Gameweek 34 Sleepers XI: Draft EPL

Our Gameweek 34 Sleepers XI article provides Draft managers with a lineup of Fantasy EPL hidden gems. Our starting eleven of Draft Premier League differential picks will help you find a golden ticket to a big score this weekend! These hints and tips will give you a better chance of picking up an all-important victory, as any one of these under-the-radar picks could make the difference in a head-to-head game!

We'll be focusing on players that will bring us not only attacking returns or clean sheets, but also those players that score Ghost Points in the sophisticated and statistics based Fantrax Scoring System!

Fantasy EPL Gameweek 34 Sleepers XI

For this article, we use the percentage rostered calculation from Fantrax and Sleeper. Our only rule is that each player we highlight is rostered in 60% of leagues or fewer at the time of writing. Therefore, there's a good chance some of these players will be free agents in your Draft league! As always, we'll take form, fixtures, projected points, and a healthy dose of intuition into account to make our selections.

Another gameweek over and unfortunately another milestone missed. Although we didn't hit the 100 FPts mark again, there's still a lot of positives and lessons learnt from the 94.75 FPts score that our Sleepers XI scored in GW34. So let's get stuck in! In net we went with Areola who came up against bottom of the league Southampton. The clean sheet looked absolutely certain until a stoppage-time equalizer, which saw the Frenchman end the match on 6.25 FPts from 3 saves. In our backline we went with 5 defensive picks, with one having a double gameweek. However, it's not as rosy as it sounds, as said defensive doubler, Chris Richards, was sent off right before the half-time whistle after he received two soft yellow cards leaving him and managers stranded with a dead fantasy asset for the remainder of the gameweek with a score of -6.75 FPts. Three of our remaining four defenders didn't play 90 minutes either. Conor Bradley was subbed off around the 70th minute which allowed him to bank the clean sheet and 11 FPts despite the yellow card, Ryan Sessegnon started his 3rd game in a row in an attacking position giving early adopters a massive 24.25 FPts (included an assist and clean sheet), while Castagne only made an 11 minute appearance off the bench, just in time for him to concede both Chelsea goals. Our final defender Sepp van den Berg, played the full match and registered 6 FPts after conceding 2 goals as well. In midfield we had 3 doublers and 1 single match player, James Ward-Prowse. JWP versus Southampton seemed like a great fixture on paper but the English MID only put up 5.25 FPts (including a clean sheet point!) against his former side as the Hammers had a very underwhelming draw. Two of our three doublers were Aston Villa MIDs who had an interesting contribution to our team. John McGinn started the first game and came off the bench for the second one, while Amadou Onana did the reverse. That being said, McGinn scored 11.5 FPts (all ghosts) in 71 minutes while his sub appearance only saw him score 2.25 FPts in 28 minutes. Onana then scored 11 FPts in 17 minutes off the bench (Villa's 4th goal against Newcastle) and 4.5 FPts in 75 minus in his start against Manchester City. Speaking of City, Kovacic was our final midfielder pick. The Croatian had similar fortunes to Onana as he scored a goal off the bench in 11 minutes against Everton, resulting in 12 FPts, while his start against Aston Villa saw him put up 5.5 FPts during the entire match. That leaves us with our lone FWD, Donyell Malen, who seems to have gone back to his backup role in the league as the Dutch FWD made 2 sub appearances, combining for 4 FPts across 10 minutes in total. Now we approach another interesting gameweek of the season where Arsenal, Crystal Palace, Manchester City and Aston Villa all blank - teams that are quite highly owned across leagues in our community. So the Sleepers XI picks in GW34 could potentially make or break our season's hopes. So let's see what we can come up with!

The Sleepers XI table below includes a full team of Starters, as well as 5 Reserves - high-upside players with some question marks around whether or not they'll start in Gameweek 34. So, keep an eye out when lineups are announced and pick them up if you see them starting, especially if you need to fill a spot on your roster. Read below for the rationale behind each of the Starter selections.

Bernd Leno (G, Fulham)

It's fairly natural that we go with a pick that's facing one of the three teams that have already been doomed for relegation. However, given that there's still some uncertainty about whether Sa or Bentley starts against Leicester and that Nick Pope is most likely already owned in your league, that leaves us with Bernd Leno. Over the last 4 games, only Everton (2), Manchester United (1) and Leicester City (2) have scored fewer goals than Southampton (3). Although Southampton have managed to pick up 2 draws in that time, in an attempt to avoid taking Derby's terrible record, the Saints have not really gotten better with their managerial change. So, we're expecting nothing less than a clean sheet from Marco Silva's team this weekend.

Joachim Andersen (D, Fulham)

Naturally if we're going with the Fulham shot-stopper, we're going to double down and go with a defensive pick as well. If the likes of Robinson, Sessegnon and one of Tete/Castagne are already gone in your league, you're probably left with Bassey or Andersen and to be honest, there's not much difference between the centerbacks. Across the season, Anderson has had a better PPS (6.2), gPPS (7.3) and a higher ceiling (11.3) than Bassey. Over the last 3 gameweeks, Andersen has had the most clearances (27) and blocked shots (5) of all the Fulham DEFs, whereas Bassey outshone the Dane in aerials and tackles won. However, it's the upside of possible attacking returns that makes us lean towards Andersen as he's had more key passes and shots on target than his Nigerian compatriot, despite the latter scoring a goal this season.

