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Recap
Gameweek 25 was an unprofitable week but I’m fairly happy with the actual lineup. There were six players under 10% ownership, the Man Utd stack scored 39 points, and the Burnley duo had a clean sheet. Targeting West Ham was a good idea, I just picked the wrong players. This happens and you can’t be too harsh on yourself when it does. No-one can predict the future. Like a lot of players, I was hoping for a Brighton clean sheet on Monday night but Palace surprised us and scored twice. In summary, the theory behind the lineup was sound but the execution let me down.
Gameweek 26 Weekly Monster Lineup
Looking at the fixtures, there are plenty of teams I’d like to target. I suspect that Liverpool will be popular despite their current form so I will fade them completely. I find it hard to trust them right now and I’m hoping to gain leverage on the field by not rostering any of their players. I’m also avoiding the Chelsea vs Man Utd match. Chelsea has been a fortress at the back since Thomas Tuchel arrived and Man Utd has a history of low-scoring affairs against other top six teams.
What this all means is I’m going to have a lot of money to play with. In fact, the lineup below leaves over 9m remaining! I’ve always been a bit tight.
At the back, I’m stacking Sam Johnstone (6.2m) and Darnell Furlong (5.8m) of West Brom. Brighton has scored either 0 or 1 goal in their last 8 matches so I’m banking on them continuing that run here. All the WBA defenders are really cheap and I think that the Brighton defense will be very popular so this is a great leverage play for me.
The rest of my team is made up of Leeds, Leicester, and Everton players. All three teams have been in great goalscoring form and have defenders who contribute to the attack. As I’ve got so much budget remaining, a common theme of this lineup is to pick the most expensive player at the relevant position for each team. That is with the safety net in mind. For example, the Leicester back four has been different the last few games so I can’t be completely sure who will be playing. By picking Timothy Castagne (7.7m) I know that even if he doesn’t play, I will more than likely get a quality safety net player such as Ricardo Pereira (7.6m).
Completing my Leicester stack is Harvey Barnes (9.5m) and James Maddison (9.6m). They’ve both been in terrific form the last 2 gameweeks and they’re facing an Arsenal team who are very inconsistent. As I write this, Maddison is out of Leicester’s Europa League match on Thursday so is unlikely to play on Sunday. However, I’m still picking him just in case he recovers. I’m also happy with the Safety Net options for Maddison. I think the foxes win this comfortably so I want as much exposure as possible.
My Leeds stack consists of Stuart Dallas (8m), Raphinha (10.4m), and Bamford (11m). All three of them scored on Tuesday night and I know what you’re thinking: lightning doesn’t strike twice! Well, as someone who used to share a house with a guy who was struck by lightning twice before he was 30, I can confirm it does. I think this will help to suppress their ownership and my philosophy on all DFS games is to be the person backing the second lightning strike!
Finally, Everton is coming off that great result in the Merseyside derby and other than the inexplicable loss to Fulham, have been in the goals recently. The Toffees have quite a few decent options but I’ve settled on Dominic Calvert-Lewin (10m), James Rodriguez (9.3m), and Lucas Digne (8.2m). DCL is a classic safety net pick with Richarlison (9.4m) there as a possible replacement. The same can be said with Rodriguez who has Gylfi Sigurdsson (9.1m). Digne is the swashbuckling attacking fullback I love to play and also has a genuine chance at a clean sheet against Southampton. He also leads Everton in assists this season with Rodriguez just behind him.
I always aim to produce a unique lineup and by picking one with so much remaining budget, I’m fairly confident it will be. I just have to hope now that all my assumptions are correct! Good luck everyone.
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