All I want for Christmas is... a decent player off the bench
Stay for Declan Rice singing Vanilla Ice on Twitter
DEADLINE FOR TRANSFERS AND TEAM SELECTION: SATURDAY, 11:00 GMT
A quick message to anyone with friends, family and social lives - it’s time you got your priorities straight and spend some quality time with your FPL team. The fixtures come thick and fast over Christmas. This is not a time to be sociable, people..! This week, with so many fixtures and the risk of rotation, we’ll go through what people are saying about having a decent option off your bench. We also have a look at Watford, as well as THE GREATEST DIVE OF ALL TIME. Also, BUY JOTA. (See below. NPxG = expected goals, excluding penalties):
PS - a quick sorry. There have been two rounds of fixtures since last week’s email and Gameweek 14 continues tonight. I should’ve put both deadlines at the top of the last email. I’m still getting the hang of this, but will fix from now on. Soz!
It’s probably time to have a decent bench option
Lots of people are strengthening their squads for the busy period until January. I’ve picked out ten options - five strikers and five midfielders. My rules are, they have to cost less than £6m (the excellent Gallagher at Crystal Palace now costs £6.1m) and they have to be regular starters. Josh King (Watford) looks the stand out at the mo. In midfield, I’d personally be tempted by Smith-Rowe. Arsenal have improved a lot and he seems integral. I’ve based these tables on expected goal involvement over the past 6 Gameweeks (before Tuesday night’s games).
FORWARDS
MIDFIELDERS
If you need a super cheap £4.5m third sub who usually plays, the most popular picks are Brownhill at Burnley or Gilmour, who is now playing at Norwich under Dean Smith.
Lamptey looks like a steal
If you want a cheap defender in a decent team, Tariq Lamptey is now back fit at Brighton and playing as an attacking right winger. Check out his heat map from the last game. The right-hand side is the opponents box - yes, that’s a £4.4m “defender” camped next to the opponent’s penalty box. If he can keep fit (a gamble), he looks a great bench option.
It’s a pretty clear three-horse race this season…
If you needed proof, here it is (this FPLer built a predicted points model).
We just have to work out whether we can actually buy any Man City player that isn’t called Cancelo. We’ll come back to this soon, but Gundogan is looking decent at £7.2m - good Twitter Thread here:
Ranieri seems to be doing something weird at Watford
Dilly Ding! Dilly Dong! True to form, Ranieri is doing something weird at Watford and it’s helping their forwards in terms of FPL returns. I make it six games that he’s been in charge. They are slightly worse for conceding chances (14th before Ranieri vs 18th after), but their expected goals have gone through the roof (dead last before Ranieri, but now 4th(!)). Another reason to have another look at King, Sarr (injury doubt at mo) or Dennis if you need a cheap player. It’s only six games though, so Ranieri is probably due for the sack imminently. Watford’s fixtures improve after the weekend.
We desperately need Man Utd to be an FPL option
They have the best fixtures of any team over the next five game weeks (Palace, Norwich, Brentford, Brighton, Newcastle). The problem is, they aren’t any good. But… Magnus Carlsen, the world chess champion, has subbed in Jadon Sancho, so… pick your chess-related pun.
I’ll do a section on Man Utd next week. If you were wondering what former Spurs player Rafael van der Vaart thinks (you weren’t, but he’s told us), he has a clear view on the Utd captain:
That one’s for new reader Sam, who has had Maguire issues.
This weekend may be a rare chance not to captain Salah (good luck)
A good few people on FPL Twitter were looking at the data from the last three games and wondering if they should captain Jota instead of Salah vs Everton tonight. Not many have. At the weekend, Liverpool have Wolves. If you have a Spurs player, they have Norwich, which could be a chance to do something different? (Disclaimer: I won’t be).
It’s understandable people are getting restless, given Salah is so good he’s RUINING THE GAME FOR EVERYONE. But the boring answer is Salah remains the outstanding and consistent option for now. Yawn. PS - BUY JOTA ANYWAY.
Will this dive ever be beaten?
His name is Deyverson, so a major victory for nominative determinism, too! A question, though - why didn’t he get booked?
Sick note corner
As suspected last week, Chilwell is out for some time, so get rid. Alonso played in his place and came off early - but still has high potential for attacking returns. Check out the list of attacking fullbacks from last week’s email. Reece James has a knock but could play. Foden and Grealish could be back, but there’s no certainty, so Man City maintaining their title as Most Annoying FPL Team In History. De Bruyne is also a doubt. But it all means Gundogan could be a good transfer. Saka is a doubt for Arsenal. Lukaku looks good to come back this week, perhaps off the bench. ALWAYS CHECK ON FRIDAY FOR NEWS.
Declan Rice - better at protecting the back four than rapping…
So we need to talk about Twitter Spaces, the live broadcast thing that popped up on Twitter recently. It’s basically like Periscope (remember that?). Only this time, Twitter Spaces has become the place to be for an event that is essentially karaoke - quite a fun development before it inevitably goes the way of Vine
That’s it for another week - thanks to everyone who has signed up and please help me spread the FPL word. If there are any dilemmas/disasters/unmissable football memes, please email me in reply to this - or I’m also on Twitter. PS - would you want an edition of FPL Is Life before every new Gameweek, or is one email a week enough? See you next week!