Welcome back to the Overthinking Football Gameweek Preview. It’s Gameweek 36 and we have just three weeks left of this Fantrax season. For many, the hope of the title will have faded, for others some last embers flicker and for the lucky ones, titles await.
We’ve been hard at work trawling through the upcoming fixtures, consuming player news and looking at our Overthinking Football Projections Model to make sense of what we’re likely to see this weekend.
As ever, in looking at what’s coming up I have questions. This week I’m asking:
Already down, can Sheffield United still impact the relegation race?
How much is left in the legs of the Thursday night teams?
Palace at the Double?
Who is joining us in the Premier League next season?
With the pressure off, could Sheffield United hold off Nottingham Forest?
Lets get the obligatory mention out of the way: Sheffield United have not kept a Clean Sheet in 16 Games. There are 3 Premier League games remaining. They have conceded 97 Goals. Swindon’s 42 game record is 100 Goals conceded. You could very easily conclude that Forest are a lock to get vital points this weekend. And the likelihood is that you’re right. We talked in the Roundup about how highly we’d rank the Forest attackers this weekend. But is there any chance that Sheffield United, officially confirmed relegated, could pose any kind of threat to Forest?
We’re a little skeptical that ‘the pressure is off’ actually plays a significant factor. But Sheffield United are notably joint-top in the “Errors Leading to Goals” stat category (with 8 conceded). It’s not why they’re down. But it certainly doesn’t help. In reality, it’s more likely to do with the quality gap between their squad and the others in the Premier League, rather than a manifestation of mental pressure but what might play a factor is that with nothing specifically to play for points wise, drawing is irrelevant.
Would we recommend picking up Oli McBurnie or Ben Brereton Diaz? Not really. We wanted to make the case for it. But unless you’re in an incredibly deep league, Sheffield United’s record of just under a Goal per game isn’t inspiring. Forest have more quality, have more to play for and, despite not scoring in their last two, have the firepower to take the vital three-points. Don’t get too cute here, the safer streams will be on the Forest side of this matchup. (Don’t tell our Burnley friends.)
Sheffield United vs Nottingham Forest - 3.00pm UK, 10.00am US kickoff, Saturday
How bad are the midweek hangovers?
There’s a sporting cliche that by this end of a season, everyone is injured. It’s just about whether you can still play. For the three teams that played on Thursday night, it’s reasonable to ask what we can expect this coming weekend. All three (Aston Villa, Chelsea and Tottenham) are playing on Sunday but all three are playing opponents who have had at least a week to recover from their previous games. All three are still chasing various levels of European Competition next season. And two of the three will be coming into the weekend feeling a pretty significant sense of disappointment. Villa find themselves two Goals behind Olympiakos heading into the second leg of their Europa Conference League Semi-Final. A late Douglas Luiz penalty miss in particular will be tough for them to shake off. But shaking it off is vital given the result of the other game. Tottenham somewhat rolled over at Stamford Bridge and allowed Chelsea to dictate the first-half of their London Derby. In doing so, they have opened breathing room for Villa in the Top Four race. Chelsea, whilst taking a lot of positives from their win against Tottenham found themselves down to their last ten senior players by the time the whistle blew. They finished with Cesare Casadei, (17 year old) Josh Acheampong and Jimi Tauriainen on the field. And, resultingly, we’ve seen the same set of senior players play almost every minute in the last few weeks. Fatigue is no doubt starting to accumulate. So should we be betting on the fortunes of Brighton, Liverpool and West Ham?
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