Welcome back for another article.
73 points and a small red arrow from 8K to 8.7K. Honestly you'll have to take that considering no Wilson and no Ekitike. The big news was Haaland not in Man City's squad which meant a huge number of captaincies swapped to Ekitike which meant he was even more of a rank threat, so will take 73 points all day. Gabriel with the assist, defcon and 3 bonus right at the end of the gameweek was great, plus Rice's assist.
You might remember on last week's article there was the option to sell Rice for Wilson using the second free transfers, it would've meant an extra 7 points but sitting on 1 fewer transfer. I said at the time I will keep an extra transfer banked just in case of any injuries. O'Reilly went off injured, Wilson went off injured, Haaland missed out with an injury, Andersen missed out with illness, and even Rice went off injured.
Arteta said he asked to be subbed and they're going to have to check him and whether he'll play midweek. So the team is very suddenly in a bad spot with all those issues. It's going to be absolutely crucial that we get solid info from the pressers, like if Haaland's out then I'll have to sell. But what if Haaland's fine and Rice is a big doubt, or what if both Rice and Wilson are doubts, will Andersen and O'Reilly be available?
It's same for everyone, or at least most have got at least one or two flags. Lots to think about, the pressers are on Tuesday so what I'll basically do in a minute is cover all the possible paths I could go down depending on team news.
Some other highlights, captaincy switching to Bruno who scored 13 so 26 points from him was huge. O'Reilly clean sheet, Dango and Thiago returned as well. Bit disappointing not to get more from double Brentford attack vs Burnley but better than nothing. And of course another Rogers blank for the 8th time in the team this season. Maybe next week.
🧤 Goalkeeper
It's 4 games without a clean sheet for Arsenal, they're away vs Brighton this week, the last time they kept a clean sheet vs Brighton in the league was the 23/24 season. It's a pretty disappointing run but we all know Arsenal can go on a run of clean sheets again. It's just two more games I'll get from Arsenal before wildcarding in GW32 though will probably retain triple Arsenal. At least as it stands they're about 73% likely to double in 33. Beyond Gabriel I'm not sure what that triple would look like. Rice has done well for me as a Saka replacement so perhaps the same 3 I own now even. Man City and Palace are also incredibly likely to double in 33. Graphic from Mikkel Tokvam with projected fixtures for every team for every gameweek.
🛡️ Defenders
In defence it's Gabriel, Andersen and Van Dijk.
That was Gabriel's 7th goal involvement of the season, already his most ever with his previous best being 5 on two occasions. In fact 153 points is also his best tally ever but defcon obviously skewing that. Some of you have probably seen my all-time FPL dream team articles and I'm not sure how we handle defcon. It's very likely that the team changes, the all-time dream team has Trent, Robertson and Virgil back 3 who have all scored 200+ points before but Gabriel is on pace for over 210 points.
Anyway, on a tangent that's one for another day.
Who would you start, Andersen or O'Reilly? It's hard to get a read on this one especially before pressers but what we do know is Andersen's was illness and you'd think he's got a good chance of being fine by Wednesday, and he probably starts or doesn't play at all. O'Reilly's was a rolled ankle, though City posted an article of 5 or 6 players on exercise bikes which included O'Reilly in the video. They also posted a few photos on their website of players on grass training but didn't have him in, though there were only like 5 or 6 photos of players so can't read into that. Really tricky one because if he has rolled his ankle a little but not severely it's not impossible Pep benches him and he comes on.
Van Dijk has really good clean sheet odds this week, joint top in fact with Liverpool, Man City, Everton and Arsenal. They're all on 42%. Andersen at 29% not quite as great odds and West Ham have been scoring lately, though he's great for defcons. Part of me wants to push it and start O'Reilly but that could be getting too selfish. They've got the FA Cup away vs Newcastle on Saturday where he might be preferred after a midweek rest. If you can't tell this is the toughest week of the season so far for me as there are so many angles to consider.
