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 36 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.
Gameweek 36 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ben Foster | G | WAT | @CRY Sat 10:00AM EVE Wed2:45PM | 6% |
| Sam Byram | D | NOR | WHU Sun 9:00AM @LEI Wed2:45PM | 1% |
| Grant Hanley | D | NOR | WHU Sun 9:00AM @LEI Wed2:45PM | 11% |
| Rob Holding | D | ARS | LEE Sun 9:00AM @TOT Thu2:45PM | 8% |
| Yerry Mina | D | EVE | @LEI Sun 9:00AM @WAT Wed2:45PM | 14% |
| Kieran Dowell | M | NOR | WHU Sun 9:00AM @LEI Wed2:45PM | 7% |
| Juraj Kucka | M | WAT | @CRY Sat 10:00AM EVE Wed2:45PM | 10% |
| Pierre Lees-Melou | M | NOR | WHU Sun 9:00AM @LEI Wed2:45PM | 7% |
| Imran Louza | M | WAT | @CRY Sat 10:00AM EVE Wed2:45PM | 4% |
| Mohamed Elneny | M | ARS | LEE Sun 9:00AM @TOT Thu2:45PM | 7% |
| Joao Pedro | F | WAT | @CRY Sat 10:00AM EVE Wed2:45PM | 25% |
Average % Rostered: 9%
Gameweek 36 brings us the biggest double gameweek of the season with 12 teams playing two games and 8 playing one. Naturally, this presents us with a lot of fantastic starting options this week. However, so as to remain as useful as possible and not be too repetitive of the Draft Society’s Sleepers XI, we’ve opted for the challenge of a Starts XI team averaging less than 10% rostered. With that in mind, our defense is half made up of rarely chosen Norwich defenders. Norwich faces recently out-of-European competitions West Ham and Leicester this week and may see their opponents B teams. Despite that, they still have low clean sheet chances but the 2 chosen Byram and Hanley tend to put up decent enough ghost points, that across 2 starts they should do plenty. Next to them, we have the recently healthy again, Yerry Mina, who is Everton’s best defender and potential key to their fight against relegation. Finally, we have Rob Holding, who’s the benefactor of Ben White’s hamstring injury. He’s the riskiest of the bunch not to start 2 games, but if he does (and White remains out) he also likely brings the highest reward with matchups against Leeds and Spurs.
In the midfield, we have a series of decent floor, low ceiling players who work perfectly in double gameweek situations when they’re close to guaranteed to start 2 games. The Norwich pair of Dowell and Lees-Melou should do some damage against the defensively struggling Leicester (particularly their B team) and the Watford pair of Kucka and Sissoko are usually uninspiring but have good matchups against Everton and Crystal Palace. Finally, we have recently reborn Arsenal mid, Mohamed Elneny, who’s brought stability to the Gunner’s mid in Thomas Partey’s absence. All these options should be good for 12 or so points with upside. Finally, up top we have the lowest rostered forward who’s likely to start 2 games in Joao Pedro. Matchups against Everton and Palace leave him with a 33% chance of scoring, an 18% chance of assisting, and a good chance of bettering his 10.5 ghost point total from last week vs Burnley. Besides these very low-rostered players, we advise starting any decent player who’s very likely to start 2 games. The better the player and the higher chance of starting both games the better.
Sits of the Week XI
| Player | Pos. | Team | Opponent | % Rostered |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Pope | G | BUR | AVL Sat 10:00AM | 81% |
| Aaron Cresswell | D | WHU | @NOR Sun 9:00AM | 96% |
| Matt Targett | D | NEW | @MCI Sun 11:30AM | 89% |
| James Tarkowski | D | BUR | AVL Sat 10:00AM | 95% |
| Jorginho | M | CHE | WOL Sat 10:00AM @LEE Wed2:30PM | 90% |
| Declan Rice | M | WHU | @NOR Sun 9:00AM | 95% |
| Allan Saint-Maximin | M | NEW | @MCI Sun 11:30AM | 99% |
| Leandro Trossard | M | BHA | MUN Sat 12:30PM | 96% |
| Che Adams | F | SOU | @BRF Sat 10:00AM | 81% |
| Raul Jimenez | F | WOL | @CHE Sat 10:00AM MCI Wed3:15PM | 89% |
| Chris Wood | F | NEW | @MCI Sun 11:30AM | 74% |
Average % Rostered: 90%
On the opposite side of things, we have a team of players, 90% rostered on average, that we’d suggest benching or even outright dropping this week. With only 8 teams to choose from, and generally not a ton of players 80% rostered our higher, we had slim pickings this week, as most premium assets either have a DGW or very good matchups. These names may be bigger than you are used to for a Sits XI but it’s all situational. We start off with Matt Targett, who faces the always deadly City attack. Next, we have a surprising pair: Aaron Cresswell who faces Norwich, and the always solid James Tarkowski. Both are good options even this week, but we believe that there are many better options out there, even under 10% rostered as outlined above, due to the DGW.
In midfield, we start (our bench) with Jorginho, who does have a DGW, but who we tend to think is a trap, as he likely will not start 2 games, and 1 game against Wolves is likely not enough to justify his inclusion in your side. We have Declan Rice’s low ceiling in a SGW vs Norwich, Saint-Maximin again due to his City matchup, and the firing, yet SGW Trossard against Man United. Again, good options, but not good enough. In attack, we’re opting to bench Che Adams, who has an SGW away to Brentford, and Chris Wood who has City and has been out of his side recently. Finally, our trickiest, and most debatable pick of the week maybe is Raul Jimenez who faces Chelsea and City. He’s a rare DGW benching, who’s likely to start 2 games. Both are clearly tricky matchups, and he’s been in and out of the lineup recently for Fabio Silva, so only 120 minutes is not out of the question for him. We’d go elsewhere for forwards. Of the mentioned players above, all those that do not have a DGW in GW37 or a good matchup in GW38 are droppable. That includes Targett, Cresswell, Jorginho, Rice, Adams, and Jimenez. Get some streamers in that will help you win in this crazy end to the season schedule.
Follow DraftLad on Twitter @DraftLad for all the latest! Check out Draft Society’s Fantrax Weekly Player Projections page for more player evaluations for the upcoming week!