Gameweek 27 saw 4 teams miss out on Premier League action (Chelsea, Tottenham, QPR & Leicester City) as the Capital One Cup final played out. Whilst Chelsea went on to win the final, there were still 8 games in the Premier League, and this is how the dream team played out:
Goalkeeper
So this week we saw Lukasz Fabianski pick up his 10th clean sheet in the Premier League this season, as he and Swansea went to Burnley and came away with all 3 points with a 0-1 win. Not only did he keep a clean sheet and make 6 saves, he also managed to walk away with all 3 bonus points, giving him a massive 11 points.
Defenders
After a somewhat low scoring week, it isn’t surprising that we ended up with 5 defenders in this weeks dream team. To start things off we had Newcastle’s Daryl Janmaat who has settled into the Premier League action extremely well since joining the Magpies in the summer. The Dutch defender managed to produce a brilliant cross and assist for his team-mate Papiss Cisse, which turned out to be the crucial goal in their 1-0 win against Aston Villa.
Stoke City have two of their back 4 feature in this weeks dream team, as they battled away to secure a 1-0 win against Hull City. The first of the two is Marc Wilson who managed to bring home 9 points after securing 3 bonus points and a clean sheet. The centre back completed an impressive 46 passes out of 56, and a total of 9 successful clearances.
This performance was matched by Philipp Wollscheid who also took home the exact same return, being 9 points. Wollscheid managed to make fewer mistakes in the passing side of his game, with 52 being successful out of an attempted 60 passes. This proved further that he is settling into first team football at Stoke very well, and has played 90 minutes every fixture since gameweek 21.
After their midweek disappointment, Arsenal managed to grind out a 2-0 win at home to Everton. Hector Belerin managed to grab a spot in this week’s dream team as he a brought home fantasy football owners a total of 9 points. These points were awarded after the Spaniard helped keep a clean sheet and shared the 3 bonus points with Kieran Gibbs.
Crystal Palace showed impressive form this week as they went to West Ham and came home with all 3 points after a 1-3 win. Puncheon may have been the star of the show, but Scott Dann made sure he put a shift in and scored the second goal of the day, as he turned home Puncheon’s free kick. This gave him a total of 9 points this week as unfortunately his clean sheet was wiped out by an Enner Valencia goal.
Midfielders
Joining Scott Dann this week we have team-mate Jason Puncheon who not only assisted Dann’s goal but all 3 of Crystal Palace’s goals in their 1-3 win over West Ham. This gave him a spot in the dream team this week and he was the highest scoring player of the week, with a massive 14 points.
As Liverpool are finding their form, and rising up the table, Phillipe Coutinho continues to impress. With 2 goals in his last 2 Premier League games, the Brazilian is really starting to make people take note of his performances and take Liverpool’s champions league push seriously. This week he helped Liverpool beat Manchester City 2-1, which also helped Chelsea maintain their lead at the top. Taking home 10 points will please any fantasy football owner, but this isn’t many as he is only owned by 6.4% of managers… We’re sure that will rise in the coming weeks.
Our final midfielder in this week’s dream team is Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil, who seems to be finding some of his form that he had recently lost. The German World Cup winner managed to pick up both assists this week in the Gunners’ 2-0 defeat of Everton. This performance earned him 1 bonus point and a total of 10 points.
Strikers
So whilst everyone was arguing about who should have been sent off for the foul on Falcao, Wayne Rooney went and slotted home the penalty that the Colombian won. Although the keeper went the right way, Rooney tucked it away in the corner, and then went and grabbed a second. This along with 3 bonus points gave the Englishman his first doube figure return (13 points) since gameweek 18.
Glenn Murray had one of the strangest gameweeks for a single player in a while, as the Palace striker was in and around everything good and bad. The forward managed to score two goals as Crystal Palace beat West Ham 1-3, but he then went and got himself sent off! All this, coupled with two bonus points earned him a total of 9 points and a spot in the dream team.
