FPL Gameweek 31 | Everything you need to know.

The Stuff You Should Know

🚨 Gameweek 31’s deadline is Saturday, 5th April, 11:00 BST.

‼️ Double Gameweek 33 is confirmed. Man City, Crystal Palace, Aston Villa and Arsenal will all play twice.

⛔️ Blank Gameweek 34 is also confirmed (but we knew it was coming anyway). The same teams that double in Double Gameweek 33 will blank in Blank Gameweek 34.

🩼 Erling Haaland is sidelined for 5-7 weeks with an ankle injury.

🤕 Gabriel is out for the remainder of the season - he’ll need surgery on a hamstring injury.

🤷 Alexander Isak was withdrawn after “feeling something in his groin”*. Eddie Howe says it’s a wait and see.

🤦 Justin Kluivert wasn’t in the squad last gameweek. It’s unclear whether he’ll be available this weekend.

🙄 Ola Aina is out for Gameweek 31. Chris Wood will be assessed.

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*We won’t make a joke about that if you don’t.

Alright?

Light the torches. Sound the klaxon. Pull that tantalising red cord that dangles next to the toilet at work. Another Double Gameweek has been announced.

The Premier League schedulers gave birth to Double Gameweek 33 on Thursday. Both parent and child are healthy.

But an evil twin was also born that day. Blank Gameweek 34 lingers like someone in a busy restaurant waiting for you to finish your after-dinner mints so they can steal your table.

We’ll talk about both, as well as the small matter of Gameweek 31, in today’s digital rag.

Gameweek 31’s fixtures.

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Double Gameweek 32 and 33

Summary for the Lazy: Buy players from Arsenal, Crystal Palace, Newcastle, Man City and Aston Villa.

@BenCrellin’s fixture tableau has been updated. Here it is after Thursday’s Double and Blank confirmations:

So Gameweek 31 is a boring normie, but it’s followed by two doubles and a blank.

Double Gameweek 32:

Crystal Palace vs Man City (A) and Newcastle (A)
Newcastle vs Man United (H) and Crystal Palace (H)

Double Gameweek 33:

Crystal Palace vs Bournemouth (H) and Arsenal (A)
Man City vs Everton (A) and Aston Villa (H)
Aston Villa vs Newcastle (H) and Man City (A)
Arsenal vs Ipswich (A) and Crystal Palace (H)

The transfers to make

We could get fancy with our analysis here, but the simple summary is “if you still have your Free Hit*, buy loads of players from doubling teams”. It’s not that difficult.

If you’ve already played your Wildcard, hopefully you’ll have loaded up on doublers already. If you’re yet to play it, we’d recommend you play it this gameweek. Remember: you cannot play two chips in the same gameweek, which means playing your Wildcard now frees you up to deploy some chippage in Double Gameweeks 32 and 33.

Let’s refer back to The Professor’s chip cheat sheet (patent pending):

So, based on this, The Prof plans to play his Triple Captain in Double Gameweek 32, followed by a Bench Boost in Double Gameweek 33 (someone probably needs to break it to him that Erling Haaland won’t feature in Gameweek 36).

*Importantly, the Free Hit gives you the freedom to load up on the doubling players without being stung by Blank Gameweek 34. If you don’t have your Free Hit, you’ll have to use Free Transfers to capitalise on the doubles and navigate the blank.

If you’re playing your Wildcard this week

Those of you who held off have dodged some bullets - the most destructive of which was the injury to Gabriel. Here’s a template Wildcard team we threw together ahead of Gameweek 31. Felt cute, might delete later:

This squad includes loads of doublers and, of course, Mohamed Salah - who plays West Ham in Double Gameweek 32 and Leicester in Double Gameweek 33. It’s primed for a Bench Boost in Double Gameweek 33 too.

Gabriel and Haaland are out. What does it mean?

Summary for the Lazy: Gabriel is probably the bigger issue here.

Gabriel and Erling Haaland have both picked up injuries, meaning the Premier League’s average height has dropped by at least a few inches.

There’s hope that the Norse God will return before the end of the season, but the same can’t be said for Arsenal’s defensive stalwart, who has been ruled out for the rest of the campaign.

Won’t anyone think of the FPL managers?

If you’re fully institutionalised, your first thought won’t be about the welfare of the players, but rather the welfare of your FPL team.

The big impact here is Gabriel. He was more owned than Haaland - particularly amongst active managers - and, arguably, his absence impacts Arsenal more than Haaland’s impacts Man City.

Not only is Gabriel’s injury a pain for anyone who owns him, but it could also have ramifications on Arsenal’s entire team - particularly their ability to keep clean sheets.

What about Haaland?

