Our Gameweek 20 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 20 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.
Mayday-Mayday! We’re going down again! Our Gameweek 19 Sleepers XI team did not go according to plan at all as they scored a mediocre 72.75 FPts. Not the sort of tally we’re aiming for at all! So it's time to investigate what went wrong.
In net, we obviously pursued the tactic of punting against Southampton, but it didn’t work out as well as it had over the past couple of gameweeks as Henderson only put up 6.5 FPts after conceding an unexpected goal. In our defensive line, we went with 5 players. Obviously we doubled down - well, I guess in this case tripled down - by going with 2 Palace defenders in Chalobah and Lacroix. This didn’t go too badly considering Chalobah scored a goal and ended on 21.5 FPts, whereas Lacroix scored just 5.75 FPts. Another one of our top performers was Castagne, who scored a whopping 13.75 FPts despite conceding twice to Bournemouth. Our final two defenders also played 90 minutes each with both losing their matches by 2 goals to nil, yet both had polar opposite scores. Mykolenko ended on 13 FPts while Adarabioyo finished with 0.25 FPts. In midfield we only went with two picks. Joao Gomes, who played the full match, only scored 2.75 FPts whilst our other pick, Tyler Adams, didn’t even get on the pitch. This meant that we went with 3 forwards. Only one of our forwards, Joao Felix, actually started their game and scored 7 FPts in 54 minutes, while Guedes and Muniz were 2nd half substitutes in their respective fixtures, with the former scoring 2 FPts in 45 mins and the latter scoring 0.25 in 21 minutes.
It's clear that streaming midfielders and forwards is becoming tougher and tougher as the season progresses. But what would make things even easier is picking players that actually get reliable minutes on the pitch. So let’s give this yet another go as we take on GW20 and hope to start off the new year with a bang!
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 20. 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.
Alphonse Areola (G, West Ham)
Seeing as Southampton finally scored a goal after multiple attempts, they might be finally turning the slightest of corners in their season under Juric. Not only that, Flekken is highly rostered in almost every single league so we will have to look elsewhere for a goalkeeper. So let's go with an option that could potentially return a lot of saves, and where better to look than versus Manchester City. The Cityzens have finally won a game again but Haaland and his teammates still don't seem the clinical outfit they used to be. So we expect Areola to be kept busy and still come out with a respectable score. One thing is for sure, Areola was easily West Ham's best player in the 0-5 home loss versus Liverpool and it's mightily impressive that the Frenchman came out of that game with a 9.75 FPts score.
Dean Huijsen (D, Bournemouth)
In the last 4 games, only three teams have scored 1 goal each: Southampton, Leicester City and Bournemouth's opponent in GW20, Everton. Things have gotten so bad for the Toffees that they've even started to bench the likes of DCL for Broja. So all the signs point towards a possible clean sheet for the high flying Cherries, who currently sit 7th in the Premier League. Huijsen's 10.7 gPPS is the best of all Bournemouth defenders and with the added threat of goals from set pieces, his ceiling of 23.7 is not to be sniffed at. He should be an easy DEF-2 pick in most rosters.
Illia Zabarnyi (D, Bournemouth)
In the event that you aren't able to snag Huijsen in your league, Zabarnyi is a great alternative as a DEF-3/4 for your roster. He might not have the same level of ghost point output as the likes of Huijsen or maybe new boy James Hill (albeit a small sample size) but he can potentially outperform Kerkez and match up well against any opponent that has Kepa. We think the clean sheet is worth a gamble versus a misfiring Everton team.
James Bree (D, Southampton)
According to our fixture difficulty tracker, Southampton DEFs have the 3rd best rated fixture in GW20. This seems a bit odd given they're the worst team in the Premier League at the moment but the Bees have started to stutter recently. Brentford are winless in their last 4 games, notoriously bad away from home, and Southampton have a new manager at the helm that has changed their style of play. Juric tends to have his wingbacks feed his FWDs with a barrage of crosses and Bree seems to be the asset that might have that job. Even though Sugawara started the first game during the Juric era, he doesn't seem to be the favorite for that position, after being substituted in the 60th minute for Bree. It should be noted that Sugawara attempted 5 crosses during that time, the most of any player in that match, while Bree attempted 2 as a sub. Bree then got the nod for Juric's 2nd game in charge and ended up attempting 5 crosses himself, finishing with 2 key passes and ultimately 7 FPts. If Bree starts again versus Brentford, he could turn out to be a great punt as a DEF-3/4 with some potential upside.
