I’ve been here before.  It is the final week of the Premier League season, and the final round of matches in the Fantasy Premier League.

Unlike last year, I have my pub FPL league already sewn up with a comfortable 100-point cushion but, in my workplace FPL league it is, as they say, “all to play for”.

In my work FPL, I currently lie in second place, needing to make up a sizeable 30-point gap to overtake the current leader.  It is a time to take risks.  Every match a cup one.  I was in exactly the same situation last year.  Then, the risk I took was to drop Kevin De Bruyne from my side, and it cost me dear.  This time around, my risk is to include and to captain him.

It is a risk because he is only just returning from injury; it is a risk because he may be rested prior to the UEFA Champions League Final on the following Saturday; and it is a risk because it involves playing the Pep Guardiola Fantasy Football Tombola, but it is a risk I must take because I need to find some crucial differential between my FPL team and the teams around me.

Will it pay off?  I will know by six o’clock on Sunday afternoon.

I know it may not be the greatest responsibility currently resting on his shoulders, but the fate of my workplace FPL trophy and the winner’s veste verte is firmly in KDB’s hands.

© Donnie Blake

Donnie Blake meets with Triumph and Disaster, and treats those two imposters just the same.

Donnie Blake is the author of football novels, Artie Yard and a Very English Pickle and Artie Yard and the Bogotá Bracelet, both available from Amazon.