Fantasy Football Tips Gameweek 22

Welcome to Fantasy Football Tips Gameweek 22

We are back after what feels like the longest game week EVER! Bloody hell did GW21 take forever to end. Spread over 10 days starting with the rescheduled GW2 fixture Burnley vs Luton which was as boring as it sounds finishing 1-1 and ending with an even more boring 0-0 draw between Brighton and Wolves……………..

Oops sorry I even fell asleep just typing that sentence!

Thankfully there were some exciting games in the middle with the returns of KdB with a goal and assist, Toney with a goal and even Hojlund managed to get amongst the FPL points.

Take a look below at the tips we have for you and see if they tickle your fancy!

Defenders

Diogo Dalot (5.1) vs Wolves (a) – Jamie Mc

The train now approaching platform three of Warrington Bank Quay to Glasgow Central has been cancelled and is now terminating at Preston.

Well after a lovely long weekend in Liverpool; Penny Lane-ing, Strawberry Fielding and Ferry Across the Mersey-ing, I was brought crashing back to earth with the above-mentioned train announcement. To cut a long story short and with a lot of good fortune then I managed to get a free taxi journey home to Glasgow. The 184-mile taxi journey up the M6 / M74 was quite traumatic with high winds and aquaplaning on long stretches of the motorway. To be honest my heart was not really in Fantasy Football but I did log in to see Virgil pick up a nice six points for my team. However, there was not even a glow of satisfaction in seeing my game week 21 article pick; Diogo Jota pick up, a best of the game week, nineteen points.

I JUST WANTED HOME!

Well, I hope you did take my advice and brought in Jota for Salah last game week and even better if you had the foresight to place the armband on him. Moving onto GW22… well, the first thing to be aware of is that this long weekend is actually FA Cup 4th Round weekend with the gameweek not commencing until Tuesday so care should be taken on the timing of your free weekly transfer. I am jumping off one Diogo and jumping onto another Diogo. I present for your consideration; Manchester United’s Diogo Dalot – £5.1m with only 3.4% ownership.

Why should you pick this marauding right-back playing left-back I hear you ask? Don’t you just love Ten Hag’s Dutch Total Football approach? Well Manchester United do have a fixture in GW26 now that the EFL Cup Finalists are known and the impact on two game week 26 fixtures being cancelled (Chelsea v Spurs & Liverpool v Luton Town). Dalot has by far the most playing minutes (1,644) for any Manchester United defender which is nearly double the amount of playing time compared to their next fit defender. Dalot currently has 59 points which is 19th for all defenders in the game. Dalot has managed five clean sheets, scoring one goal and providing one assist along with being awarded eight bonus points.

At the time of writing, 11,681 managers have transferred Dalot into their squad with 10,831 managers deciding to now go without. Dalot is currently at 3.3% (79,524 further transfers required) in FPL Statistics for any price rise. Manchester United have a decent run of fixtures over the next five game weeks verses Wolverhampton Wanderers (a), West Ham United (h), Aston Villa (a), Luton Town (a) & Fulham (h) with only the Villa game rated above 2 in the Fixture Difficulty Ranking.

One last thing about my visit to Liverpool; God I love looking at that Royal Liver Building.

Man City Def vs Burnley (h) – Matt

With Man City’s great upcoming fixtures plus a DGW on the near horizon a City triple up will be in all active teams. One player will likely be Haaland, another probably Foden, KdB or Alvarez, but that final spot is up for grabs and having a City defender or two on the watchlist to choose from might be a shrewd move. With the run of fixtures, the most nailed defender in that City backline continues to be Kyle Walker. He has started every league game under Pep which not even no.1, Ederson has managed! That fact of minutes is enough for most people it seems which is probably why he is the most owned City defender by some distance on 17.9% with Rúben Dias the nearest on 6.5%. In GW21, Walker rewarded his owners with 6 points despite conceding 2 goals thanks to his assist and 2 bonus points. Over the last six games the veteran defender has an xGI of 0.25 compared to the 0.13 from the rest of this season and a meagre 0.07 from last season. He has had 1.5 touches in the box over the last 6 games so he is getting forward a lot more than he has in the past. He is one player I am definitely keeping an eye on.

