Number 20! Robin Van Persie scored a wonderful hat-trick which secured the title for Manchester United. |
- Manchester United secured their 20th top-flight league title. It's their 13th in 21 Premier League seasons. What an astounding achievement.
- Meanwhile, Luis Suarez's (£10.8m, 212 season pts) crave for Branislav Ivanovic's (£6.9m, 130 season pts) meat have earned him a ten-match ban, which he opted not to appeal. Thank you Luis for such a wonderful performance, both in reality and fantasy.
- This effectively means that Robin Van Persie's (£13.8m, 236 season pts) claim on the Golden Boot is almost certain, which his nearest possible contender Gareth Bale (£10.5m, 213 season pts) 6 goals shy from the Dutch's 24.
- On Europe, we saw the downfall of Spanish giants — Barcelona and Real Madrid — with a combined score of 1-8 against the rising Germans — Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.
FEATURED: Arsenal v Manchester United @ Emirates
Van Persie has proven how correct is his decision to jump ship from London to Manchester, but die-hard Gunners' supporters will not approve his betrayal definitely. And they will put all their hopes on the current crop of Arsenal players to give him the punishment.
Olivier Giroud (£7.6m, -1 pt) will begin his 3-game punishment after a red-card against Fulham so it'll up to either Lukas Podolski (£8.1m, 1 pt) or Theo Walcott (£8.8m, 5 pts) to lead the line. You can't be sure, but the one who step up will definitely try to benefit from that and achieve something.
On the other side, the Red Devils may go complacent after securing the title — unless they are going for Premier League record of 96 points or somehow fears that Van Persie will still possibly lose his almost-Golden Boot. With that taken into account, I am going for a home win — Arsenal need points more than United anyway.
Prediction: ARS 2-1 MUN
TEAM FOCUS: Manchester City
Their second place is for them to lose. Not much to play, but they are the much better team than their opponent, so let's go for them anyway.
Carlos Tevez (£9.1m, 2 pts) is the obvious replacement for Luis Suarez and has played 90 minutes or more in each of his last five Premier League fixtures. It's now two weeks away from FA Cup final and Mancini for sure would want Carlito to shift into his best condition by playing him in an effective way.
David Silva (£9.1m, - pts) and Sergio Aguero (£10.9m) are expected to return, though we will need to guess whether will them start. The duo, together with their current replacements Samir Nasri (£8.0m, 7 pts) and Edin Dzeko (£6.8m, 2 pts), will be quite some risky picks.
Andy Carroll (£8.2m, 2 pts) is in quite some form recently, but I doubt he can bang City's defence this time.
Prediction: MCI 3-0 WHU
PLAYER FOCUS: Bale
Though Wigan are on relegation crisis, I don't see how they are going to contain the almighty Gareth Bale and get their much needed three points. Prepare for some Bale-icious stride.
GAMEWEEK 35 DREAM TEAM
Cech
Baines — Shawcross — Zabaleta
Bale (VC) — Fellaini — Mata — Yaya Toure
Van Persie — Tevez (C) — Sturridge
Subs: Begovic — Sessegnon — Cuellar — Samba