EPL Grind Down: Week 38

by Hesh Hambazaza (hambazaza) Last Updated 2017-05-25 19:24:55

It’s the season finale. Gameweek 38. The final countdown. The EPL season is coming to an end. But before we put a bow on this 2016/17 season we first have just our biggest slate yet. This week DraftKings is offering its largest soccer prize ever with a Qualifier-only final tournament and $25,000 to first place. Outside of that, if you didn’t qualify to the King of the Pitch tournament, there are plenty of buy-in tournaments that are worth considering and could easily help make a final EPL day not so sad if you hit all the right notes.

That’s where we come in, to try to help you find those right pieces to build the ultimate team that will score all the goals and win all the money. The toughest part of a gameweek 38 is finding the players with the right motivation. At this stage in the tournament, the champions have been crowned and the bottom three teams have been chosen for relegation. The only mystery at this point is the three teams that are fighting for the final two Champions League spots. Manchester City, Liverpool, and Arsenal all sit within three points of each and occupy the 3rd, 4th, and 5th places respectively. Manchester City is the only one of the three who doesn’t need a win, just a draw to guarantee qualification, though a win would guarantee that they finish in 3rd and avoid the early UCL rounds next season and jump in at the group stages. If City fail to get any points and both Arsenal and Liverpool are victorious, then Arsenal would have to defeat Everton by a five goal margin which would then drop City out of the Champions League and into the Europa League. While not exactly a long shot, it’s still an unlikely event.

The other concern this week outside of motivation is the squad rotation. It’s almost impossible to predict which teams will feature a full first team and which players will come to play. The likelihood is that a lot of managers will start thinking about next season and trying out some players that are inexperienced, giving them a first time start. Also, you may see some players on the verge of retiring or leaving their club getting the start. You may also see players who have been a particular thorn in their manager’s side not starting. Small knocks will not be ignored and players will sit if there is any hint of an ailment troubling them. My expectation is that there will be loads of value plays and unexpected sits on Sunday morning that we won’t have any trouble fielding the team of our choice.

That said, going through this week’s matches in a game-by-game basis will not do us any good as most of this data may end up being useless. Instead, I’ll break down the three matches with the teams that have something to play for, then we’ll try to find appealing situations that we can take to our advantage, and trends from the last few weeks. I will not give as many “plays” in this article, as I don’t want it to turn into a useless piece of writing by Sunday morning. But if you follow along, you should find yourself in the best position to identify the top plays yourself once the lineups are out Sunday.

Watford vs Manchester City

We’ll start off with the third place team, Manchester City, who are visiting Watford for their season finale. Watford are a curious team – they are finishing their season on a very bad run, but that was hardly their fault. Their last five fixtures have come against the following teams: vs Hull, vs Liverpool, at Leicester, at Everton, at Chelsea. While they lost their Hull match unexpectedly at home, they weren’t expected to win their other matches, though they did put up a spectacular fight against Chelsea who had just been crowned champions the week prior to their Monday match. Watford’s front office has also just announced the sacking of the manager Walter Mazzarri, effective immediately following the Manchester City match. The reason for the sacking is obvious if you’re a Watford fan. Mazzarri never warmed up to the players, at times benching their strongest performers, and earning some jeers from the locker room along the way. He also never took the time to learn English and spoke to the players through a translator in most instances. Following that news the players put in a spirited display against Chelsea, and I expect they’ll do the same against City, though I doubt they come away with a different result.

City on the other hand have had a great three match run where they’ve outscored their opponents 10-2 including a 5-0 thrashing of Crystal Palace, and two more home wins against Leicester and West Brom. Now they go on the road for their season finale and look to get at least a point to secure UCL qualification and a win to secure third place and direct qualification to the group stages. Both valuable pursuits. The team will likely field a full squad and there will be reason to believe that they’ll go after a goal early in order to secure their place in the table.