Neco Williams (D, Nottingham Forest)
It's time that everyone accepts that Nottingham Forest are a really good team this season, and that's not just based on the fact that they currently sit 3rd in the Premier League. The Tricky Trees are currently tied for the most clean sheets (8) this season with Liverpool and they don't seem to be showing signs of slowing down, even with Murillo missing out in their last game. We'd assume Murillo comes back into the starting XI very soon, which means that the only possible entry point into this stalwart defence is Neco Williams. Williams' last 3 games of 19.25, 14 and 17.25 points are obviously inflated with the clean sheets. But the Welsh DEF has shown his ability to even get attacking returns with one assist in his last 3 games, with a shot attempted in each match. He's definitely an asset to roster this gameweek and potentially for the rest of the season.
Sepp van den Berg (D, Brentford)
Brentford are really running thin for options in their defence and it's really starting to show given their current form in the Premier League. In GW19, things were looking promising after they took an early lead versus Arsenal, however, they eventually lost the game after conceding 3 goals. That being said, the one bright spark from this result was Sepp van den Berg's 5.5 FPts score, which meant that he actually scored 9.5 ghost points in 74 minutes. Although Collins tends to be the prime defender pick from Brentford, Sepp's 9.5 gPP90 is proof that he can still considered as a reliable asset when required. Brentford might be struggling at the moment but playing Southampton in GW20 is a great opportunity for them to bounce back.
Christian Norgaard (M, Brentford)
In our past attempts of picking a successful Sleepers XI, one of the biggest errors was not picking a starting midfielder. If you're like me this gameweek and you're missing the likes of Bowen and McNeil, your midfield is probably on its last legs and there's a good chance that the waiver pool is pretty dry. So it might not be the worst idea to rely on a steady-eddy like Norgaard this week, as he's the captain of the team and should easily start during the weekend. With 6.9 PPS, you could do worse.
Kevin Schade (M, Brentford)
Time and time again, we've noticed the trend that Thomas Frank tends to go with a front-2 system against the so called "big teams" in the league. So given the fact that the Bees come up against Southampton in GW20, we're expecting a slight tweak with the likes of Schade being given another start. The Bees have failed to win a game in their last 4 attempts and will be keen to turn things around, especially before they face the likes of Man City and Liverpool in back-to-back gameweeks. The Saints have conceded 39 goals for the season so far, which is only better than Leicester and Wolves. So there's a good chance Brentford could nick a goal or 2, and if that's the case, we're banking on Schade to be part of the fun. Last time the German faced Southampton, he got his first attacking return of the season, scoring 13 FPts. Let's hope for a repeat performance.
Leon Bailey (M, Aston Villa)
Bailey is one of the biggest disappointments of the draft. The Jamaican seems to have completely lost his mojo after Diaby left the club in the summer and the likes of Morgan Rogers stepped up and claimed a starting role in the team. Things might have changed though! In GW19, Bailey put up his highest score of the season, 16.75 FPts. It was also the first time he scored double digits points. What's crazy about this score is that it was all ghost points. Bailey attempted the most shots (7) in GW19 and completed the most successful dribbles (9). Now we're not expecting the same score in GW20 but against a struggling promoted team like Leicester City, anything is possible.
Keane Lewis-Potter (F, Brentford)
The FWD pool is quite grim these days but when you've got an option that is coming up against the worst team in the league, a gamble should always be taken. KLP might not be the most attractive asset from a FPts perspective, especially considering he's out-of-position in the worst way possible. But against Southampton, there's a decent chance he could perform well. Worst case, you'll at least get a FWD-3 that will play 90 minutes.
Stephy Mavididi (F, Leicester City)
Leicester City seems to have lost their new manager bounce as they've lost the last 4 games in a row since their win versus West Ham and draw against Brighton. Ruud needs to make some tweaks and quickly, otherwise the Foxes could be relegated before they know it. You could say they were a bit unlucky to not have gotten a better result in GW19 versus Man City, as Vardy missed an absolute sitter with Man City only up 1-0 at the time. However, let's focus on the positives, with one being Mavididi. He was the player that created the big chance for Vardy's miss and his last 3 games have shown that maybe the English FWD is coming back into form. He's now scored consecutive double digit scores of 13.75 and 11.25 FPts and has regained his penchant for nicking attacking returns, delivering an assist for Ayew's goal against Liverpool. If Leicester are to have any chance of surviving the drop, Mavididi will need to channel his Championship form that got them promoted in the first place. A brave manager that is willing to roster him as their FWD-3 could benefit.
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