Our Gameweek 9 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 9 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.
Sanjy's boys clocked in for GW8 with a more than decent 82.25 score in a performance most akin to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Bounanotte (22), Young (17.5), Milenkovic (13.75), and Archer (13) were the studs of last week's Sleepers XI, while Delap, Dibling and the negative scoring duo of Carvalho and Matheus Fernandes stunk up the place. Let's see how this week's lot performs.
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 8. 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 on below for the rationale behind each of the Starter selections.
Matz Sels (G, Nottingham Forest)
Sels hit it big on Monday with a 21.25 pointer against Palace to finish his second game in a row with 7 saves. He is less likely to get those save points on Friday as Leicester are last for shots this season, so this is mostly a CS play. Forest have actually conceded the second fewest goals this season behind Liverpool and have the third most clean sheets.
Aaron Wan-Bissaka (D, West Ham)
Genie has been banging on about AWB being one of the very few viable West Ham players and he has slowly but surely been able to prove it in his last few games. He had a monster 12 points with 4 (!!!) goals conceded. He has always been a player who is more reliable for points when his back is against the wall vs bigger opponents. I expect his former employers to be less ruthless than Spurs last weekend, but AWB should be busy enough to be worth starting.
Alex Moreno (D, Nottingham Forest)
As mentioned before, Forest keep it tight at the back, so most of their defenders should be a good bet against Leicester on Friday night. Besides the 2-pointer in a loss to Fulham, Moreno has been a decent point-getter when he's made it through to the final minutes of the game, with his double-digit returns coming on the backs of clean sheets. He has a solid ghost point floor to ensure you're not left with a goose egg even if Leicester find a goal.
Jan-Paul van Hecke (D, Brighton)
Clean sheet plays seem to be the theme of this week's XI as JPVH returns from injury to the Brighton team and to our XI too. Wolves have looked lost this season, adrift at the bottom of the table with only 1 point from 8 games. Brighton have enough quality to keep Wolves winless who are in the bottom 3 for shots and even though they have already scored 10 goals, their xG is significantly lower, meaning a clean sheet is definitely on the cards.
John Stones (D, Man City)
I vowed not to be fooled by DraftLad's City defender projections ever again. So here we are, fooled once more. I streamed Stones to good effect last weekend and after going 2 for 2 scoring in midweek as well I have to ride the wave. Can he make it 3 for 3? Highly unlikely. Are City good for the CS? With a home game against Southampton and 50% CS odds, you'd have thought so, but they have not had one since the opening day against Chelsea, so I wouldn't bank on it. That said, both eventualities offer substantial return possibilities, so Stones is worth a gamble.
Carlos Soler (M, West Ham)
West Ham are in dire straits after another lacklustre performance against Spurs last weekend. Surely a change/shakeup is needed and former Valencia and PSG man Soler could be handed his first league start of the season after an end-of-the-window transfer resulted in a slow integration into the team. He has come on as a sub in all of the last 5 games and has looked decent in all of them, especially for fantasy in his halftime introduction vs Brentford where he got 6.25 points in 45'. I expect him to have a decent floor but he is unlikely to get involved with the attack much. We are projecting him to start this weekend and an 8.2 projected score makes him worth a gamble.
Christian Eriksen (M, Man Utd)
The Dane was halfway out the door in the summer only for him to stay and fight for his place. Injuries, late additions and rotation have seen him start the last 3 games including the midweek Europa League game against Fenerbahce, where he scored his side's only goal. Casemiro is a better bet for ghost points (and the start), but we usually aim to give readers more options and Sanjy already shouted out the Brazilian in his Waiver article. West Ham are an opponent there for the taking, especially as normally I would be weary when seeing an ageing midfield partnership like Casemiro and Eriksen, but the Hammers' press has been all over the place, so this may be one of the few games United can get away with it.
Yasin Ayari (M, Brighton)
Ayari is another gem in the long line of unknown Brighton midfielders, who look great when given a chance. The Swedish midfielder started in a shaken-up XI against Newcastle and played well at LCM to help his team take home all 3 points from the North. He also put up a very decent 7.25 points in the process. Mitoma is likely to come back in, but Minteh, JP and Adingra might all still be out injured as well as Milner and possibly Welbeck, so the strange lineups are here to stay and if they include Ayari, he is worth a stream. DraftLad has him projected for 9.9, which I would take gladly from a player that most of you should be able to pick up when lineups are announced.
Abdul Fatawu (F, Leicester)
The Fantrax community has been clamouring to see Fatawu back in the starting XI since his glittering performances in the early weeks of the season. Incidentally, he has not started since GW3. The reason for the cautious optimism is twofold, 1. He scored a goal off the bench to help his team turn around a two goal deficit last weekend, which hopefully has earned him a start. 2. Even when he didn't manage to get a return in his starts, he scored reasonably well to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Crysencio Summerville (F, West Ham)
Our final West Ham player was a pre-draft favourite of mine and has been a sorry sight so far as he has struggled, along with his team-mates, to reproduce anything resembling the form that saw him crowned the best player of the Championship last season. We have long been hoping for Lopetegui's demise, but it looks like he lives to fight a few more days, so it is Kudus's three-and-potentially-more match suspension that affords him a prolonged opportunity in the starting XI, not his coach's sacking. I am still a huge believer in his ability and will be flying the flag for his redemption arc as this run of games presents itself to him.
Georginio Rutter (F, Brighton)
Our final player rounds out the former Leeds forward duo as Rutter's non-Community-League ownership is still below the magic 60% mark. The German has had a much better time of it than his former team-mate, establishing himself in the starting XI for high-flying Brighton. He has managed 3 attacking returns on the trot, 2G 1A, and is looking to put bottom-of-the-table Wolves to the sword once again. He may be deployed further up the field if Welbeck misses out, so it will be interesting to see how his production and scoring ability is affected in a likely new role.
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