🚨 DGW37 - key news and tips 🔥

The Stuff You Should Know.

⏰ Double Gameweek 37’s deadline is Saturday 11th May, 11:00 BST.

😍 Newcastle, Man City, Man United, Brighton, Spurs and Chelsea play twice.

📈 83% of the top 100k managers are planning to Bench Boost.

👀 Nottingham Forest appeal denied. Lopetegui will replace Moyes at West Ham at the end of the season.

Keep reading if you’re ready to stick your head above the parapet.

Alright?

How’re you feeling about Double Gameweek 37?

Listen, there isn’t much we can offer you here. That’s an odd thing to say on the precipice of arguably the most significant gameweek of the season, but it’s true.

You’re ready for this. We’ve taught you all we can teach you. Which, aside from a couple of shit puns and the occasional pop-culture reference, isn’t a great deal.

The truth is that your team probably looks remarkably similar to everyone else’s this week. That’s owing to a combination of the Bench Boost, team form, injuries and the complexion of the Premier League table.

But whilst there may be many teams like it, this team is yours. Love or loathe it, you’re stuck with it for a few more gameweeks yet. Polish the metal and lube up that barrel: we’ve got targets to hit.

You got any spare football stuff lying about?

Good, because our sponsor this week is Kits4Causes.

They send football kits and equipment to social enterprises across the world, and they’re partnered with DHL, which means you can send your unwanted football stuff for free.

Best of all, it’s ran by a fellow Lazy subscriber. We’ve charged him a bloody fortune for this plug, so please do him a favour and click on the button below.

But seriously, it’s a great cause. Your FPL team might be crap, but it doesn’t mean the world has to be.

Double Gameweek 37’s fixtures.

Six teams double. From tasty to bland:

Man City - Fulham (A) and Spurs (A).
Newcastle - Brighton (H) and Man United (A).
Chelsea - Nottingham Forest (A) and Brighton (A).
Spurs - Burnley (H) and Man City (A).
Man United - Arsenal (H) and Newcastle (H).
Brighton - Newcastle (A) and Chelsea (H).

Do we live in a post-differential world?

The streets are empty. The buildings are abandoned. Crows who are losing their mini-leagues peck at the lifeless bodies of the victims: Pascal Gross, Alejandro Garnacho, Julian Alvarez. There are plenty.

But mostly they’re ignored. The survivors have already raided the shops in search of the must-haves. Haalands, Palmers, Sons - these have been hoarded like loo paper and anti-bac gel.

The end of the season is usually a time for adventure. The swinging 30s. And yet it all feels very template going into Double Gameweek 37.

There are two ways of looking at this:

1) FPL is boring now.

2) There’s an opportunity here somewhere.

And gosh darnit we’ve been writing a weekly newsletter about FPL for two years, so even if (1) is true, we unwilling to admit that to ourselves.

Can you smell it? Nope, it’s not the acridity of decaying differentials: it’s opportunity. We’ll elaborate in the next section.

How to stick your head above the parapet.

There’s no ambiguity around the conventional play this week. Even FPL Towers themselves have dropped a subtle hint that the Bench Boost might be the advisable move.

But just because over 80% of active managers will be Bench Boosting relatively similar teams, it doesn’t mean we’ll all score the same number of points. In fact, those incremental changes - a differential here, an alternative captaincy there - are all the more amplified when everyone else is falling into line.

In a Double Gameweek, finding a differential doesn’t have to mean straying from the doubling teams. Each of them has two or three obvious players that everyone would like to have. But there are a myriad of peripheral options, any one of whom could return across two fixtures.

If you need a Hail Mary, don’t settle for the obvious. We’ve already outlined plenty of alternatives in newsletters gone by, but if you follow football with even a passing interest, you’ll be able to spot ‘em too.

Bruno Fernandes and other doubts.

Despite what Disney claims, we very much can and should talk about Bruno.

At the time of writing, he’s a doubt. We’re hoping for clarity on Friday - perhaps by the time you lower your posterior onto the toilet seat to read this, we’ll already have it.

It’s dangerous to put too much stock in ‘vibes’, but unlike your stress poos, the xVibes here are solid. Man United fans expect him to play across Double Gameweek 37, but that might be because his absence at Crystal Palace was the first ever Man United game he’s missed through injury.

His 16.6% ownership does not do justice to his current popularity, and managers are planning a contingency in case he’s confirmed out. For the Prof, Richarlison is the substitute teacher if Fernandes can’t make it to class.

But as we’ve already hinted at in the section above, £8.5m is a decent chunk if you’re in the market for a differential.

Harry Maguire joins Fabian Schar and Jan Paul van Hecke in the sorry list of decent and affordable doubling defenders that are now ruled out.

Aaron Wan-Bissaka (£4.4m), Micky van de Ven (£4.4m) and Brighton’s Igor (£4.3m) and Adam Webster (£4.2m) are all possible replacements that should at least feature in both fixtures.

Secret Section: plan for GW38 too.

Remember, if you want to see the secret section, use the referral link we sent in last week’s email and get one person subscribed!

The Best Captain for Double Gameweek 37.

Erling Haaland will be the overwhelmingly popular pick this week, and after his exploits against Wolves in Gameweek 36, it doesn’t take a tactical analyst to figure out why.

Cole Palmer, Alexander Isak, Anthony Gordon or virtually any other doubling player with an eye for goal are considerations. Whether or not you pick them will largely hinge - as it always does - on what you want from this season.

But mind the risks of going against the grain: those who strayed from the well-trodden path last week found themselves caught in the quicksand.

Our favourite alternative captaincy picks (in order):

- Cole Palmer
- Kevin De Bruyne
- Alexander Isak
- Phil Foden
- Heung-min Son

The Prof has never finished outside the top 100k before. Despite being ranked at 4.6m in Gameweek 7 and 2m in Gameweek 13, he’s now sitting at 123k. Will he make it?

This week he’s got Van Hecke to deal with. In accordance with our discussion above, he’s not intending to bring in a doubler as a replacement. It’ll either be an Everton defender or Munoz at Crystal Palace.

He’s also wrestling with a hit to remove James Maddison and bring in Richarlison.

Erling Haaland gets the armband.

His current team below is built with Fantasy Football Hub’s AI-powered MyTeam tool. Fancy getting your Double Gameweek 37 team rated for free? Try it here and you’ll be helping us out too.

Other Stuff We Found Interesting

• Reece James is back in full training. Malo Gusto is in contention after a 10-min cameo last week.
  

• Lisandro Martinez and Marcus Rashford are also back in training.
  

• Ipswich Town have been promoted. We’ll do a lazy deep-dive on all the promoted teams in pre-season.
  

• Keep your eye on those pressers!

Final words.

Okay, we’re out. Gameweeks like this are why we play FPL, so try to enjoy it. Big ask, we know.

Stay lazy.

The LazyFPL Team.

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