Welcome To The Worst Week In FPL History
Stay for something that will make you weep
***GAMEWEEK 12 DEADLINE: SATURDAY - 11:00 GMT***
What. Just. Happened.
We’ve had highs. We’ve had lows. We’ve had games snowed off, rained off. We’ve had mass postponements thanks to a global pandemic and a royal death. But I’m not sure we’ve ever had a Gameweek so bad that if you made it into the thirties, you were basically crushing it. And it wasn’t just that pretty much every FPL-relevant player blanked in the last week - it’s that they managed to do so with some terrific-looking fixtures, with Liverpool playing Luton and Man City thrashing Bournemouth. Some people went into Monday night’s game with three Spurs players - and came out with a *lower* score than they went into the game with. We’re a forward-looking bunch here at FPL Is Life, but when the Worst Gameweek In History strikes, we have to spend a bit of time looking back at it. And we will…
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Some sensationally bad scores
If you think you couldn’t have done any worse, this is the item for you. Pretty much all the high owned FPL picks blanked this Gameweek - if you didn’t have Jeremy Doku, you’'ll have struggled. But just to reassure you that you’re in good company, here’s the team of a big FPL content creator - Az from the FPL Blackbox channel. He was struggling when he went into the Spurs vs Chelsea game on 12 points. He had Udogie, Son and Maddison to come. He finished the week on 11. Not 11 players - 11 points. Epic stuff. It actually made the papers.
So bad it’s good?
Because it was such an epically awful week, the hunt has been on for the worst possible score. Can you get worse than 11? Well, how about playing the Triple Captain chip and getting 9 points? Yes, yep, uh huh… that’s worse. A true Instant Team Delete moment. Commiserations to this manager.
There are loads of injuries - wait for news!
The huge amount of injury issues was another reason for the weekend’s FPL carnage. If ever there was a week to WAIT FOR TEAM NEWS, it’s this week. There are loads of potential injuries and many don’t look that serious - so we need to wait for any info we get in Thursday and Friday’s press conferences. You can track news here. A useful summary of injuries below:
Captaincy this week is hard
Another week, another captaincy decision for us. There’s potentially five different teams with captaincy options. Salah vs Brentford(H), Son vs Wolves(a), Saka vs Burnley(H), Haaland vs Chelsea(a) and even Bruno vs Luton(H). Some predicted points below - I find it hard to look beyond Salah given his record, but he probably has the hardest fixture of the lot. PS - Haaland played last night and is fine after coming off early at the weekend.
One more week for Villa?
Villa have had a great run of games, but it ends this week in the form of Fulham (H). Lots of managers have a lot of their assets so they are an easy keep this week, but it’s worth looking at whether you can start shipping them out next week after the international break (they have Spurs, then Bournemouth… then Man City and Arsenal). The big question mark this week is around Cash, who went off early. It didn’t seem serious, so wait for team news. We’re about to get into the question of mid/low-priced defender replacements, because Burn also went off for Newcastle and Udogie got sent off for Spurs.
Finding a new defender
If you’re an owner of Botman, Burn (sounds like a priority sell), Udogie or Cash, you may be looking at a defender transfer this week. Tsimikas was also benched, but he’s not worth selling yet. I’ve summarised the teams and players to have a look at. A good list in the link below, too.
Crystal Palace - greta short term fixtures and strong data. I like Guehi for £4.6m (Mitchell is the same price - yes, he just scored but Guehi carries set piece attacking threat).
West Ham - good mid-term fixtures over the next six matches. I’f go for Coufal (£4.6m), who’s playing well.
Arsenal - Gabriel at £4.8m seems a pretty easy switch, but has a slight minutes issue. Saliba (£5.2m) is the one to go for if you have the cash.
Newcastle - there is now a really cheap option in Lascelles (£4.0m). He’s in the side with Botman injured. Newcastle have the 3rd lowest xGC in the league.
Newcastle - injuries and opportunities
It’s not just Lascelles who has become an option because of the injuries to Botman and Burn. The number of injuries mean it’s worth watching Newcastle closely as there could be some cheap opportunities. Wilson came off in the Champions League last night - that means Gordon may play through the middle for them, as Isak is out, too - and it’s Bournemouth this weekend. Then there’s Livramento, who’s just £4.3m and played a very attacking role in the Champions League. Again, we need more info, but worth taking a good look at how badly the injuries affect the team and take it from there.
Maddison is a doubt… here’s some midfielders
One of the casualties of that mad Monday night game. If he’s out for decent period of time, Saka is an upgrade if you can find the extra cash. He has Burnley next. The midfielders top for predicted points this weekend are below from the FPL Focal channel. A special word also for Brian Mbeumo, who continues to be awesome. His fixtures aren’t good until Gameweek 14, but he’s been a fabulous FPL option and he’s third in the league for Expected Goal Involvement (only behind Haaland & Salah).
The Justice Premier League Table
As you’ll know, we regularly look at models that suck in a load of data and spit out how they expect teams to perform. Well, this table is a bit of fun. It ranks teams in terms of the points we expected them to get, based on their underlying numbers. What does it tell us? Spurs have been riding their luck, Chelsea and Everton have been unlucky and, in the words of my fellow substacker
, Man Utd are just “irredeemably bad”. What does it tell us for FPL? Again, there are a clear five teams to target - probably led by Sheffield Utd.
A reminder of how football can make us feel
After the week most of us had (if you got above 40, we don’t need to hear from you), we all need a reminder of what the mad game of football can do to us. It’s all here in the face of this Fluminense fan… Football, bloody hell. Sob!
No email next week as there’s an international break! Please get in touch with any FPL dilemmas or general football internet gold. PS - I’m on Twitter here. Please help me grow FPL Is Life by sharing… thanks! Typos entirely deliberate, but thanks for noticing.