Gylfi Sigurdsson the team the majority of the set pieces have been in Tom Carroll’s possession, except that in recent weeks the role has been split with other players such as Sam Clucas, Ki Sung-yeung and Renato Sanchez all splitting the workload.

Overall, I can see skipping out on players from either of this team outside of full backs who might be cheap enough to get you some fantasy value.

Crystal Palace vs Everton

This is one of my favorite matchups between two non top teams this season as both of these teams desperately need wins. With new managers for both teams, their strategies have changed in recent matches. Let’s start with Crystal Palace.

Palace have Wilfried Zaha back from injury and the team is playing with renewed skill. They should also be getting Benteke back this week and that should help the team, but specifically it will help Zaha as he can get more room to operate on offense this week. The team also has some solid plays to consider for defense in Scott Dann who can score with his head. Expect Zaha to be a mainstay in many fantasy teams this week.

Everton have been weak on defense all season without a clean sheet away from home, and while they also have a new manager, they still don’t have consistent results. They won against Watford 3-2 last fixture, but they showed some lack of defensive cohesion as well as some mistakes that led to two Watford goals. The team did change their strategy however with giving Baines more offensive duties thrusting him back into the fantasy spotlight and his price tag hasn’t adjusted for his new role yet as he’s still priced at $5,200 on DK where he’s probably worth closer to $6K.

Cash Plays

For a player to be cash eligible, they need to do a few things. First, they should be a heavy crossing/shooting/chance creator type player. If a player fills all three buckets then they are absolutely in cash territory for me for both FanDuel and DraftKings. The table below will display the top 50 crossing players on the season so far and below I’ll have a few one-liner thoughts on a few important ones.

First thing we see when we look at the above table is several wing players on the list. There are some that we will ignore such as Ritchie (Newcastle) since he is going against a strong Manchester United team and thus I don’t expect him to get a large number of crosses. So who can we look at?

Kevin De Bruyne, Manchester City, $10,100 DK, $11,500 FD – KDB is a popular fantasy option as he’s expected to be a good cash play if you want to guarantee double digits from any single player, Only problem is that you don’t know if he will hit a goal scoring or assisting upside week in or week out. He’s reliable to get you the bare minimum but for his rather inflated price tag, you can’t truly trust him for cash without giving up some assets elsewhere.

Robbie Brady, Burnley, $7,100 DK, $7,500 FD – Brady is in a good position to get fantasy points with a matchup against Swansea. He’s got a monopoly on set pieces for Burnley and the team should get a good result against Swansea making Brady a solid play both for tournaments and cash games.

Yohane Cabaye, Crystal Palace, $5,800 DK, $7,000 FD – Cabaye has hit double digit crosses in each of the last two weeks, and with Palace upping their performances and playing at home this week, I like him a lot for cash games this week. And his cheap price tag makes it very easy to target him and lock a low salary high floor player.

Leighton Baines, Everton, $5,200 DK, $5,500 FD – With the new coach in Everton, Baines has taken on more of the free kick and corner kick responsibility. He’s also venturing forward more often as evidenced by his touches in the final third in the last three weeks, week 9 – 9, week 10 – 33, week 11 – 16. This increase, coupled with an increase in his role with the team coupled with his price makes him a good player to target on your teams.

Cesc Fabregas, Chelsea, $6,500 DK, $8.500 FD – If you want to stick to the big hitters then maybe looking at Fabregas who is the best chance creator for the defending champs. This week he should get a good set of opportunities to help his team get the W. I expect that he’ll hover around 10-20 fantasy points on DK with potential assists and shots, and should reach 30+ on FD with chances created.

James Milner, Liverpool, $7,800 DK, $7,500 FD – Milner has picked up momentum as a fantasy option in recent weeks, then he went and was benched last matchup for Liverpool. I think he’ll start again this week and he’ll go right back to being a viable fantasy option for a Liverpool team that should be one of the higher scoring teams this week.

Marcus Rashford, Manchester United, $8,300 DK, $8,000 FD – Rashford started taking set pieces for United and has the second highest odds of goal scoring for any United player this week against a Newcastle team that United should take care of easily.

Tournament Plays

Of course, everybody is a solid tournament play, as anybody can score a goal so long as they start the match. And even players that don’t start can come in off the bench and score a goal, but they usually only have 10-30 minutes to do so as opposed to 90. I don’t advocate taking flyers on players that don’t start as it is a losing strategy more often than not. That said, there is a method to select the players that are most likely to score goals, and thus marking themselves as tournament options. The players highlighted in this section will be players that take plenty of shots, convert several into goals, and get a lot of touches in the penalty area.

Romelu Lukaku, Manchester United, $9,700 DK, $10,500 FD – One of the top forwards on the slate and the price is ideal.

Mohamed Salah, Liverpool, $11,000 DK, $11,500 FD – If you want to go with a Liverpool player that has a high chance of scoring and may be lower owned, then Salah is probably the right choice. He rested during the international break as Egypt didn’t call him up for their finale against Ghana. Salah should be well rested and ready to score goals for the Reds. Coutinho is the other option for this team as is Firmino who can both score goals for this team.

Alvaro Morata, Chelsea, $9,900 DK, $9,500 FD – Chelsea will have to rely on Morata for 90 minutes as they will be without Batshuayi this week. Morata has a great eye for goal and can score headers with the best of them. He’ll have a hard time doing that if he’s being marked by Scott Dann, but Morata’s speed can give him the edge in a foot race.

Gabriel Jesus, Manchester City, $9,800 DK, $10,000 FD – For Manchester City, Jesus might be the answer this week. Aguero collapsed during an Argentina match last week and is questionable for Saturday. But Jesus should get the start and could be in a great position to score against Leicester.

Riyadh Mahrez, Leicester, $6,100 DK, $8,500 FD – Leicester’s new manager has Mahrez back as a potential tournament fantasy option. City may be complacent on defense and Mahrez may try to take advantage of that. He’s very cheap on DK that he’s worth a shot.

Goalkeeper Breakdown

This week there are a couple of viable goalkeepers that I like for all my teams. Ben Foster (West Brom, $3,900 DK, $5,000 FD) is one of them as he’s at home and facing a Chelsea team that should put pressure on him to make saves this week. Chelsea is prone to a low conversion percentage on their shots that can cause their opposing goalkeeper to tally up the saves. The other option on GK that I like is Kasper Schmeichel (Leicester, $3,700 DK, $5,500 FD) who is facing a tough Manchester City opponent that are likely to score 3+ goals. However, for a cheap price tag, you can take a gamble on a very low owned Schmeichel who might end up with 5+ saves and could even luck into a clean sheet or even a win.

Overall Defender table

Tournament defenders