We’re entering FPL gameweek 33, also known as the pointy end of the Premier League season. Every game has taken on extra importance, regardless of whether the competing sides are at the top or bottom of the table.
Here’s what you need to be across, as we build up to FPL Gameweek 33.
When does FPL Gameweek 33 start?
Saturday 13 April, 10:30 pm AEDT
Newcastle hosts Tottenham to kick gameweek 33 off. Spurs, fresh from a resounding victory over Nottingham Forest, remain firmly in the hunt for Champions League football next season. When considering the unsettled squad they’ve had to manage this season, as well as the fact it’s Ange Postecoglou’s first season as a manager in a top-five league, this achievement is incredible.
While Spurs are flying on an upward trajectory, Newcastle’s 2023-24 has been defined by inconsistency and plateauing results, accentuated by their once rock solid defence slipping into one that leaks goals for fun.
In essence, FPL gameweek 33 kicks off with a clash between one side with a free-flowing, free-scoring attack and a defence with more holes than Swiss cheese. Exciting.
Check us out on socials, @onlysportsanz: Instagram | Twitter | Tik Tok
FPL Gameweek 33 notes
Is Kevin De Bruyne back?
For months, Manchester City has remained in the Premier League title hunt without contributions from one of their key men: Kevin De Bruyne (£10.3 I 12.9%). The Belgian, once City’s most important player, had been involved in six goals in nine games since returning from injury.
Against Crystal Palace, he was involved in three, including a fantastic curved effort to draw the scores level in the 12th minute. His ability to pick the right pass and strike the ball with both feet is unrivalled in the Premier League.
The greatest beneficiary from his return is Erling Haaland (£14.1 I 71.8%) who scored his first Premier League goal in a month. De Bruyne and the Norwegian seemingly possess a supernatural connection where the Belgian knows exactly where Haaland wants the ball and when to get it to him.
With the rest of City firing, an in-form De Bruyne is frightening for the rest of the Premier League and the perfect ingredient for Pep Guardiola to cook up yet another title.
That man Ollie Watkins strikes again
Where would Aston Villa be without Ollie Watkins (£8.8 I 36.5%)? Definitely not in the fight for Champions League football. In a 3-3 shootout with Brentford, Watkins struck twice, taking his season goals tally to a Premier League career-high 18. With 15 assists too, he’s been involved in exactly half of Aston Villa’s 66 goals this season. Has there been a more influential player in this campaign?
Unai Emery will be bitterly disappointed with how his side blew a lead, particularly how open their defence was. Brentford found plenty of space to stream into and deliver a cross or cut back, much to the benefit of Bryan Mbeumo, who grabbed his eighth goal of the season from a cross.
Morris gifts Luton first win in 10
For the best part of two months, Rob Edwards’s side has been without a Premier League win, sliding closer and closer to certain relegation. Against Bournemouth, an early Marcus Tavernier strike looked certain to succumb them to an 11th straight game without a win.
However, Luton had other ideas, with Carlton Morris’s (£5.0 I 7.4%) ninth goal of the season securing the three points at the death.
Arsenal put Brighton to the sword
Not only is Mikel Artetas’s Arsenal side the Premier League’s best defensive unit, but they possess enough game-breaking attacking talent to punish opponents at the other end of the pitch. In a 3-0 win over Brighton their usual suspects, Martin Odegaard (£8.6 I 17.7%), Bukayo Saka (£8.9 I 55.0%) and Declan Rice, stepped up.
But it was the performance of Kai Havertz, who scored one and set Leandro Trossard up for the game’s third goal, that has many talking. Not only a tall physical presence, Havertz has begun finding the technical output to make his inclusion in the starting lineup a guarantee.
Collecting three points away at Brighton has become a lot easier this season, but credit where credit’s due, Arsenal were suffocatingly brilliant and deserving of sitting atop the Premier League ladder.
Chelsea FC: A good bad team or a bad good team?
It’d be easier for a blind man to read hieroglyphics than for anyone to read whether Chelsea is good or bad. One game they’re stealing three points from Manchester United, the next they’re dropping them against Sheffield United. That’s the problem with a team full of kids.
They’re seemingly incapable of controlling games, and as a result are incredibly chaotic, and entertaining for the neutral. But this control aversion is detrimental to their prospects not only this season but moving forward as well.
However, regardless of how the side around him functions, one constant is the good performance and undoubted output of Cole Palmer (£6.1 I 45.2%), who created Noni Madueke’s goal. Not only does Palmer seemingly always find himself in open space, but rarely does he ever make a bad decision.
Two United screamers steal draw
Very rarely are United good. That much is true. But even when they aren’t great, they possess enough individual brilliance to keep them in games. Bruno Fernandes (£8.2 I 9.6%) and Kobbie Mainoo’s strikes, both wonderful in their own right, against Liverpool are evidence of this.
First Fernandes capitalised on a weak Jarell Quansah to find the back of the net from the halfway line before Mainoo, on a rare foray into the opposition box, turnt sharply and bent on into the far corner. A sublime strike, arguably the pick of the pair, though that’s a hard call to make.
Liverpool fought back to win this one courtesy of a Mohamed Salah (£13.2 I 37.3%) penalty, but these dropped points could prove costly during their title run in.
Spurs hop into top four
A 3-1 win over Nottingham Forest is regulation for Tottenham at this stage. What isn’t regulation is three goals without a single involvement from either James Maddison (£7.9 I 11.7%) or Heung-Min Son (£10.1 I 35.3%). These are good signs for Spurs, at a time of the season when they need as much wind in their sails as possible if they’re to qualify for the Champions League next season.
Check us out on socials, @onlysportsanz: Instagram | Twitter | Tik Tok
Transfer targets under 15% ownership
DEFENDER: Destiny Udogie (£5.0 I 10.8%)
MIDFIELDER: Kevin De Bruyne (£10.3 I 12.9%)
FORWARD: Carlton Morris (£5.0 I 7.4%)
