Getting your team selection correct in Draft Premier League is just as essential as your pre-season draft or your weekly waiver wire claims. And that’s exactly why we’re here to help with our Gameweek 17 Start and Sit article! We’re here to help you with some of the big Fantasy EPL decisions you may need to make for the upcoming fixtures.
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Gameweek 17 Start and Sit
Whether you’re an obsessed EPL fan like our Fantrax HQ team, or a casual player new to the world of Fantasy EPL, you know to start your attacking players against relegation-threatened sides. We’re not going to waste your time dealing with the obvious! The goal of this article is to delve into notable players across each Fantrax position and let you know if you should be starting or sitting those players.
Our format is as follows: We will be choosing 2 different teams. One will be our starts of the week, made up of non-obvious, low-rostered players. The other will be our sits of the week, made up of highly rostered, normally started players. We will keep track of how each team performs in next week’s article for full transparency.
Now let’s see the teams!
Starts of the Week XI
| Player | Pos. | Team | Opponent | % Rostered |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daniel Bachmann | G | WAT | @BUR - Wed 2:30PM | 8% |
| Ezri Konsa Ngoyo | D | AVL | @NOR - Tue 2:45PM | 31% |
| Matthew Lowton | D | BUR | WAT - Wed 2:30PM | 39% |
| Joel Veltman | D | BHA | WOL - Wed 2:30PM | 24% |
| Tom Cleverley | M | WAT | @BUR - Wed 2:30PM | 3% |
| Daniel Podence | M | WOL | @BHA - Wed 2:30PM | 26% |
| Juraj Kucka | M | WAT | @BUR - Wed 2:30PM | 5% |
| Ruben Loftus-Cheek | M | CHE | EVE - Thu 2:45PM | 43% |
| Scott McTominay | M | MUN | @BRF - Tue 2:30PM | 26% |
| Cucho Hernandez | F | WAT | @BUR - Wed 2:30PM | 34% |
| Matej Vydra | F | BUR | WAT - Wed 2:30PM | 1% |
Average % Rostered : 22%
We like starting your Burnley and Watford assets a lot this week as they play each other in a managerial clash of tactics between Dyche and Bielsa. That includes all forward options as there should be plenty of back and forth options. We like whoever starts between Cucho and Pedro (don’t let us down again Cucho!) as well as between Vydra and Jay Rodriguez. Scott McTominay and Loftus-Cheek are our only big-6 selected under-rostered starters, with the rest coming from generally lower-table sides. It’s admittedly a very ugly side on paper, but we’re here to pick your non-obvious fantasy starters, not a pretty team!
Sits of the Week XI
| Player | Pos. | Team | Opponent | % Rostered |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Illan Meslier | G | LEE | @MCI - Tue 3:00PM | 60% |
| Lucas Digne | D | EVE | @CHE - Thu 2:45PM | 90% |
| Michael Keane | D | EVE | @CHE - Thu 2:45PM | 95% |
| Valentino Livramento | D | SOU | @CRY - Wed 2:30PM | 82% |
| Ben White | D | ARS | WHU - Wed 3:00PM | 84% |
| Harvey Barnes | M | LEI | TOT - Thu 2:30PM | 95% |
| Stuart Dallas | M | LEE | @MCI - Tue 3:00PM | 93% |
| Abdoulaye Doucoure | M | EVE | @CHE - Thu 2:45PM | 81% |
| Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg | M | TOT | @LEI - Thu 2:30PM | 86% |
| Richarlison | F | EVE | @CHE - Thu 2:45PM | 97% |
| Callum Wilson | F | NEW | @LIV - Thu 3:00PM | 94% |
Average % Rostered : 87%
Everton, Leeds, and Newcastle are the 3 teams playing the top sides (Manchester City, Liverpool, and Chelsea) this week, so we suggest benching any of your goal/assist/clean sheet dependent players from those teams. That includes some of our selections like Digne, Keane, Doucoure, Richarlison, Dallas, Meslier, and Wilson. If Digne finds his way out of Benitez’s dog house, I know you’ll be tempted to start him after weeks of pain, but don’t do it. Livramento remains on our Sits team, as his production has fallen off a cliff in recent weeks and Palace is surging. Ben White, Hojbjerg, and Harvey Barnes round out the side, with White facing a tough West Ham side that is likely to score, Hoj a low-ceiling and over-rostered midfielder, and Barnes a return-dependent versus a sometimes stifling Spurs side.
Last Week Performance
In GW16 we had a poor showing from our “Starts of the Week” scoring only 50 points, including a dreadful -5 from keeper Dubravka. Our downfall predominantly came from being too risky with our squad selection, which lead to 4 non-starts (Lyanco, Albrighton, Olise, Pedro), so we’ll try to keep it a bit safer this week. It wasn’t all bad news though! In fact, our “Sits of the Week” only scored 26.5 points, with 10 starters! We had 3 negative scorers (Jimenez, Livramento, Semedo) and only 1 player eclipsed 6 points (Tarkowski with a clean sheet).
Check out Draft Society’s Fantrax Weekly Player Projections page for more player evaluations for the upcoming week!
Follow DraftLad on Twitter @DraftLad for all the latest!
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