🚨 GW38: The FPL cheat sheet 🧠

⏰ Gameweek 38’s deadline is Saturday, 23rd May, 14:30 BST.

🏆 Arsenal win the Premier League. Aston Villa win the Europa League.

🤝 Chelsea appoint Xabi Alonso as their new manager, starting from July 1.

👋 Pep Guardiola will leave Man City at the end of this season.

🤕 Casemiro is ruled out of Gameweek 38.

🙏Please fill out our end-of-season survey. It only takes a minute, but it’s embarrassingly important to us. You might even find it cathartic.

🚽 Cheers for tolerating us in your inbox this season. Whether you’re relatively new around here or you’ve been a subscriber since the start, your support is appreciated more than an unexpected six points from a budget goalkeeper. We’ll talk about our plans for the summer later in this email.

Alright?

The end is near, and so we face the final curtain.

We’ll be honest with you: Gameweek 38 looks even more ripe for final-gameweek carnage than usual. The Premier League winners have a huge European final on the horizon. Iconic managers are departing. Talismanic players will bid their farewells.

Expect rotation, strange results and sentimental substitutions aplenty.

All of which is to say, it could be a shitshow for FPL managers. Unlike some of the now-beached teams in the Premier League, Gameweek 38 still matters for plenty of you. Mini-leagues might be decided on the whims of Mikel Arteta’s hangover-induced team planning, or a lost bet that forces Michael Carrick to play £3.9 goalkeeper Dermot Mee upfront for a laugh.

Still, just as we have done for the last 37 gameweeks, we’ll do our utmost to put something sensible in front of you, in the hopes that it might steer you towards some semblance of success, whatever that looks like.

It’s the final countdown in Europe. Closing time for Semisonic. Or, if we take R.E.M’s word for it, the end of the world as we know it. Gameweek 38 has arrived.

Here’s how to make sure you did it your way.

Contrary to popular speculation, LazyFPL does not return to its lair to hibernate until the new season comes around, like a crap version of the antagonist in Jeepers Creepers.

Instead, we’ll continue to send weekly emails throughout the summer. Here’s a rough calendar of what we’ll be talking about:

Next few weeks: Post-season analysis, FPL-relevant news and the World Cup build-up.

11th June - 19th July: World Cup Fantasy, news, taking the piss out of England’s inevitable mediocrity.

20th July - 22nd August: 26/27 FPL launch, news, pre-season friendlies, transfers, budget hunting, prepping you for the new season.

22nd August: Gameweek 1 kicks off.

Blimey - maybe we should go daily. We’ll barely have a moment to breathe amongst all that.

Anyway, consider this your formal invitation to join us throughout the summer, as we traverse the vast, barren expanse of bizarre transfer rumours, mismatched preseason friendlies and the small matter of the 2026 World Cup.

Should be fun.

It’s all kicked off since we last spoke. A lot of stuff is happening in football. Here’s a quick reminder, and what it might mean for your FPL team.

Arsenal are Champions.

You’ve probably seen various videos of Arsenal players chanting “Campeones” over the last week, confirming beyond any doubt that they are, indeed, Premier League winners.

What does it mean for FPL?

It’s not good. A final-day showdown would’ve guaranteed full-strength teams from both Arsenal and Man City, which would’ve made our lives easier. The fact that Arsenal have won it with a game to spare means that both teams could well rotate, particularly given that Arteta’s men have the UCL final next Saturday.

In fact, it’s already emerged that William Saliba, Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice were not training with the group on Thursday, but instead doing individual sessions. Very ominous.

Pep Guardiola will leave Man City.

After 10 years at the helm, Pep will leave Man City in the summer, which makes Gameweek 38 his final game in charge.

What does it mean for FPL?

In normal conditions, it would be unsurprising to see Guardiola rotate his team now that they have nothing to play for. Given it’s his last game at Man City, he might care about winning it a little more, but then again, he might also don a shirt and play himself in goal for all we know.

Aston Villa have won the Europa League.

Aston Villa’s Champions League qualification for next year had already been made certain, but winning the Europa League is a very juicy cherry on top for Unai Emery and his men.

What does it mean for FPL?

They had an open-top bus parade on Thursday and shared a beer with Prince William, so some of the players might still be feeling a little…Europey on Sunday (we’ll see ourselves out). Every chance they rotate, but a point or better guarantees them top four.

Spurs didn’t get their point.

Spurs losing at Chelsea means the relegation battle will go down to the wire. Spurs are two points ahead and have the goal difference, which means they need a point at home against Everton on the final day. West Ham will host Leeds. They need to win and hope Spurs lose.

What does it mean for FPL?

Well, we know that at least Spurs and West Ham will field full-strength teams. So that’s something. We suppose.

International squads announced.

Plenty of World Cup squads have been announced, including England's and Brazil’s.

What does it mean for FPL?

Probably nothing. If we’re clutching at straws (and we’re nothing if not notorious straw-clutchers), perhaps some players will try a little less now that their World Cup fates have been sealed, one way or another.

We’ve been banging on about endgame strategy for a while now, but if you need a refresher, there’s quite a lot of it in last week’s newsletter.

As with the gameweeks that have come before it, your strategy in Gameweek 38 boils down to your desperation levels. The bigger the size of the points gap between you and where you need to be, the more liberal you can be with the silly stuff: Differentials, points hits, Dermot Mee upfront, that sorta thing.

If you’re already winning your mini-league, or you’re at the overall rank you were aiming for, your job is to ensure you own the players that might sting you if they haul. Look at your rivals, identify your weaknesses, and plug them. Don’t be the Death Star.

Then all you need to do is captain the obvious captain and watch your rivals points-hit themselves into obscurity.

The next section is most definitely not for you.

