Welcome back for another article.
Who are the best players to buy for GW24? As always we'll break it down nice and simple by position.
🧤 Goalkeepers
Goalkeepers first and there's a few fixtures that look good for clean sheets. Raya is top this week with Arsenal away to Leeds and aiming to bounce back from a horrific weekend, Roefs have Burnley home, Lammens has Fulham home, Verbruggen has Everton home.
Although Roefs is second on the table this week I'd avoid, he's got Arsenal away, Liverpool home and Bournemouth away in his next 5 gameweeks, plus Xhaka missed the last game for them.
So Raya remains firmly top for the next 5 gameweeks, however interestingly second top over that span is Lammens. Carrick has blown away everyone's expectations with wins over Man City and Arsenal in his first two games, and he's given fans what they wanted, Mainoo started, Bruno as a 10, a back 4. They've been unbelievable and the next 5 are Fulham home, Spurs home, West Ham away, Everton away, Palace home.
These next games are crucial and they need to now sustain that form against teams which will be a different kind of challenge with a lower block. He could be one to strongly consider on a wildcard, the only caveat with Raya is he's very likely to blank in GW31, so if you have Raya then you have about a 90% chance of needing your backup keeper in BGW31, depending on if Arsenal knock Chelsea out in the league cup semi's. Wolves would be the other team that blank with him. Man City and Palace are also likely to blank in GW31.
As a refresher, Arsenal's blank with Wolves has high potential to move to GW26, we'd expect an announcement on that fairly soon if that's what the Premier League are planning to do. Man City and Palace's blank wouldn't be able to move to GW26 because of Palace's Europa Conference League play offs clashing.
The GW31 postponements will be confirmed in the midweek before the GW25 deadline, but if they are planning a DGW26 we'll get a provisional announcement earlier than that within the next week. You'll know straight away if there's a double.
🛡️ Defenders
Defenders next, it's basically just Arsenal and Sunderland this week on the GW24 projections though I've got a lot of defenders to discuss. The table this week is Gabriel, Mukiele, Timber, Alderete, Reinildo, Saliba, Van Hecke, Ballard.
So Roefs we were saying is an avoid, however a Sunderland defender looks fine if you're able to bench them in GW25 and 26. Of the top 20 scoring defenders he is the cheapest of them all, and he's the 7th top scoring defender in the game. 1 goal and 4 assists, and despite the goal involvements he's managed to average 9.9 defcons per 90 as well, which ranks 9th among all defenders, so he's just been an all round beast. His assist last gameweek mean he's returned in 8 consecutive games, if you include def con as a return. So although he's risen a lot to 4.5m, in the grand scheme that's still cheap.
One defender I'm looking at, as an O'Reilly replacement is Thiaw. In my case I already own Mukiele but don't have that cover in place for GW25 and 26, which is when Newcastle have Brentford home and Spurs away.
Check this out, over the season Newcastle are the second best team for expected goals conceded with 25.19. Arsenal top with 16.27. Second fewest big chances conceded as well. So Thiaw, and Hall look fantastic long term picks.
Cash is another one, who is perfect for this week at 4.8m with Brentford home. Villa's long term fixtures are very solid, he's very attacking and will definitely score a goal or two over that run.
Chalobah doesn't quite make the table with 4.0 projected points, very slightly but not significantly reduced expected minutes on FPL Review just in case he misses one of the next 5 given they are also technically fixtures he could be rested in, when you consider the fact that they've got Champions League, League Cup and FA Cup in the next few weeks sandwiched between those green fixtures. He looks great though all things considered, 16.9 points for the next 5.
Munoz was back in the Palace team last gameweek, had a couple of threatening moments, very pricey at 5.8m but we know how high his upside is, in the first 14 gameweeks before his injury he had 3 goals 3 assists. 6 involvements in 14 is crazy numbers for a defender. Huge differential now that his ownership has plummeted.
The last one to talk about is Dorgu. That's 2 goals in 2 games playing out of position, so is he essential? I'd argue definitely not, he went off with a potential injury, though Carrick said hopefully it's just cramp, though besides that I'm not convinced Dorgu starts every game, he was potentially better suited for their last two opponents whereas Cunha could come in for some of their "easier" upcoming games.