Gameweek 36 – double trouble

It has been a while but gameweek 36 is finally here.  The gameweek that everyone fantasy premier league manager has been waiting for.    8 teams have double gameweeks.  Including some marquee players.  Gameweek 36 is a huge and maybe the last opportunity to make ground on your league leader. But who makes the gameweek 36 watch-list?

Van der Vaart

It has not been going well for Spurs recently but with a home game against; Blackburn and then away Bolton you have got to fancy some goals.  Van der Vaart has not hit the highs of last season but still has 9 league goals.  He has 2 league goals in his past 2 home starts and a good goal scoring record against Blackburn.

Boswinga

After Chelsea’s heroics in Barcelona mid week there are very few defenders left standing.  Cahill is out for the season, Ivanovic  has a 1 game ban and Luiz is still injured.  Somehow Terry is still playing but surely he won’t play every game.  That leaves one man – Jose Boswinga.  The  Portuguese full back was on the watch list of every fantasy premier league manager at the start of the season but things got messy with AvB.  With 2 home games you would back Chelsea to come out with at least 1 clean sheet.  Jose also has a goal, 3 assists and 10 bonus points to his name.

Hatem Ben Arfa

I love Ben Arfa.  He has everything you want in a winger.  Skills, set pieces and most of all he is greedy.  Ben Arfa has 5 goals, 7 assists and 8 bonus points to his name.  Not bad considering he has only played for half the season.  However in gameweek 25 the Newcastle winger developed a very annoying fantasy premier league trait.  The assist for the assist.  This happened twice vs. Stoke.  With 4.2 points / game I predict HBA to have a big double game-week.

Whoever you pick for the gameweek 36, good luck and may you have many bonus points.

Gameweek 32 – Oh Gylfi Gylfi (home and away)

Oh Gylfi, Gylfi, Gylfi, Gylfi, Gylfi Sigurdsson.  The icelandic midfielder is fast becoming the fantasy premier league’s must have midfielder.  As predicted in gameweek 25, he is making waves and with; 6 goals, 3 assists and 8 bonus points in all but 10 starts.

However a strange phenomenon has occurred.  All of his 6 goals have come away from home (6 goals in 6 games).  So what is causing this discrepancy?  We compared his attempts at goal in his last 2 games; away to Spurs and at home to Everton.

A look at Gylfi Sigurdsson's attempts at goal; home and away for Swansea

Number of shots – funnily enough Gylfi is getting a consistent number of shots in both at home and away (averaging roughly 4 / game) – except for against Man City where he was marked out of the game.  This is pretty impressive for a midfielder and up there with the highest number of shots / game in the Premiership.

Blocked shots – despite getting in the same number of shots at home as away, Gylfi is finding more space away from home.  Against Everton he had 3 of his 5 shots blocked compared to just the 1 at Spurs.  Swansea are quickly building respect in the Premiership and teams are not giving them the space at the Liberty Stadium that they had in the early part of the season.

So will Gylfi’s home and away scoring phenomenon continue in gameweek 32?  Yes.  With Cheick Tiote and Cabaye in centre midfield for Newcastle it will be tough for Swansea’s Icelandic attacking midfielder.