Welcome back for another article.
Recording straight off the back of Liverpool v Man City, what a crazy end to the gameweek. Horrendous one for my FPL team, turning the green arrow red with Van Dijk finishing on 0 and Haaland ending up with 11, Szoboszlai red card but still managed to clinch 2 bonus and finish on 8 points. 67 points all out and a red arrow to 45K.
Rice in for Saka who ended up hitting defcon for a 5 pointer, double Arsenal clean sheet, double Man Utd goals as well from captain Bruno and Mbeumo. Thiago bagging against Newcastle once again though got booked so just 5 from him. You might remember in last week's article I was saying I'd be happy to just survive this week, given I had to play Van Dijk and Mane who unsurprisingly both blanked. So a small red, a double gameweek next. Is it time to use the triple captain chip?
So, let's run through the team for DGW26 and transfer plans.
🧤 Goalkeeper
In goal we're lined up with Raya, Arsenal have about a 39% chance of a clean sheet vs Brentford, 54% vs Wolves which is roughly a 72% chance of keeping at least one. It's such a good double gameweek from a defensive perspective millions will be captaining someone in the Arsenal defence, which in my view is where I'm leaning.
🛡️ Defenders
In defence we're lined up with O'Reilly, Gabriel and Van Dijk.
Gabriel captain. If you split his season up into pairs of fixtures his lowest back to back score combined all season is 9 points. He and Rice are my top two captains this week, but is it worth triple captaining?
Let's do some analysis on it. This is a chart from Mikkel Tokvam, what are we looking at here? Teams on the left, gameweeks along the top and the number of projected fixtures for each team each week. So Arsenal and Wolves this week are on 2.0 because they have 2 games. You can see Arsenal and Wolves are on 0 in GW31, Man City and Palace almost certainly blank so it's 0.1 currently.
GW33 will be a double gameweek, GW34 blank gameweek, GW36 a smaller double, GW37 small blank.
The only thing with GW33 is Arsenal and Man City play one another, which means Gabriel would definitively be worse, and wouldn't be the best double for Haaland. Though the second could be Burnley away, or it could be Palace home which is already the likely postponement from GW31.
We don't know who will double and blank, it depends on the FA Cup. However the 74% against Man City in GW36 would make Haaland a potentially very good triple captain that week, they've got Brentford home and the other could be Palace home or Burnley away potentially. In theory Haaland playing Brentford home and one of Palace home or Burnley away is better, but it's not a given.
In the past I've generally taken the approach of "grab what's in front of you" which is definitely Gabriel this week, and it's not worked out that great for me, e.g. Haaland vs Leeds earlier this season. Waiting would've ended up better so I'm leaning towards saving the triple captain chip long story short. Going to spend more time looking at it, though we haven't got much time since it's a Tuesday deadline. I could still end up going for it tbh. Are you guys using it or saving it? The other thing about saving that some of you might find appealing is, when we get to DGW36 you can choose accordingly with the triple captain based on where you are, if you're happy with rank or minileague position you could play conservative, or if you need a big swing week you could go for the differential and aim for maximum variance.
Liverpool finally hitting some good fixtures again. Sunderland away is not an easy fixture but the next 6 leading all the way to the blank overall are decent, they're joint second with Man City for clean sheets over that run.
O'Reilly is a big concern for me this gameweek. I've lost confidence in his security of starts and I could sell this week, if I make a transfer out it'll be him, unless Mbeumo is injured. City fans let me know if you think he starts this one. It's a really tricky one because my bench is very weak in GW26, but I want to get some transfers rolled.
⚽ Midfielders
The midfield is Bruno, Rice, Enzo, Mbeumo and Le Fee.
Double Man Utd attack went amazing last gameweek though West Ham are highly motivated to dig themselves out of the relegation zone, they're only 3 points from safety so this may not be an easy game as it might've been earlier in the season.
