Fantasy Football Tips Gameweek 5

Welcome to Fantasy Football Tips Gameweek 5

We have a new format for this week’s tips article. We’ll still be bringing you our usual and more comprehensive tips article every 3-4 weeks, which tends to mention every player under the sun, and also focuses on a more long-term approach. But in the interim, we’ll bring a more frequent, laser-guided article, in which we’ll be looking at 5 or so players with the specific incoming game-week in mind, along with a bonus ‘flying under-the-radar pick.

This week Rosco, Jamie Mc, Init, Stone Frog and Dylan are on duty, Let’s go see what they have to say, yeah?

Keeper – Bernd Leno – Jamie Mc

(Photo by James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)

When initially selecting our squads, there are different strategies that us fantasy football managers use when picking our goalkeepers.
The more expensive Manchester City / Liverpool / Newcastle United goalkeepers at £5.5m. The thought processes no doubt is that a goalkeeper from one of these teams should always play and are more likely to have the most clean sheets during the course of the season, but probably fewer save & bonus points.

Then there are the more popular mid-price goalkeepers in the £4.5m price bracket. We all recognise that these goalkeepers will have fewer clean sheets during the course of the season but much more likely to obtain save points and perhaps bonus points each game week. This type of goalkeeper allows us to invest more heavily on the attacking players, particularly of City & Liverpool and not “waste” one of our valuable City / Pool slots on a defensive player.

Some managers like the two £4.5m rotating option of goalkeepers, depending on the fixture. This option is not a favourite of mine, as I usually chose the wrong goalkeeper in the game week!

Some managers like the £4.0m second goalkeeping option, especially if they are playing £4.0m goalkeeper, but are more likely to be kept on your bench.

The Rule of Thumb is that no more than £8.5m / £9.0m should be spent on your two goalkeepers.

The goalkeeping position is very much a “Set & Forget” as we don’t like using our free transfer on a goalkeeper unless we have to.

Can I therefore present to you Fulham goalkeeper Bernd Leno (£4.6m with 11.5% ownership and is the 6th most popular goalkeeper in the game).

As expected, Leno has started all 4 league games this season and currently has 19 points, which is 3rd place for all goalkeepers. These 19 points can be broken down as follows: – 8 points for playing all 90 minutes, 4 points for one clean sheet, 6 save points & 5 bonus points (over 2 games) offset by losing 4 points for goals conceded.

It should be noted that Leno has had a price increase of £0.1m this game week and is currently at 1.3% (238,708 further transfers required) in FPL Statistics so you will need money in the bank if you intend to swap your £4.5m goalkeeper directly to Leno.

At the time of writing, 106,371 managers have transferred Leno into their squad with 31,129 managers deciding to now go without.
Fulham have favourable fixtures over the next 4 game weeks verses Luton Town (h), Crystal Palace (a), Chelsea (h) and Sheffield United (h) until the next international break after game week 8.

So, if you are on a wildcard, or have a free transfer to spare, then Leno may be someone that you are prepared to consider. If you already have him and intend to wildcard after game week 8 then Leno can be transferred out when his fixtures then change for the worse to someone else with more favourable ones.

Defender – Destiny Udogie – Rosco

Harry who? Spurs fans were probably more than a little worried that the sale of their talisman left them woefully short of attacking options. Indeed, they could have found themselves in dire straits if they had to rely solely on a certain Brazilian. Thankfully the team in general looks far happier under new manager Ange Postecoglou and shows no lack of attacking intent, with 11 goals (only Brighton have scored more) in their opening 4 matches.

One player who has stood out is 20-year-old Italian left-back Destiny Udogie (£4.7m). Udogie was signed from Udinese last summer for a £21m fee, then swiftly sent back on loan for the year. This season he has featured in every match for Spurs, keeping the likes of Ben Davies and Ivan Perisic watching from the bench, and thus far, it’s easy to see why.

With two clean sheets and two assists on the board, Udogie is the third-highest-scoring defender in the game, so perhaps it’s no surprise more than 236k managers have already brought him in this game week. Those who play the fixtures will likely hold off given that it’s Arsenal (A) in GW6, swiftly followed by Liverpool (H) in GW7, but you only have to look to Spurs 2-0 win over Manchester United in GW2 to know that sometimes a bad fixture on paper is just that.

But we’re not here to discuss GW6 or 7. This week it’s Sheffield Utd (H) and no team has conceded as many shots (86) as the Blades. Furthermore, no team has conceded as many chances from their right flank (24). Perhaps non-owners have been lucky so far, this one has double-digits for that man Destiny, written in the stars.