One downside to the City defence is the lack of clean sheets this season with only 5. The underlying stats still have Man City as one of the most defensively strong sides in the league despite this fact. They are ranked 1st for the fewest shots conceded and 2nd best for xGC. Why have they only got 5 clean sheets then? Unlucky? Maybe it will improve.

If you don’t have the 5.4 mil to afford Walker then maybe a good ol’ differential from little ol’ me 😉 Coming in at £4.8m and owned by only 3.3%, Croatian Josko Gvardiol could be a cheeky way into the strong backline. Having played 60+ minutes in 6 of the last 7 games is enough for me to tip him here and maybe take the punt on him. Below I have a side by side comparison of Walker vs Gvardiol. You can make your decision on which is better but there really isn’t a lot splitting the two.

PRICE = 5.4 VS 4.8
XG = 0.01 VS 0.07
XA = 0.08 VS 0.04
BPS = 0.3 VS 0.07
XFPL PTS = 4.36 VS 4.37

Midfielders – Matt

Now this one is a frustrating pick but one I think we just need to grin and bear for the moment. Bukayo Saka, the Gunners star boy, possibly the 2nd best RW in the league and someone who has amazing stats BUT it just isn’t coming through in points lately. Saka has six goals and eight assists this season with an xG of 6.91 and xA of 6.82. These are amazing stats and from GW1 until GW15, Saka only blanked in 3 GWs getting returns in 12 of the 15 games. Unfortunately, in the last six games he has only grabbed one assist and 5 blanks. His stats don’t correlate with his returns though as he is still hitting an xG of 2.34 and an xA of 1.95 in those six games. It suggests he has maybe been unlucky with how things have gone lately and hopefully he shall soon go back to being the golden boy banging in the returns!

While blanking Saka is still, in my eyes at least, the talisman for Arsenal with a 34% goal involvement and seems to still be on penalties. This dual threat of both goals and assists is exactly what we look for in players so I think if you own Saka, keep the faith as my old college tutor would say.
The best reason to keep that faith is the fixture for the Gunners this week is Nottingham Forest who are ranked the tied fourth worst team in the league for goals conceded. Arsenal are the 180 flip of this and are ranked fourth for goals scored, have an xG of 40.95 and are the bookies 3rd favourite to score over 2 goals this week.

Forest haven’t kept a clean sheet in their last 10 games and their fans are complaining about their keeper again so will there be another swap between the sticks? Will they dip into the transfer market? Who knows but I do know they won’t have a new signing brought in before the visit of Arsenal. One thing that might be useful to know is where exactly the majority of chances conceded come from for Forest. Unfortunately, it is not the correct wing but rather the right side so it might actually be left winger, Gabriel Martinelli who is the one we should have for this week’s match up. I will be sticking with Saka and hoping that Forest have shored up that right side by weakening their left!

A big positive, apart from the scoreline, in the Arsenal-Palace game was Arteta seemed to tweak his tactics and brought his wingers back inside a bit more. This definitely worked as Saka was playing more centrally and rotating with Jesus while Martinelli bagged a brace after a five-game goal drought! Hopefully this tweak will improve the output for Saka sooner rather than later. He will be the scapegoat for a lot of teams who might be looking to bring Salah back when he returns or maybe even a double up from Man City.

Now this pick is one that hurts me because the other writers know I have a special love for Palace and this man in particular. Eberechi Eze is a majestic, beautiful man and he has just had a tough time this season. LEAVE EZE ALONE! . The youngster has three goals and two assists in 11 starts this season, although he has really struggled with his injuries and has been in and out of the team but hopefully he has put his troubles behind him since his return in GW17.