From an FPL perspective, Haaland’s injury could be seen as more of an opportunity than a hindrance. For starters, it opens the door for Omar Marmoush, who already has three goals from seven starts.

If you did own Haaland prior to his injury, your consolation prize is a choice of literally any other forward in the game and at least £5m in change.

Penetrative Stats.

Summary for the Lazy: Rashford might not be a buy yet, but his stats reveal a player worth keeping an eye on.

Today we’re doing a deep dive on Marcus Rashford. Or should that be Dr. Marcus Rashford (yeah - he received an honourary doctorate in 2021).

Since his move to Aston Villa, he’s started to look a bit like an earlier model of Rashford: the one that notched 17 goals, seven assists and 205 FPL points just two seasons ago.

But is his new form a flash in the pan? Or has Rashford rediscovered the player of old? Let’s pretend we can find an answer to that question by penetrating his stats.

The stats

Rashford joined Aston Villa just prior to Double Gameweek 25. Since then, he’s scored one goal and registered three assists in the Premier League. It’s hardly explosive, but given he’s only started twice, it’s pretty good going.

When you compare it to the first 24 gameweeks of the season, it’s even more remarcable:

The most notable rows, for us, are the expected stats. In just six Premier League appearances for Aston Villa, Rashford has notched nearly the same amount of expected goal involvement (xG + xA) as the 15 appearances he made for Manchester United.

Combined with his performances in other tournaments - most notably the brace vs Preston in the FA Cup and an assist in Villa’s last Champions League game - it paints a picture of a player who isn’t just getting lucky, but who is now a significant contributor to Aston Villa’s attack.

Still, he is overperforming. This is relatively normal for Rashford; in the 22/23 season, his 24 goal contributions came from an xGI of just 18.13. But it’s worth acknowledging regardless.

Rashford’s fixtures

Before Villa’s Double Gameweek 33 romp, they’ll host Nottingham Forest before getting a run out away at Southampton. They also have to traverse two legs against PSG in the Champions League before their first DGW33 fixture against Newcastle.

The fixture list isn’t terrible by any stretch, but the fact remains that Rashford is not a 90-minute man at present. He’s barely been a 60-minute man for his new side. That appears to be suiting him - and Villa - quite well. But it doesn’t suit his prospective FPL owners.

Is Rashford a buy?

Nah - not for us at the moment.

With the strain on Villa’s fixture calendar (they’re also still in the FA Cup, lest we forget), Unai Emery will be keen to ensure his players are adequately rotated. We reckon that Rashford will enjoy more starts, but it’s likely his minutes will continue to be curtailed with early withdrawals.

With that said, the stats coming out of Rashford’s performances in a Villa shirt do reveal the seedlings of a player finding his form again. Priced at just £6.6m, he could yet be a steal before the season concludes.

The best captain for Gameweek 31.

Summary for the Lazy: It’s Salah, but this isn’t clear-cut.

Fulham have the fourth-best defence at home in the league, according to expected goals allowed (xGA). It’s the second-best in 2025.

And thus, we enter the classic conundrum: does the freakish Mohamed Salah once again defy the statistical rules upon which we depend? Or does he finally succumb to the logic of football?

Answering this question gives you the best Gameweek 31 captain.

The obvious alternative is the yellow-flagged Alexander Isak, but his untimely groin-related withdrawal in Gameweek 30 might make the choice a little easier. Eddie Howe has said he’ll be assessed today (Friday), which means the already-safe bet in Salah becomes even safer.

If you’re defending a lead, stick with the Egyptian. If you’re chasing down a leader, Gameweek 31 presents an opportunity to capitalise on a trickier-than-it-looks fixture for Liverpool.

After playing his Wildcard, The Professor sits at 181k. If the season is a marathon, The Prof is hovering at the back of the front pack - readying himself for a final sprint.

That sprint will likely be a Triple Captain in Double Gameweek 32, followed by a Bench Boost in Double Gameweek 33. He's hoping this combo will propel him into the rarified air of the top 100k.

For Gameweek 31, he’s probably rolling his transfer. Mohamed Salah gets the armband.

Here’s his team:

To get the Prof’s up-to-the-deadline plans, and for access to our WhatsApp channels, ad-free lazy, our cash mini-leagues and loads more, you can join LazyFPL Premium for around the same cost as this fruit salad from M&S:

The key stats.

Other stuff we found interesting.

• Kieran Trippier was also withdrawn in Gameweek 30. His injury isn’t serious but, like Isak, he’s a wait and see.

• Leicester have failed to score in eight of their last nine league games.

We’re back at the same time next week ahead of a double-double. It’s the business end of the season, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t…

Stay lazy.

The LazyFPL Team.