Midfielder – Son Heung-min – Init

(Photo by Visionhaus/Getty Images)

It was probably only a matter of time until this happened, but it took a few games of Richarlison being…. Richarlison, until Ange eventually twigged. He did however claim afterwards that this was always ‘the masterplan’, and that Son was the main reason that they did not necessarily pursue a direct ‘No9’ replacement for ‘Arry. Which does somewhat beg the question as to why it took three games to play Son up top… either way, he did get there in the end, and the result was of course a hat-trick.

Now this is not to say that we should expect similar returns week in-week out, but the signs here are that good that we should at least pay attention to them. Namely that Son already had a near 1 in 2 goal record for Spurs, over nearly 400 games. Ok, so technically it’s 0.39, at 145 in 375, but that’s not far off!

The main point about the above stats though is that the vast majority of those were as a winger, or at best as a support striker to Kane. Whatever his position, he was always playing second fiddle, at least in terms of chances offered up. With Kane out of the way this could be his panacea. He has a distinct advantage over Richarilson – he knows where the goal is. And he has the stats to back that up. If he plays up top all season then I’d expect 20 goals minimum, and possibly more like 30 if Spurs are going to continue to be more attacking and aggressive. And that’s at 5 points a pop, as a mid. I’d be more than willing to jump on that train before it leaves the station. It’s almost a bullet-proof one, just like Kim’s, ironically…

Oh, and he has a distinct habit of scoring in clusters, like a clear history of getting 6/7 in as many games, before going blank for a few weeks, and then rinse/repeat. But again, that was as a winger. This may be just blanket goals….

Forward(s) – Taiwo Awoniyi – Stone Frog

(Photo by Rob Newell – CameraSport via Getty Images)

Can I tempt you with a 6.6m forward with more points than Salah, less than 5% ownership, and upcoming home fixtures against Burnley and Luton?

Continuing from a strong end to last season, Taiwo Awoniyi has returned in all 4 games so far, including trips to Arsenal, Man Utd and Chelsea, registering 3 goals and an assist. This week sees Burnley visit the City Ground, who have conceded a leaky 11 goals in just 3 games. Before getting too excited, there is the shadow of a trip to the Etihad next week, but once beyond this there is a reasonable run culminating in Luton in GW9. To temper expectations, he does play for Forest, and stats wise he has overperformed xG (1.8) so far, but at least this is a less frustrating ride than some…

Forward(s) – Nicolas Jackson – Dylan

(Photo by Eddie Keogh/Getty Images)

I’m so sure of this pick, I’d even be tempted to put the armband on him this week…

Hear me out: He’s put up an xG of 3.71 and an xA of 0.57. Those are INSANE underlying stats, suggestive of a super-haul that could be super-imminent. After all, Chelsea have created more big chances than any other team this season, and Jackson’s runs are deep and relentless. If Sterling maintains his current form, it’s a matter of time before Jackson starts finishing what Raheem is creating.

He’s also the most transferred-out player this game week (236,779 at the time of writing) which is increasing his differential value by the hour.

Haaland’s away to high-flying West Ham – the type of fixture in which the Norwegian could conceivably be kept quiet(ish). It’s as good a game week as any for a mega-punt.

If you’ve got the bottle, that is…

Under-the-radar pick – Mousa Diaby – Rosco

We’re spoilt for choice with midfielders this season. Those who have gone without Mo Salah have probably not regretted the decision (yet) all that much, with 10 midfielders outscoring him and all for a significantly smaller financial outlay. With the likes of Mbuemo, Maddsion, Bowen, Sterling and even Rodrigo garnering so much attention, one player who seems to be going a little under the radar is Moussa Diaby. Indeed, Diaby is one of the aforementioned 10 midfielders to outscore Salah, yet he’s owned by less than 10%, with 17 other midfielders proving more popular.

Villa have had mixed results in their opening 4. A thumping 5-1 defeat at the hands of my lot (Newcastle) in GW1 and a 3-0 defeat at Anfield in GW4 sandwich assured wins against Everton (4-1) and Burnley (3-1 ) in game-weeks 2 and 3 respectively. It’s Palace at home in GW5 and once they have Chelsea (A) and Brighton (H) out of the way in the following two game weeks, they have a sea of ‘green’ fixtures that run through to GW14.

Everyone will look to Ollie Watkins (£8.0m), and he’ll tick over nicely, but in Diaby (£6.6m) you’re getting an OOP midfielder for £1.4m less. The Frenchman already has 3 attacking returns (2 goals, 1 assist) and whilst the stats lovers will tell you he’s overperformed and point to a non-penalty xGI of 1.33, having watched him in person in GW1 I can tell you he looks a very good player. Get him in early because come GW8 I reckon he’ll not be flying under the radar much longer.

Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Tips Gameweek 5. This article was written by Rosco, Jamie Mc, Init, Stone Frog and Dylan.

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