EPL DFS Playbook - July 5

The elephant in the room for Sunday’s slate is Liverpool. As you may have heard, they clinched the Premier League title last week and proceeded to look disinterested in a 4-0 shellacking at Manchester City on Thursday. So, which Liverpool will we see Sunday, and the rest of the season? The team that has been historically good for most of the season, or the team that looked like they knew the result didn’t matter on Thursday?

I think the most common argument you’ll see is that Liverpool are simply playing out the string and have no particular motivation to try hard the rest of the way. The implication of course is that their collective and individual performance will suffer noticeably as a result. I’m skeptical of this argument for a couple of reasons. First of all, it presumes that Liverpool’s players are motivated primarily by a desire to win, when there could be several other motivating factors, including money, pride, competitiveness or a desire to maintain a starting spot in the squad.

Secondly, Liverpool have practically, if not literally, had the championship locked up for some time. I have a hard time believing they were super motivated for their 4-0 win against Crystal Palace two weeks ago even though everyone knew that result would only effect when, not if, Liverpool would clinch the title.

Which brings me to the final reason I’m skeptical you should avoid Liverpool for fantasy because they have no motivation. If you want to argue Liverpool have taken their foot off the gas for the last five games since it’s been clear they were going to win the league, I’m more receptive to that argument. In addition to the bad loss at Man City, that span of games featured an arguably worse 3-0 loss at Watford back in February. The problem is Liverpool still beat Bournemouth 2-1 at home following the Watford loss and took care of business emphatically against Crystal Palace. Isn’t a Liverpool squad that is just going through the motions still capable of beating Aston Villa 4-0 at home? If Mane scores two goals Sunday, will we say he was motivated after all, or that Villa have conceded the most goals per game in the league and we should have seen it coming?

I’d be lying if I said I knew the answer. I don’t particularly believe in trying to guess what motivates millionaires playing a game. I’ve been on the wrong end of enough “revenge games” and “contract years” for fantasy that I often just stay away. I know plenty of very smart people who swear they can gain an advantage by anticipating how a player will perform based on their motivation. If you are one of those players, more power to you. You can see my thoughts on the players below and adjust accordingly.

Back to the question of Liverpool, Jurgen Klopp has said he’s going to continue to play his starters. Liverpool need 15 points in their final six games to break the record for most points in a season, and I’ve seen some pundits speculate that will motivate Liverpool to play high-quality soccer for the rest of the season. Similarly, I’ve read a lot of speculation Mo Salah will be motivated to win the golden boot for a third straight year. That sounds plausible, though I find it hard to believe Salah is motivated by individual achievement but his teammates are all motivated by team success.

Finally, can’t we question other team’s motivations? Manchester City appears ripe for a letdown after beating their big rivals. Same for West Ham. Newcastle and Southampton won’t get relegated but won’t qualify for Europe. You could make that same argument for Burnley and perhaps even Sheffield. So who exactly do we think is motivated enough to score fantasy points on Sunday? I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

Playbook

Example Lineups