Unusually for us, two of the three differentials we backed last week (Enzo Fernández and William Osula) ended up in the Gameweek 37 team of the week.

It’s properly gone to our heads. Drunk on our small success, here are some more differentials for Gameweek 38 that will definitely score at least 13 points each.

Marcus Tavernier - 4.3% owned.

It’s rather unfortunate for his owners that Bournemouth’s Tavernier has only had one attacking return in the last six gameweeks. He’s had 2.9 expected goal involvements (xGI) in that time.

Bournemouth still have something to play for (a very distant prospect of top 5, and a more feasible chance of dropping to seventh). In a team of impressive players, Tavernier has the most impressive underlying stats over the last six gameweeks. Perhaps he’ll convert them into FPL points in the final game.

Jarrod Bowen - 13.5% owned.

We mentioned him last week, but we just want to reiterate that we haven’t given up on him yet. If West Ham are to be saved from the jaws of the Championship, Bowen will surely have something to do with it.

Valentín Castellanos (Taty) - 0.2% owned.

West Ham’s Taty might sound like a colloquial potato, but he drew applause even from the Newcastle fans with a wonder goal after coming on in Gameweek 37.

He didn’t start that game, but the consensus is that benching him was a mistake. He’s likely to start at home against an on-the-beach Leeds.

Richarlison - 6.7% owned.

We were actually quite shocked to find that Richarlison is nearly 7% owned. If you took 100 random FPL managers, six of them, plus 7/10ths of one other manager (a gory sight, but it’s all in the name of research), would own Richarlison.

But he’s still a differential. Richarlison also benefits from the same narrative juice that Bowen has been sipping on. He’ll play Everton (his former club) at home to save Spurs from relegation. With three attacking returns in his last four games, the form is there, too.

1) Early team news is more common.

Early kick-offs are where we get line-up leaks, and because all the games are starting at the same time in Gameweek 38, they’re all early kick-offs. It gives us 10 chances for early team news, rather than one.

It might be worth holding your transfers until as close to the deadline as possible, if you can.

Btw, we put every team leak in our Broadcast WhatsApp chat as soon as it comes out. Upgrade to LazyFPL Premium for access.

2) More goals are scored.

Somewhere on an instinctive level, you already know that more goals are scored on the final weekend. Humans are born with this knowledge, just as spiders are born knowing how to spin a web.

But this has been confirmed by several studies, including one conducted at Harvard. They reckon games on the final weekend average 0.2 more goals per game than any other gameweek of the season. It’s not much, but it’s honest work.

3) There’s another opportunity to dead-end.

We’ve talked about dead-ending before: It’s the highly technical term that describes picking a player (or players), knowing they won’t be in your team for long.

There are really only two chances to dead-end: Before playing a Wildcard and before the end of the season. If there was ever a time to indulge your hunch, it’s now, because you don’t have to deal with the ramifications of your crap differential for longer than 90 minutes.

Some more seasons were concluded in Gameweek 37, most notably those of Arsenal and Man City.

It means the beach is getting pretty crowded now. Reports are rife that Arteta is going around stealing parasols, then lecturing disgruntled sunbathers about the dangers of getting too comfortable. It’s all incredibly inspiring.

So chocka is the beach that it’s actually quicker to tell you which teams are still playing for something:

West Ham (18th) and Spurs (17th) - Relegation battle.

Newcastle (11th), Sunderland (10th), Brentford (9th) and Chelsea (8th) - Battling for 7th/8th (though Newcastle would need to make up for a seven-goal deficit, so their mention here is purely because it’s mathematically possible).

Brighton (7th) - Could finish as high as sixth or drop out of the European spots altogether.

Bournemouth (6th) - The goal difference (-6) is probably too much to reach fifth, but they will drop to seventh if they lose and Brighton win.

Liverpool (5th) and Aston Villa (4th) - These will swap places if Liverpool win and Aston Villa lose.

Sigh. Who knows? Do we all go for Richarlison this week? Does Man United’s Dermot Mee get a nod?

The obvious pick is Erling Haaland. He’s probably the most defensive choice if you’re winning your mini-leagues, both because he usually plays, and because he has a home fixture against what we can only assume will be a slightly knackered (and possibly headachey) Aston Villa side.

But it’s the last gameweek of the season. There aren’t really any safe captains, particularly given the high chance of rotation and the uniquely unappetising way in which these final fixtures have fallen.

Bruno Fernandes feels like another relatively safe bet. We’d avoid Arsenal players.

The LazyFPL Captaincy Scale.

As is becoming tradition in Gameweek 38, the LazyFPL Captaincy Scale returns for anyone really struggling:

The Professor has one FT to spend this week, and he’s looking to carry it as close to the deadline as possible in the hope of getting some leaks.

Without any leaks, it’s looking like a very straightforward move of:

Viktor Gyökeres -> Jarrod Bowen

Erling Haaland gets the armband. Here’s his team as things stand.

If you want to hang around with the Prof in our Broadcast Group, hoping for leaks before the deadline, upgrade to LazyFPL Premium and reserve your spot now.

⚔ Some of you don’t have anything to lose. Your strategy should be aggressive, bordering on rude.

🛡️ But some of you will be defending a lead. You should resist the temptation to make silly moves and stay true to the strategy that got you into this position.

🧢 Look to Erling Haaland or Bruno Fernandes for captaincy.

🙏Please fill out our end-of-season survey. It only takes a minute, but it’s embarrassingly important to us.

Right then. Another season in the can, managed whilst on the can, by managers who definitely can’t. We don’t know about you, but we’ve had an excellent time. Same again next season?

See you next week for some post-season, pre-World Cup shenanigans.

Stay lazy,

The LazyFPL Team.