Gabriel Jesus, Sergio Aguero, Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva are all the plays to consider for City this week. There won’t be much debate on their importance to this team, and the only question comes in their pricing and likelihood of success/goal scoring. Jesus is the top option for me especially on DraftKings where he is priced at $8,900. He’s also a great option on FD where he’s priced relatively cheap as well. Kevin De Bruyne has actually come back to life after a lackluster middle-of-the-season slump, but he’s scored two goals and three assists in his last three matches and has had six double digit crossing matches in his last 10 for City putting him in a good spot to deliver again in this one. Aguero and Silva may end up being the overlooked odd-man out players that you should consider in a tournament because of their potential low ownership. I’d be weary of taking too many City players, as they may pump the breaks if they score two goals early and look to rest players and slow things down moving forward.

Watford are missing some important defensive players, so it’ll be hard to pinpoint which of their defenders to target for fantasy purposes. Taking their central defenders on FD might come in handy as they look to thwart the City attack, but I likely wouldn’t touch any players from Watford for fantasy this week. Plenty of matches elsewhere.

Liverpool vs Middlesbrough

The team currently in fourth place, Liverpool, is hosting a Middlesbrough team that is preparing for life in the Championship next season. Meanwhile, Liverpool is looking for ways to finish off the season with advancement to the Champions League. Liverpool is most likely going to end up in fourth place and a spot in the qualifying rounds next season, but a loss combined with an Arsenal win would jeopardize that. Given those parameters, it is not impossible to imagine that Klopp will feature an almost full squad for this match, their final one of the season. The top prospects from this encounter will be Philippe Coutinho and Daniel Sturridge who will likely be a little underowned. Sturridge is not a sure starter, but he did get the start last time out and scored a goal against West Ham.

Middlesbrough have been atrocious since they’ve been relegated and will likely have plenty to think about over the summer. The team at times appeared to be one of the best defensive teams in the league, but could never get their offense going in a way that was in any way threatening to the opponents. This ultimately led to the team scoring just 27 goals in 37 matches and while they conceded just 50 goals (good enough to put them in the middle of the pack), their offensive failures were a clear reason for their relegation. I don’t expect them to change that in this match and they’ll likely fail to score any goals, making them fantasy irrelevant going against Liverpool.

Arsenal vs Everton

Arsene Wenger is still manager at Arsenal and the Gunners are going to finish another season disappointed with their coming away with no silverware. The Gunners are once again fighting for a place in European competition, and while they’ve cemented their position in either Europa League or UCL, they are will be disappointed as they need results from other matches to finish in 4th place or better. That said, the team will do what they can to come away from this one with a win in order to avoid a loss. The matches all play at the same time, so expect an early barrage of attacks from the Gunners. This puts players such as Bellerin, Monreal, Ozil, Sanchez, and Giroud in play early. The likelihood of them continuing a strong attack through the end of the match is slim though as they will likely get word if both City and Liverpool are up on their opponents and thus lose the motivation to play extra hard to defeat an Everton squad that also has nothing to play for.

Speaking of Everton, they will likely try to rotate their lines and give some players a chance to shine. The team has plenty of young players who would deserve a chance to shine. Moreover, this is likely the final match in an Everton uniform for Romelu Lukaku who currently sits in second place in the Golden Boot race at 24 goals, two goals behind Harry Kane. Expect Lukaku to try to add to his total and this may end up being a high scoring affair, though that is unlikely. If you believe in narrative street, Lukaku should be on your radar.

Otherwise, the likely value plays to consider for both these teams are on the wings. Or the full back positions, which may provide some value that help assist you in rostering a high dollar player in another spot.

The Elite Teams

With no other matches carrying any special significance, it’s time to consider teams that might have something to play for, be it pride, show-off for their fans, or say goodbye to a key player.

Chelsea –

The newly crowned champions will get to play in front of their home crowds in their final match this season hosting the relegated Sunderland. Chelsea come into this one as Champions who are looking to take one last swipe at Sunderland prior to playing in the FA cup final in one week. They will likely feature some rotated lineups in order to give rest to their main players in order to secure an FA cup win.

John Terry – In his final match in a Chelsea uniform, the long time Chelsea legend will likely feature in this one. He scored a goal in his last match, and will probably be on set pieces in this one to give him one last chance at a goal from a free kick as a send off.

Willian – The Brazilian hasn’t been getting the start lately in big matches, so he’s likely getting the call here, Pedro, or Hazard (or both) could get a rest in this one giving Willian more responsibility in open play to provide creativity to supply the forwards. Willian will also likely handle corners giving him a high floor on DraftKings.