Mbeumo was seen leaving Old Trafford limping after the Spurs game which is concerning. He took a few kicks during the game so it could've just been a knock. The quick turnaround doesn't help matters though, Man Utd have the shortest turnaround playing again on Tuesday night. Recording before Man Utd's press conference which hopefully sheds some light, as long as the journalists ask we'll get an answer from Carrick. I'll discuss transfer plans if he's fine and if he's out in a sec.
Rice vice captain, his goal involvements have dried up lately, GW20 was the last time he scored or assisted and that was the brace against Bournemouth if you recall, in the first gameweek of the new year. That was a 17 pointer though which is a reminder how high his ceiling is. If you split his season up into pairs of gameweeks there's some combined returns like 12 points, 14 points, 20 points, 16 points. There's very little between him and Gabriel, I've just about got the captaincy on Gabriel. The only thing is, I'm expecting Arsenal defence to be around 300% effective ownership or maybe just over. So even with Raya and captain Gabriel you'll drop rank for each point they get which is crazy. I'll basically have triple defence including captaincy and it will still cost rank.
Rice is the big upside alternative basically, but you'll have 100% of Arsenal defence's points against you. That could go horribly if they keep back to back clean sheets, or if Arsenal concede and Rice gets one of those double digit returns it's huge upside.
Enzo registered 1.02 non penalty expected goal involvement vs Wolves, Palmer registered 0.23. Enzo 2 pointer Palmer 20 pointer. Happy to have Enzo for the next two, but this is why I'm keen to roll, he needs to go in GW28 before the Arsenal game plus other players to potentially replace like O'Reilly, Le Fee, Mbeumo if injured etc.
The plan wasn't to have to play Le Fee this week but the Saka injury complicated plans, it might be his last ever week in the starting 11 though he keeps surviving due to other issues to let's see.
🎯 Forwards
Moving on to the front 2 then transfer plans.
Mane is my fourth and final DGW players, won't be adding another Wolves asset and he came in purely for this week when Ekitike was downgraded to fund Mbeumo, which hasn't ended up the best moves. It's actually in my interest for him to wipe Arsenal's clean sheet, however incredibly unlikely that is because of Arsenal defence effective ownership, it's the Forest game that has any slither of hope. He actually takes corners for Wolves, it was his corner that led to them wiping Chelsea's clean last gameweek, though it was flicked on so no Mane assist.
Man City are top for projected goals this week excluding DGW fixtures with 2.5. Bookies odds not available for the second match yet, Chelsea are second with 2.1, Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal and Palace on 1.9 goals. Villa and Forest 1.8.
🪑## Bench + Transfer Plans
The bench is Dubravka, Thiago, Mukiele and Andersen.
Would you start Thiago or Le Fee?
Both are on penalties, both are playing against defenders I own. Technically starting Thiago is bigger upside, if he scores I gain rank from that even with two clean sheets wiped, or 3 with captain. Though it's a tougher game for Brentford. Le Fee's fixture is slightly better and he has a chance of defcon so it's really close.
Transfer plans then. 2.8m in the bank which gives me so many options. If I've got doubts over O'Reilly then Munoz in looks very good, Burnley, Wolves and Leeds home in their next 5, Man Utd and Spurs away in there too. He'd need to be sold again in GW31 though so I'm too reluctant to add another BGW31 player, or in this case replace one with another.
It's looking like I currently have 6 players that blank so I'm unfortunately going to chalk that one off. If I was sitting on more free transfers I'd be all over it.
I can afford to do Le Fee to Rogers, with 0.1m spare. After scoring last match he has already matched the 8 goals he scored in the entirety of last season. This is the current plan.
I really want Wirtz from GW28, so it could be a roll in GW27, then Rice and Enzo to Dango and Wirtz in GW28. That only has 0.1m spare as well though so could be cutting it too fine. Brentford have such good fixtures after Arsenal and he's a perfectly good alternative to Schade for 5.8m. Schade is 7.0m. In fact Dango is averaging 4.5 points per match as well, Schade 3.7.
Please note my team and plans aren’t locked in and can change!