A hilariously bad start to the wildcard with a red arrow, 40 points. Even the pre-wildcard team didn't score much more so it seems it was just one of those weeks destined to be a bad one. The pre-wildcard team has Verbruggen, Calafiori, White, Maguire, Anderson, Bruno, Szobo, DCL, Gross all blank. So 9 blanks out of 11 - I'll always try to be optimistic til the very end and I'm hoping to score more than 9 points with the triple captain, which was Haaland's return last gameweek and I had planned to use it on him until opting for the wildcard.
I've got the triple captain active for GW4 so we don't need to wait long to find out how the alternative triple captain use goes 🤞. More on that in a sec. But yeah a terrible showing from the wildcard team, 4 yellow cards, and Thiaw scoring the unluckiest own goal 😅. Sangare was getting close to a red and was taken off at half time on 0 points, Thiaw -1. Blanks everywhere but Mendy with the 8 pointer on the bench, another week where the bench outscored the actual GW1 bench boost! Peak FPL. Despite a poor first week to the wildcard I will also say I really like the team's structure going forward, staying positive!
🧤 Goalkeeper
In goal we've got Raya facing Sunderland away.
🛡️ Defenders
And a back 3 of Van Hecke, De Cuyper and Konsa.
My suspicion was that Konsa comes in for the Chelsea game, and on that basis had to include him and thankfully he did. Mosquera has not been seen training even and it wouldn't be a surprise if Konsa just keeps starting week in week out now, I don't think Arteta takes any chances when Man City are also on 9 points either.
Arsenal are top of the GW4 clean sheet odds with a 50% chance, Chelsea are second on 46%. Liverpool 34%, Palace and Spurs 32%, Brighton and Villa 31%. Raya was a really difficult call because 6m is a lot and needs to be clocking in regular clean sheets, which seems plausible barring injuries to key Arsenal defenders. It also meant passing up on Calafiori which was an incredibly tough call as well given his upside.
It might not happen but at some point in the future he may become a rotation risk so I decided to get ahead of that possibility and go for some other solid defenders like Van Hecke, De Cuyper and Thiaw.
De Cuyper got an assist last match, he takes corners on the right side, so between him and Gross you've got every dead ball covered and the upside is big playing out of position left wing 🎯. I was quite impressed by Coventry's showing vs Man City so this might not be an easy game by any stretch. The hope is that Mitoma is still a while away so that you get the benefit of Sunderland in GW6, Palace home GW7 but if it comes to it he's sellable before then.