Emmanuel Agbadou (D, Wolves)

News recently broke out that Mavididi had suffered a muscle injury and has potentially been ruled out for the rest of the season. This is a massive blow to Leicester's attack, especially after he was one of the main contributors to the Foxes finally breaking their goalless run of games. So naturally the Wolves defence gets a boost in terms of their chances to keep a clean sheet. Over the past 3 gameweeks, Agbadou was the 2nd best performing Wolves DEF having scored around 9.5 PPS. In that timeframe, he was 1st for tackles won (4), clearances (19), blocked shots (4) and aerials (6) amongst all the Wolves defenders. He's almost a no-brainer pick for this gameweek.

Sepp van den Berg (D, Brentford)

If the popular picks from Newcastle, Wolves and Fulham are all gone or you're struggling for a emergency back-up asset, then Sepp van den Berg is your guy. Since his reintroduction into the Bees starting XI, he's been averaging around 8 PPS with only 1 clean sheet across 4 games. That's a pretty reliable scoring rate given the options this gameweek and he could possibly turn into a ROS hold given Brentford's fixtures for the run in. An easy DEF-3/4 pick.

Trevoh Chalobah (D, Chelsea) 

According to our fixture difficulty tracker, Chelsea DEFs have the best rated fixture for all DEFs in GW34. After going on such an impressive run after Moyes' appointment of 9 games undefeated, the Toffees have now lost 2 of their last 4 games and have just lost Tarkowski for the remainder of their campaign. There's not much else to play for given they've secured their Premier League status whilst Chelsea are still fighting for a spot in the Champions League for next season. Over the last 4 gameweeks, Chalobah has started every single game for the Blues, playing 90 minutes in every game which arguably makes him the safest pick of the lot. He's been averaging just under 8.5 PPS and even has the highest ceiling (17.4) of all the Chelsea DEFs.

James Garner (M, Everton) 

Garner seems to have found his spot back in the Everton starting XI again and it's great timing as well, particularly when lots of popular midfielders are not playing this gameweek (Rice, Tielemans, Foden etc.). Garner has started and gone 90 in Everton's last 2 games. What's even better is that he averaged 9 PPS across those games and they've been all ghost points. He's played more of a defensive role lately, dominating tackles won (7) and clearances (4) and even had a share of the set pieces, taking free kicks and corners alongside Harrison. He'll have his work cut out against Champions League-chasing Chelsea and could be a tidy MID-4/5 for your team this weekend.

Marshall Munetsi (M, Wolves)

I really thought Munetsi would be the first one to return to the bench for Wolves upon Cunha's return but Munetsi seems to have been fortunate due to the injury to Bellegarde. Although Bellegarde has been cleared by Vitor to "contribute" to this weekend's fixture against Leicester City, we're backing Munetsi to get another start. Although Munetsi has only averaged just under 6.5 PPS over Wolves' last 4 games, it's the fact that they're playing Leicester that you surely have to gamble for the possible upside. Munetsi has only really dominated the aerials (11) for all Wolves outfielders in their last 4 games, with 6 coming against Manchester United in GW33, but given his underperformance in terms of goal scoring with only 1 for the season (3.0 xG), now's the time to gamble on him to finally come good.

Nicolas Dominguez (M, Nottingham Forest)

Believe it or not, Dominguez has actually been the 2nd highest Nottingham Forest outfielder over their last 4 games. Crazy right?! This steady-eddy didn't even start every single game! He's not even dominated a single default scoring category either, yet the Argentine MID has been averaging just over 9 PPS during that period. He seems like a great MID-4/5 for GW34 but there's a slight risk that he doesn't start, and with his game being the final game of the gameweek, you'll need to make sure you have some kind of backup option, be it another Forest player or Brentford one.

Beto (F, Everton)

It's somewhat strange that Beto seemed to have lost his place in the Everton starting XI to the likes of Broja. Maybe David Moyes feels like players on the fringe, like the aforementioned Broja, deserve some playing time given the Toffees have avoided relegation. However, due to the parent-club-loan-rules, Broja is ineligible to start against Chelsea so we're expecting Beto to start this weekend. Beto can be a really frustrating asset to own, given the number of chances he misses when through on goal but if you need a starter just for this gameweek, you could do a lot worse, despite his 4 PPS over his last 4 games.

Jadon Sancho (F, Chelsea) 

Sancho has had such a mixed season for Chelsea, especially when it comes to his starts and minutes. In his last 3 starts for Chelsea, he's averaged just under 3 PPS, but then off the bench in his last 2 games, he managed to score 21 FPts, including his first league goal for the club. We aren't expecting much more from the England FWD but given the impact that Doku had against Everton from the LW in GW33, we're hoping Sancho can replicate a similar threat with Tarkowski being ruled out for the rest of the season. Surely there's no way that Michael Keane keeps that Chelsea attack out, especially with the Blues needing the 3 points in their hunt for a Champions League spot. There is a chance he does not star and Madueke and Neto (or even George) go again on the wings, though.

Keane Lewis-Potter (F, Brentford)

Our final FWD pick comes from the last game of the gameweek and it's probably one of the safest ones out there. KLP has arguably been one of the biggest breakout performers this season, despite playing as a reverse out-of-position asset. I would not blame you for not wanting to punt on KLP given he's had two absolute stinker scores against Arsenal and Newcastle, scoring 2 FPts in each away fixture, but it's the 13 FPts and 14 FPts scores that are sandwiched around them that really catch the eye. The Nottingham Forest defence has easily been one of the toughest to break down but KLP's 8.0 gPP90 surely warrants a start, especially if you're struggling for starters in your roster.

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