Fabregas – Expect that Fabregas will be a bit saddened to be left out of the Spain squad in the upcoming international matchups, and this may be his last action for the season and then the summer might be off for him. This means that Fabregas would be a wildcard GPP tournament play to consider if he gets the start because of his cheap price tag and the likelihood that he is involved in the goal scoring in one way or another.

Michy Batshuayi – The hero that clinched the title will be forever remembered among Chelsea diehards despite his forgettable season. He’s going to be looking to prove himself once again if he gets another start to remind his manager, Conte, that he’s not a fluke player or that he wasn’t just “lucky.”

As for Sunderland, I don’t expect my lineups to feature any Sunderland players, apart from Defoe who might have already played his last Sunderland match. The expectation is that this team will likely not feature many standouts in a match that should mean less than nothing to the players as they get ready to pack their bags and head to the championship.

Tottenham –

The Spurs are finishing their season strong, unlike their ending to last season where they managed just two points in their last four matches that ultimately cost them the title and ended them in third place. This season, they’re looking to finish strong and cement their second place finish. They started this on Thursday with their destruction of Leicester 6-1 where Harry Kane scored four goals, and Son scored two. Both those players are again in play as the team looks to finish the season on a high note and get ready for next year. Kane is probably the top forward on the slate as he’s looking to cement his place as the golden boot winner if he can fade Lukaku’s goal scoring so he’ll be trying to score goals of his own and set himself up to be the top goal scorer of the EPL for the second season in a row.

Further for Tottenham, Eriksen should be back from resting in the Leicester match, his absence probably contributed to Son’s increase in production. With Eriksen back, he likely hurts Son’s chances at securing fantasy points. That said, Eriksen’s price tag is very high on both FanDuel and DraftKings making him tough to fit on either site.

Additional stats to consider

The Following table represents the last four gameweeks statistics for all teams.

On DraftKings, one of the top stats to consider is crosses. Over the last four weeks, the top teams to cross the ball are Manchester City, Southampton, Hull, Leicester City, and Everton. This puts the following players in play:

Cedric Soares and Ryan Bertrand – The Southampton Full backs have been in the top 7 in crosses delivered in their last four matches and for good reason. They have both seen a significant amount of touches in the final third as well. Their team is playing against Stoke at home in what should be an interesting matchup but should also involve plenty of ball movement. Both of these players have some “knocks” heading into the final match, which could mean that the opportunity could come for Jeremy Pied and Matt Targett to deputize in their place. Both players are in play on DraftKings.

Kevin De Bruyne – As mentioned above, he’s back to playing some solid ball, and City need a win, thus cementing his position as a solid tournament and cash play.

Marc Albrighton, Kamil Grosicki, Gylfi Sigurdsson – The trio play a vital role on all three of their teams. Albrighton has the easy matchup against Bournemouth at home, Sigurdsson also has a home matchup, but it’s against a tougher WBA opponent. While Grosicki has the toughest opponent in Tottenham. Grosicki isn’t on my radar, meanwhile Albrighton and Siggy should be featured on some fantasy teams.

Leighton Baines – The Evertonian may be in play if Everton manage to put up a fight and turn this match interesting. He’s taken the fourth most crosses in the last four matches, but the opposition has been different. I don’t expect much in this one.

As for Chances Created, the top five teams all look familiar, with the exception of Bournemouth. for Bournemouth, Josh King has created 9 chances in his last four appearances, but also, he’s got goals in five of his last seven matches. Look for King to be a big player in this week’s matchup with Leicester.

The final position I haven’t touched on much is Goalkeeper. This is a tough week to pinpoint goalkeepers, and I find that going with value is the best option. For that, I’ll likely stick with the Manchester United keeper, Joel Pereira who should get the start with United focused on their Europa League final next week. United should also be a team prime for fantasy value with several players likely sitting out and making way for some youngsters in key positions such as Fosu-Mensah, Scott McTominay, and Axel Tuanzebe.

Finally, this article veered from my usual game-by-game focused pieces because of the nature of the final match of the season. If you’ve got a seat in the King of the Pitch, good luck. With this being the final Grind Down of the season, I want to take the time to thank all my readers for sticking around throughout the season and wish you all the best of luck in your games on Sunday.