Who are the best players to buy for GW6?
Some of you have activated the free hit or wildcard as well, so we'll talk about the best picks for the chips too.
🧤 Goalkeepers
First up are the goalkeepers, and of course it's Man City home to Burnley, the fixture you won't stop hearing about this week. That places Donnarumma top for GW6, almost consecutive clean sheets since making his debut if not for a brilliant lobbed goal by Martinelli in stoppage time. My wildcard is active and I'm giving some serious thought about which goalkeeper is the one long term, it could be 15+ gameweeks until the second wildcard so it's a big call to make and my favorite two are Donnarumma and Raya. They're above the rest for next 5 projections, though of course as I say we're actually talking more than just next 5 with keepers, they're the position that gets by far the least transfers spent.
The combinations are worth considering too, Donnarumma and Gabriel, Raya and Gvardiol. Or you could do double Arsenal or City defense and have three premiums in place there. Spurs have got Wolves home, Leeds away, Villa home which looks fantastic and has Vicario placed second this week, third after the two premiums for the next 5 gameweeks.
Every season we tend to get some cheap keepers outperform the premiums, right now Pope, Vicario and Roefs for 5 and 4.5m are ahead of Raya. Donnarumma we can't benchmark well given he's not played all. Petrovic is actually my favorite of the super cheap keepers though, only 4.5m and Bournemouth are looking totally unaffected by all those departures at the back over the summer, signs of a brilliant, competent manager in Iraola.
🛡️ Defenders
Defenders next and the list is Gvardiol, Pedro Porro, then Tarkowski this week. We were talking about Gvardiol in the transfer plans article, and how nailed he is. He's just back from injury not long ago, but certainly one of Pep's favorites, favored in LCB in a 2, arguably their best LCB in a 3 as well, plus he can play left back, though Ait-Nouri and O'Reilly are competing there too.
It's an important one to get a good read on in a wildcard, a free hit should be safe. Because if he ultimately missed 2 of the next 10 for example then you'd back Donnarumma to be the better pick, unless he can get an attacking return or 2 to make up the difference. I'm coming around to picking him on a wildcard.
At this stage it's worth reminding you that we have a lot of midweek football before GW6. Brighton, Burnley, Fulham, Chelsea, Wolves, Everton, Liverpool, Man City, Newcastle, Spurs, Arsenal, Forest and Villa all play before the next deadline. The latter two Europa, the others league cup. I'd like to see Gvardiol and Haaland get a rest midweek.
Ideally hold on to your transfers if you haven't got a chip active as well, it's a lot of mid-week football. Some managers are 50/50 between wildcarding and not though, so that is an example of a situation where you can go early to get ahead of price rises.
So Gvardiol, Porro, Tarkowski looks a great back 3 on a free hit this week, Senesi a really nice alternative third defender for 4.7m. A fantastic transfer chip or not this week, 66 defensive contributions this week - he and Tarkowski the only ones to do it in 100% of games so far.
No Arsenal defenders on the table this week, but on a wildcard I would recommend at least one with a longer term view. They've got a very good chance of ending the season with the most clean sheets, Gabriel is the nailed secure choice, bit more goal threat than Saliba historically. Timber and Calafiori riskier but higher upside, they may not start all games.
Avoid Williams despite the goal last match, it's Sunderland home which is great but after that the fixtures turn in a bad way with Newcastle, Chelsea and more beyond that. No problem keeping for one more week if you have him, he's great for GW6 in isolation.
We're spoiled with 4m defenders this season, Esteve, Rodon, Gudmundsson, Alderete, Hartman, Ekdal and so on. I'm looking at Rodon on the wildcard, Leeds fixtures are slightly better than Sunderland and Burnley's for a while, and he has 47 defensive contributions, averaging just under 10 per week.