Best picks from Watford for Double Gameweek 36
Watford play twice in Double Gameweek 36. So let’s assess their best FPL options ahead of matches against Crystal Palace and Everton.
With Norwich officially relegated on Saturday and Watford only point ahead of them, the Hornets’ drop is inevitable. This isn’t ideal for FPL managers eyeing up their strong Double Gameweek 36 outings against Crystal Palace (a) and Everton (H).
It’s now more likely seen as great fixtures for those two, seen as Watford has lost their last 11 home games. Alternatively, random wins have arrived during trips to Aston Villa and Southampton, suggesting there is some ability within their ranks.
According to Fantasy Football Scout’s Fixture Ticker, it’s a strong couple of Gameweeks for Watford. However, it’d be best to not play any assets for the final day trip to Chelsea.
To give hope to managers losing faith in potential Watford purchases, they scored at Man City, beat Everton 5-2 in the reverse fixture and teams like Crystal Palace and Brighton have shown that teams with nothing to play for will still try.
Underlying Stats
Their Gameweek 29 win at Southampton gave Watford a fighting chance and genuine hope of survival. Yet they’ve lost the five games since, with the fewest shots on target in this time.
And the still popular forward Emmanuel Dennis hasn’t had the most goal attempts. The seven of both himself and Imran Louza are joint-second behind the 13 of midfielder Juraj Kucka.
Ownership for Double Gameweek
Dennis has slowly been gaining ownership and this should escalate heading into Double Gameweek 36. Not because there’s faith that he’ll score but purely due to him playing twice and forward options are generally so poor. He’s still in over 2.5 million squads, despite scoring just twice since Gameweek 20.
At Dennis’ peak, 3.7 million managers owned him in response to bagging eight goals and six assists from 17 matches, making a mockery of his £5.0m starting price.
Amongst the top 10k, there is virtually zero ownership in defence and midfield. Not a surprise, considering it took until Gameweek 23 for their first clean sheet and only Norwich have fewer midfield goals. Four of these eight came from Ismaila Sarr in the first six games, until injury took him away.
He’s back in their front three, with Dennis secure alongside him in the absence of Cucho Hernandez. The Colombian was beginning to make a name for himself in FPL with several goals until a hamstring injury came to likely end his season.
Hope has long been lost in fellow forward Josh King. He does have a good record against Everton – including a hat-trick in Gameweek 9 – but went 13 starts without a goal until finally losing his place in Roy Hodgson’s plans.
All season, Ben Foster has had high ownership, as he’s the game’s only £4.0m starting price goalkeeper that takes part. Although rarely getting the nod from owners, he could have high effective ownership (EO) in Double Gameweek 36 due to playing twice and the high deployment of Bench Boost chips.
Community Chatter
FPL Editor has realised the problem awaiting Bench Boost 36 managers – having to play three forwards!
Meanwhile, FPL Transferz is about to become a very reluctant Emmanuel Dennis buyer.