60 points in the first gameweek, a little underwhelming with no returns on the bench. Though you could argue Verbruggen wouldn't be in the team if not the bench boost so it was nice to have him return, on a no bench boost set up it would've been Kinsky paired with Dubrvka.
Hume actually created 2 big chances, no-one created more in GW2. Calvert-Lewin with the yellow came away with 1 point. Friday night couldn't have started better with assists from Calafiori, White and Tzolis! Wish I'd gone no Haaland instead of no Joao Pedro in hindsight! But it's worth mentioning no Joao Pedro funded White who matched him, Brobbey a let down though with the blank vs Ipswich, a return from him and the no Joao Pedro experiment would've been a success in GW1.
Let's see how the next 2 go before the wildcard since it was a 3 gameweek play, could end up even worse to be fair! Although it feels a little underwhelming I had to remind myself it's much better than GW1 last year which was a 25K finish, was still over 5 million after 5 gameweeks last year and pulled it back to 25k peaking in top 10k at one point, the year before also a far worse start and ended 3k so it's a long season and opening weeks really don't matter. Erik got 38 points in GW1 last year and won FPL. Bruno and Haaland blanked which was quite a shock, Szobo with a very very late penalty vs Newcastle and earned a bonus point. Brighton actually had a stone wall penalty not given, was 4-0 up at that point so maybe the ref showing sympathy but a pen is a pen and probably would've been Gross taking!
🧤 Goalkeeper
- In goal Kinsky comes in to the starting 11. 🧤
Not an encouraging GW1 by Spurs was it, they conceded more xG than anyone and Brentford battered them, I was impressed by Newcastle vs Liverpool as well. Hopefully they have Van de Ven and Porro back in the team and Savinho looks set to come straight in for his debut.
🛡️ Defenders
- In defence it's Calafiori, Maguire and White. 🛡️
Pulling up the GW2 clean sheet odds Man Utd and Arsenal are joint top on 42%, Liverpool 38%, Man City 36%, Coventry in fifth so that's good news for bench boosters, albeit 34% so the odds have them likelier to concede than keep a clean sheet. Kinsky on a 25% chance therefore.
Still no sign of Timber in training yet so I'm glad to have White to push for more upside like in GW1. They're playing a pretty bare bones Villa side, with Watkins not in the squad last match having reportedly agreed terms to leave, so it's potentially the ideal time for this fixture for Arsenal because once Villa get themselves sorted and get going they will be a tough team to face. Perhaps it'll be Hemmings and Maatsen down that left side for Villa which could be the side Arsenal get a lot of joy down, White, Odegaard, Saka.
Can't quite believe how poor Man Utd looked against newly promoted Hull, but this remains a great fixture for Man Utd and happy to be tripled up for this one. Things can change fast in FPL, expecting a big response and it's a home game.
Sangare and De Cuyper this season's first price rises last night! In case you missed it price changes happen at midnight now every night UK time. My new price changes tool off to a perfect start, it had them both rising and Martinelli and Gyokeres falling which happened. It uses official FPL prediction data so it won't be wrong but for some reason the official predictor doesn't have predicted % which is the most crucial column, since you need to see a player will go over 100% to rise or fall. So I manually fixed that and added it in. There's some other weird quirks with the official one that I've fixed on my tool so fpl.page/prices or in the FPL Focal app to check who's going up and down every night.