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Give the armband to Son - Premier League fantasy football tips

BBC
·4 min read
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There’s just one more FPL deadline to remember this season – that’s at 1430 on Sunday - and the moves you make for your team will depend on where you stand in your mini-leagues or whether you’re just concentrating on getting the best overall rank you possibly can.

If you’re looking to stay ahead of your rivals in a mini-league then you’re probably playing a bit safer, trying to anticipate your opponents’ potential moves and making sure you’ve got their most dangerous assets covered.

If you’re chasing then it’s about finding those differentials who might deliver for you on the final day of the season when we tend to see some high-scoring games and funny things can happen.

Captaincy

This is one decision which can make a huge difference in the last gameweek of the season and if you’re trailing a rival by 20 or 30 points then I think you’re going to have to go against Erling Haaland this week.

He is the obvious captaincy choice with Manchester City needing a win at home to West Ham to clinch a fourth consecutive Premier League title but the pleasing thing is that there are plenty of attractive alternative options.

You could go for:

There are less obvious candidates such as Eberechi Eze or Michael Olise at home to Aston Villa with Crystal Palace finishing the season in sparkling form, or you could go for Brennan Johnson instead of Son or Cody Gakpo instead of Salah if you really want to do something a little bit different.

Fixtures to target

Statman Dave made the point on this week’s Fantasy 606 podcast that you need to be targetting those teams that have something left to play for this season with Manchester City and Arsenal being the main cases in point.

A lot of fantasy teams will already have three Manchester City players in them off the back of double gameweek 37 but you have a decision to make if you’re an Ederson owner now that he’s been ruled out of the game against West Ham with a fractured eye socket.

Either it’s a straight swap for Stefan Ortega giving you almost £2m to play with if you have a second free transfer or just use your back-up keeper and save the transfer for a more exciting move.

That could be to bolster your Arsenal stocks either in defence or attack.

Arsenal have by far and away the best defence in the division, Ben White the most productive in terms of attacking returns with four goals and five assists this season but he’s also the most expensive at £6.1m.

Bukayo Saka is still owned by more than half of the managers in the game so if you’re looking for a slight differential on that front then it’s Martin Odegaard at just over 17% ownership or Kai Havertz at under 10%. Saka has the advantage of being the penalty taker though.

Differentials

Here’s a starting 11 of differential picks if you’re on the Free Hit or the wildcard and want to select a team that nobody else will have – remember a strict differential means under 5% ownership.

Goalkeeper – Stefan Ortega

Defenders – Marc Cucurella, Daniel Munoz, Sergio Reguilon

Midfielders – Leandro Trossard, Bernardo Silva, Michael Olise, Brennan Johnson, Pascal Gross

Forwards – Cody Gakpo, Rodrigo Muniz

Some players who are just above the 5% threshold but are definitely worth considering are Malo Gusto, Eberechi Eze, Bryan Mbeumo, Joao Pedro and Jean-Philippe Mateta.

Gamble of the week

Give the captain’s armband to Son Heung-min away to Sheffield United or if you really want to roll the dice then splash some cash, get Trent Alexander-Arnold into your defence and make him your skipper hoping for a clean sheet and a couple of those lovely attacking returns.

Good luck everyone and thanks for reading this season.

Alistair Bruce-Ball presents the Fantasy 606 podcast alongside former Premier League winner Chris Sutton and Statman Dave. Just search for 'Fantasy 606' on the BBC Sounds app and click subscribe.