Fixing your early FPL problems
Stay for Man Utd's dreadful recruitment in full
***GAMEWEEK 3 DEADLINE: SATURDAY - 11:00 GMT***
A decent bit of nominative determinism to round off Gameweek 2, with Darwin Nunez ensuring his own extinction from our FPL thinking with a mindless red card. Brutal for those that brought him in after he put up some great stats in Liverpool’s opener. He’d also had some big chances (and missed them). Also a great week for metaphors - those who kept the faith with Jesus were awarded with a mega 19-point haul and it could’ve been more.
This week: Lots on the midfield. We’ll look at replacements for some early flops like Bailey, try to find the best non-premium midfielders, look at Gundogan, a look at Brighton, a (really) early Wildcard… and Man Utd buying really bad players for a long time.
Questions? Deep, pitiless FPL despair? Email me: fplislife@substack.com
Some ultra-early Wildcard thoughts
Many a bad start has tempted FPL managers to use their first, precious Wildcard chip early. This year, there is even more incentive to use it early. During the World Cup, players get infinite free transfers, so that’s essentially an extra Wildcard over Christmas. BUT the Wildcard is a powerful chip, so you really need to have made loads of dreadful errors or be missing what have emerged as the big hitters - eg, Cancelo, Alexander Arnold, James, Martinelli, Jesus, one of Kane of Haaland are all very popular and powerful picks already.
Here’s an early Wildcard below, which looks like a good starting point. I’d be tempted to have three Man City players. Triple Arsenal looks important.
Brighton look good - here’s five options
After two games, Brighton are looking good. Just two big chances conceded in two games - and they’re fifth for expected goal (xG) data. Fixtures are fab: West Ham, Leeds, Fulham, Leicester, Bournemouth…
A couple of obvious things to say: 1. They won’t play Man Utd every week and 2. We know from historical data that Brighton do underperform their expected goal data - in other words, they’re terrible finishers as the weekend’s game vs Newcastle proved (their “xG” was 1.61, but they failed to score). With those caveats, here’s my Brighton Top 5:
Gross (£5.6m) - Seems to be playing right wing now and hauled in Gameweek 1. A good Bailey/Neto replacement if you want one.
March (£5m) - If you don’t have the funds, March has attacking threat and many Brighton fans say he’s been the standout player so far.
Sanchez (£4.5m) - Looks to have emerged as the best £4.5m keeper, which is looking attractive given the cheap Leicester keeper thing (see last week) isn’t looking great.
Dunk (£4.5m) - He isn’t the highest-scoring Brighton defender so far (that’s Veltman), but nailed to play and some set piece threat.
Welbeck (£6.5m) - Has only failed to get an FPL return once in last seven games. Looks fit. Cheap replacement for Nunez?
Bailey is being sold… consider a defender instead
A pre-season bandwagon was Aston Villa’s cheap midfielder Leon Bailey. He didn’t start at the weekend and now he’s getting dumped. A good thread on replacements here. Many are dumping Neto from Wolves, too (though he is playing - a harder sell). The thing to remember here is we’re talking about a cheap player who frees up cash for the pricey lads - *we can’t and shouldn’t expect big points*.
That said, maybe consider getting very cheap bench midfielder, changing formation and buying a £5.5m defender where there is better value (eg, Trippier, Perisic (if he looks like a starter), Cucurella, Walker).
As for midfielders:
SIMILAR PRICE: Gross/March (see above), Dewsbury-Hall, Arronson, Eze, Willock
BARGAIN BASEMENT: Andreas (£4.5m - currently an injury doubt), Dasilva (£4.6m - a couple of very low percentage goals for him)
Player price changes - an essential website
Price changes are one of the most confusing and infuriating part of FPL. The rules around player price changes are here, but basically, they can go up or down three times in a single Gameweek. It is driven by players being bought or sold a lot. It’s a pretty opaque process, but there is an excellent website here that is pretty good at predicting when price changes are going to happen.
In general, it’s my view that the added information you get from waiting before transfers outweighs getting or selling the players before they go up or down in price, but then I am very boring. You never know what else will happen that week. It’s sometimes worth the gamble though if you have the exact cash for a player about to go up in price. Some current price change candidates below:
When FPL goes wrong…
Sanity dictates that we don’t work out how many point were lost in these two transfers. It’s a brutal game…
The best mid-priced midfielder is… tricky
Outside Martinelli at his cheap price - and forgetting the Salah/Son/De Bruyne heavyweights, the prize for best mid-priced FPL midfield option is up for grabs. Here’s a good tweet that takes projected points for Gameweeks 3-8 (most will Wildcard by Gameweek 9). Some big players not here - Kulusevski has looked good and Spurs have decent fixtures for the next four games. See the next two posts for other options not here…
Gündoğan is getting people talking
Every season we tell ourselves we won’t get drawn into Pep Roulette - the angst of bringing in an attacking Man City players and then sweating ahead of every team sheet. Yet City look on it, so here we are again. The player attracting new attention is Gündoğan - who had 5 penalty area touches vs Bournemouth and a goal - and also looked more advanced in the opening game vs West Ham (possibly at the expense of Cancelo). At £7.5m & low ownership, he looks decent. BUT he was subbed (of course). Some stats vs Bournemouth below.
Núñez red could be good news for Salah
In a parallel universe, Núñez takes one of his big chances against Crystal Palace, doesn’t get himself sent off and causes us all an FPL headache. As it is, he’s banned for three matches and dead to us (for now). It is possible that this affects a close contest for the captaincy this week. The three best captain options look like:
Arsenal (prob Jesus) vs Bournemouth
Man City (prob Haaland) vs Newcastle
Liverpool (prob Salah) vs Man Utd
Salah destroyed Man Utd last season with a hat-trick at Old Trafford and it’s possible the absence of Núñez could see him play more centrally. One to watch.
It’s boring but… Martinelli is an FPL gift
Yes, most managers own him, but at the risk of ruining his performances, he’s hugely underpriced and playing in a good team with great fixtures. FPL doesn’t offer up many gifts but he is one. He’s actually performed better than many £8m midfielders that got a lot of attention in the season build-up.
Man Utd’s recruitment is deep in the red
Anyone who feared that the arrival of Erik ten Hag would end Man Utd’s Banter FC status (basically its complete inability to figure out, stick to, or even attempt any kind of rational plan) have been heartened by the club’s worst start in something like 1,000 years. After the Brentford humiliation, Sky got Neville and Carragher to give Utd signings since 2013 the traffic light treatment. Needless to say, a lot of red. Bit harsh on Sancho. I’d actually forgotten they signed Bastian Schweinsteiger.
Please get in touch with any FPL dilemmas or general football internet gold. Remember the DEADLINES and see you next week! I’m on Twitter here. Please help me grow FPL Is Life by sharing… thanks!