3 FanDuel Premier League Trends to Exploit for Matchweek 16
Spotting trends is one way to stay ahead of the crowd in Premier League DFS. Here, we're going to try to hone in on recent occurrences across the EPL DFS landscape that appear to be a sign of things to come.
This article is geared toward FanDuel's main slate, which begins at 10:00 a.m. EST Saturday and features six matches. Here's the match list.
| Matchweek 16 |
|---|
| Saturday, December 9th |
| Brighton at Huddersfield |
| Bournemouth at Crystal Palace |
| West Brom at Swansea City |
| Stoke City at Tottenham |
| Watford at Burnley |
| Leicester City at Newcastle United |
Let's get to it.
Belgian Pedigree
One of the most difficult decisions you will have to make for Matchweek 16 is deciding who to partner Harry Kane with in FanDuel lineups because let's face it, it will take a brave player to fade the Spurs forward when Stoke City come to Wembley Saturday.
Since coming back into the starting lineup following a knee injury, Christian Benteke ($8,500) is starting to look sharper. While he hasn't scored this season, his shot accuracy has gone up from 33% under Frank DeBoer to 75% under Roy Hodgson. Not only that, the Belgian international is getting more gilt-edged chances, too.
Palace have scored twice in their last two home games and Bournemouth, on average, have allowed 14 shots per game.
The Pardew Effect
Alan Pardew vowed to bring attacking soccer to the Hawthorns in his first press conference as West Brom manager last week, and he hasn't disappointed. His first game in charge last weekend concluded in a 0-0 home draw against Crystal Palace, his old club, but his new squad took 20 shots. Only Chelsea (23), Manchester City (24), and Arsenal (33) took more shots.
How big of a change was this? Prior to Pardew taking over, only Swansea and Huddersfield had taken fewer shots than West Brom.
If we combine this change in approach with a trip to a struggling Swansea side, there should be more opportunities available for West Brom forwards. It really is hard to choose between Jay Rodriguez ($7,500), Hal Robson-Kanu ($7,500), and Saloman Rondon ($8,000). However, purely based on the latter's hat trick against the Swans last season, Rondon's ceiling is much higher than both Rodriguez and Robson-Kanu, with the Venezuelan having a similar floor to his strike partners.
Burnley To Clip Hornets Wings
Burnley arguably lost their most creative player for a considerable part of the season last weekend when Robbie Brady succumbed to a serious knee injury in their 1-0 loss to Leicester. With the Irishman out of Burnley's lineup for the foreseeable future, more pressure has been placed on the shoulders of the club's midfielders to create chances for Sean Dyche's side.
Johann Berg Gudmundsson ($6,000) is second only to Brady for key passes (11) and shots taken (18), not to mention having more assists than any other Burnley player (4). The only thing missing from his game are goals. Perhaps that is about to change, though -- his shot accuracy has gone up to 83% in his last four games, compared to 0% (!) in his previous 10 games.
Although Watford have scored 15 goals away from home this season, they've also conceded 10 goals on the road and should be breached at least once on Saturday. The Icelander's barren goal drought could be about to come to an end and at $6,000, he's well worth the gamble.