The massive downside to Palace is they have only got 1 win in 10 games. That is a horrific run of form and Big Woy’s name is quickly being put down on retirement homes in the Greater London area. However, they have the best fixture of this round and probably the best fixture of the season… a game at home against bottom of the table, Sheffield United. The Blades have conceded the most goals in the league (51), an xGC of 39.7 and are favourites to be relegated. Surely, this should mean Palace, and therefore Eze, get plenty of chances.

Eze will be given the talisman tag once more with Olise still struggling with his hamstring. This should mean everything will go through the midfielder who should be back taking the penalties. He has both the goal and assist threat we want and when fit is nailed to start. He might not have reached the 15 G/A contributions from last season but we know he can do it so hopefully this is the best match for him to kickstart his form. The bookies and AI programs have him at 36% chance to score anytime and a prediction of 5.0 FPL points. Not magical numbers but hopefully a solid return.

Anything is better than a blank!

Forwards – Matt

Right! Let’s just start with stating the obvious, Haaland is starting to reboot, KdB is picking up steam and so Alvarez might be looking over his shoulder and choosing which seat he’ll take on the bench. We can’t get a straight answer out of that sneaky Spaniard in regards to Haaland so the big question this week is whether to replace Alvarez or keep him. I’m going to roll the dice and hope he starts this week in what should be a very nice fixture for City.

The Argentinian World Cup Winner has registered six goals and eight assists this season, with an xG of 7.3 and an xA of 4.8. He will hopefully still stay on the pitch as he is an ever-present this season but will his form drop with maybe being pushed into a different position? I honestly worry that he will spend a bit more time on his arse now that more players are available.

City have the 2nd best fixture of GW22 with a home game against Burnley. Kompany has not had a fun time back in the Premier League with his side conceding the second most goals (42) and an xGC of 35.8. These are not stats you want to see but on the other side you don’t want to see the team with the most goals in the league (48) coming at you and they have played one game less than 18 other teams in the league! This could be a long night for Burnley. The bookies also have City down as having a 67% chance of scoring over 2 goals which makes them favourites.

Haaland and KdB may both have their minutes managed so Alvarez should still be a good option here and possibly even a captaincy candidate. Alvarez is the second favourite to score anytime at 56% and is predicted to score 5.0 FPL points in AI prediction programs. Will you be sticking by the young striker?

Next up, this man was banned for 8 months and he returned to grab 8 points. You know who I’m talking about I’m sure, the bad boy, Ivan Toney. He came back last week against Nottingham Forest and scored a solid free-kick and all 3 bonus points. This wasn’t all nice and easy though because where Toney goes, controversy follows as that nice free-kick wasn’t exactly legal I suppose! He just wanted a better angle

While he may have been making his first footballing appearance for 8 months he managed to show there was no fitness worries by playing all 90 minutes and looked pretty decent on the pitch. Last season he was the third top goal scorer and he has picked up right where he left off grabbing that goal in his first professional game since May 2023. He bagged 20 goals last season and while I highly doubt he will reach double digits with the remaining games he has obviously stayed in great shape and could have a point to prove. I’m sure he’d back himself though!

Brentford have really struggled in recent weeks with the win against Forest ending a five game losing streak. Along with that streak they are the second worst team for goals scored (12) only beating Sheffield United (8), the losses of Wissa and Mbuemo on top of the absence of Toney has really hurt the Bees. This return of their captain couldn’t come at a better time as they are about to hit some tough fixtures from now to GW28 having Spurs, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and City x2 they will need all the firepower they can get. Their DGW might make you go for them just from hearing the letters ‘DGW’ but those two fixtures are against Liverpool and City…. Not teams I’d want to be coming up against.

While I don’t think Brentford will rip teams apart over the next while maybe just having Toney as an extra body will be important. Brentford are the only team who have a double in GW25, don’t blank in GW26 and won’t blank in GW29. This makes Brentford players a tough call… nailed games vs difficulty of games.

Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Tips Gameweek 22. This article was written by JamieMc and Matt.

Follow @FantasyFooty247

VOTE ON THIS WEEK’S CAPTAIN POLL

FPL FIXTURE TRACKER

Both leagues will be shut to new entrants as of 01/01/24.