SOCCER

3 FanDuel Premier League Under-the-Radar Plays for Matchweek 37

With Arsenal fighting for a top-four spot and Swansea City fighting for their Premier League lives, players on other teams, such as Southampton's Manolo Gabbiadini, may fly under-the-radar.

If you have played daily fantasy sports for a while, you know the importance of being contrarian in large-field tournaments. Recognizing which players are going to be owned by the masses and finding others who you think have a similar point projection but will come at much lower ownership can really separate yourself from your opponents.

The same goes for DFS Premier League. Even though the large-field tournaments aren't quite as large as they are for other sports, there is still value in identifying quality under-the-radar plays.

This article will discuss FanDuel's main Saturday slate, which starts at 10:00 a.m. EST and features four matches.

Matchweek 36
Saturday, May 13th
Burnley at Bournemouth
Southampton at Middlesbrough
Swansea City at Sunderland
Arsenal at Stoke City


Matchweek 37 sees the Premier League game of revolving chairs continue as one more game is removed from the main Saturday slate, leaving us with four. Of the teams favored to win, only one is at home, while the other three are on the road.

Bournemouth, favored by 0.5 goals over Burnley, are the lone home favorite on the slate. Southampton and Swansea City are both favored by half a goal on the road against Middlesbrough and Sunderland, respectively. Arsenal, the largest favorite on the slate, are favored by a goal on the road against Stoke.

All of the matches have an over/under of 2.5 goals, with the exception of Arsenal at Stoke, which has an over/under of 3 goals.

This is an interesting slate. An ugly slate, but an interesting one. Having three of the four favored teams on the road and the lone elite team on the slate playing on the road creates a slate full of possibilities.

As the largest favorite, and only elite side in action, expect Arsenal’s players to be highly owned. However, playing on the road against Stoke is a notoriously difficult feat. That said, with so much on the line at least we know that Arsenal should be up to the task.

Outside of Arsenal, I expect ownership to be highest on Swansea City, who are coming off a huge win in primetime over Everton and are still fighting for their Premier League lives. Gylfi Sigurdsson should be the highest owned player on the slate, and he will be how I start every single one of my lineups. Naturally, this will lead to increased ownership on his striking partner Fernando Llorente as well. As the lone home striker on a favored team, Josh King should also see high ownership.

With Alexis Sanchez, Josh King, and Gylfi Sigurdsson all likely to be popular, it appears roster construction this week will involve numerous high-priced attacking options at forward and midfield and finding value at one midfield spot and defender. Finding value shouldn’t be a problem, as there are numerous low-salary options with so many bottom-half-of-the-table teams in action.

Of those three players I am most inclined to fade Sanchez (this is a scary sentence to write). With some middle-tier strikers likely to go overlooked, we can differentiate our lineups by paying down at forward and finding Arsenal options to pivot to from Sanchez.

Here are three options to consider for this weekend.

Mesut Ozil, Arsenal

FanDuel Salary: $8,800

While Ozil himself is not going to fly under-the-radar, using only Ozil, instead of pairing him with Sanchez, might. A direct one-for-one swap should allow us to differentiate our roster from all of those that include Sanchez and free up additional salary to use at other positions.

Recently, Ozil has outperformed Sanchez in terms of FanDuel points. Since Arsenal made the switch from a 4-2-3-1 to 3-4-2-1 formation, Ozil has had point totals of 30.5, 17.25, 13, 12.25, and 29.5. In those same five matches, Sanchez produced FanDuel point totals of 40.25, 8.5, 20.5, 6.25, and 23.5. Ozil has been the more consistent option and has outscored Sanchez in three of the last five matches. He also has a firm hold on corner kick responsibilities, with 34 taken since matchweek 26, which is 25 more than the next closest player.

The match itself doesn’t appear fantastic on paper, as Arsenal have struggled to score on the road recently, with just six goals in their last six away fixtures. Stoke have been strong defensively at home, allowing only five goals over their last six home matches. That said, Arsenal are still the largest favorites on the slate and have the highest implied goal total at 1.94. Due to this, we definitely still want a piece of this opportunity, but I believe taking the cheaper, lower owned option in Ozil is better for large field tournaments.

Manolo Gabbiadini, Southampton

FanDuel Salary: $7,100

Gabbiadini is my preferred striker to pair with Josh King for large field tournaments this weekend. He is only the 14th-most expensive striker on the slate, despite having the 6th-best odds to score of any player this weekend. He should go slightly overlooked due to his current six-match goal drought and the public opting for Fernando Llorente over him. Llorente has two goals in his last three matches, including one in the recent primetime match against Everton, and should hold higher ownership than Gabbiadini, despite having very similar odds to score. For this weekend, I want to get my Swansea ownership exclusively through Sigurdsson.

Gabbiadini’s recent scoring drought can be largely attributed to the groin injury he suffered against Tottenham in March. Prior to that, he had scored four goals in his previous three Premier League matches and two more in the League Cup Final. Since then, he had failed to play a full 90 minutes, until he played the entire match against Arsenal on Wednesday, only three days after he played 69 minutes against Liverpool. With that selection, it is fair to assume he is back to full health, and the four shots he produced against Arsenal are promising.

The match against Middlesbrough is decent, as they have just one win in their last six home fixtures and have allowed seven goals during that span. Surprisingly, Southampton have the most away goals in the Premier League over each team’s last six away matches with 12. That includes four against Sunderland and three against Watford but also two against Chelsea and one against Tottenham.

Middlesbrough are certainly more like the former than the latter, and I fully expect Southampton and Gabbiadini to have plenty of chances in the final third of the pitch this weekend.

Charlie Daniels, Bournemouth

FanDuel Salary: $5,700

In general, I like Bournemouth this weekend. As the only home favorite, usually they would attract high ownership, but with Arsenal and a motivated Swansea likely to attract attention, their great situation against Burnley might go slightly overlooked. That’s why I prefer Josh King to Alexis Sanchez, and I believe that centering a roster on Bournemouth’s players is a great starting point. Charlie Daniels is a great inclusion in any roster this weekend, as he should be able to produce FanDuel points on both ends of the pitch.

Daniels' consistency this season has been impressive. He has only failed to score double-digit FanDuel points five times in his last 25 Premier League matches, and in three of those 25 matches, he produced more than 40 points. One of those 40-plus-point performances was in the reverse fixture at Burnley back in December. When Bournemouth control a match, Daniels' upside presents itself.

Three of his four goals came against Hull City (6-1 win), Burnley (2-3 loss), and Middlesbrough (4-0 win). Two of those matches were completely dominating performances by Bournemouth, and both of them were at home. Of Daniels' four goals and three assists this season, three of the goals and two of the assists have come at home.

This weekend, the matchup against Burnley seems to fit all of the criteria for Daniels to produce a performance capable of winning a large field tournament. Bournemouth have a healthy implied goal total of 1.69 and have been on fire at home lately, scoring 12 goals in their last six home matches.

As always, make sure to check lineups as they come out on Saturday morning and adjust accordingly.