Fantasy Football Tips Gameweek 6

Welcome to Fantasy Football Tips Gameweek 6

After what could best be described as a sketchy week for most we pull our socks back up and begin again in earnest on Saturday with GW6. Here are our picks for the coming GW, for those looking to make the odd tweak.

Mark Flekken (Brentford, 4.5m)

(Photo by PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images)

Starting off from the back for this week’s choices, with a quick look at goalkeepers. In particular, Mr. Flekken of Brentford who is facing Everton at home.

Now we know keeper transfers are considered a bit of luxury transfer so this may not be your go to transfer if you don’t have him, but for now let’s just look at this current week, who might be a preferred option and where that takes us.

Let’s look at the opposition first, Everton has scored an impressive two goals from just five games and that’s with those two scored against Sheffield Utd away. They have and xG of 7.5, though the majority of that comes from their Sheff.Utd. and Fulham games. In other words, not promising.

The Bees on the other hand have a decent defensive record and sit joint 5th/6th in expected goals against with Liverpool and similarly so with actual 6 goals conceded sit 6th in the ”defence table”. They have recorded just the clean sheet vs. Fulham, but let’s be honest here – there haven’t been alot of clean sheets waved around thus far.

That’s it, short and neat. A decent choice for the week to come. Operation target Luton (Sá) or Sheffield (Pope) are also perfectly reasonable choices of course. You big spender you. I’ll save me pennies and have a look at Flekken if that’s alright with you!

Gabriel Magalhaes (Arsenal, 4.8m)

(Photo by Hans van der Valk/BSR AgencyGetty Images)

Everyone owned this guy in pre-season but then he randomly did not start. Arteta preferred Timber. Well we are back to where we started now with Timber being injured and Gabriel now back in favour. Gabriel has had a price drop to 4.8 now which is cheap for an Arsenal defender. Everything said about Gabriel in pre-season is still true, he had the highest xG for a defender last season and he plays in one of the best defences in the league. Arsenal have the second best xGC in the league this season at just 4.05, only bettered by Manchester City. At 4.8 he’s now at a price where you can easily bench him for the tougher matches. Fixtures, granted, are not the best, however that could mean Arsenal set up more defensively and I’d still expect some clean sheets. Don’t be afraid to go back to Gabriel, even if like me you previously took him out.

Sven Botman (Newcastle United, 4.5m)

(Photo by Jonathan Moscrop/Getty Images)

I’m tipping the joint cheapest asset of Botman for Newcastle coverage here, however all the assets of Burn (4.5) , Schar (5.0) and Trippier (6.5) are very strong options. On the whole you get what you pay for with the more expensive options carrying more of an attacking threat so it’s a personal preference, and whether you feel that attacking threat is worth the extra cash. Newcastle, quite impressively, and despite their tough opening, have the fourth best xGC rate in the league at just 5.45. They have played Brentford, Aston Villa, Manchester City, Liverpool and Brighton in this run, who are all teams that traditionally score goals. The appeal now is the upcoming fixtures for Newcastle – Sheffield United (A),Burnley (H), West Ham (A), Palace (H) and Wolves (A), which should in theory see them come away with a few clean sheets. Botman does not carry too much attacking threat but at 4.5 you can just use him as a squad player who you can rotate in and out, which appeals to me.

Julian Alvarez (Manchester City, 6.8m)

(Photo by Alex Livesey – Danehouse/Getty Images)

At 23, Julian Alvarez has won everything in the game. Another 2 goals midweek in the Champions league to add to his 2 goals and 5 assists already in the Premier League. Quite simply Alvarez is on fire currently with confidence clearly running very high after making the shortlist for the Ballon d’or. Alvarez appears to be on most set-pieces as well, being on most free kicks and corners, which is always a great avenue to FPL points. In the first five Gameweeks, Alvarez is averaging 3.21 chances created per 90 minutes. For context, in terms of numbers, that’s just short of De Bruyne’s figure (3.59) at the same stage last year. The only downside I could find was Julian Alvarez has 5 assists from a xA of 1.24 so far, which does suggest he is over performing.

Pep is very pleased with what Alvarez is doing on the pitch and why listen to me when we have Pep at hand : “He deserves it, every single game he is working, scoring and making assists. He deserves it…” . After his showing against West Ham, saying, “[Ilkay] Gundo[gan] left and unfortunately with the injury to Kevin [De Bruyne] he has his chance and he is using it. Now, he is almost undroppable.” These are very encouraging signs that Alvarez is going to continue to play and what’s not to like having an attacker in form, playing for the best team in the country.

And now for something completely different ….

Operation Luton’s Derby Record

(Photo by Mark Leech/Offside/Getty Images)

Now let’s have a look at operation target Luton. They face Wolves at home, and granted they do seem to be decent at home, but they also seem dead set on beating Derby’s woeful record in the EPL. They have lost all four games so far and have conceded a wholesome 10 goals. To their credit, Wolves and Burnley currently have conceded more, but from five games and at any rate that’s a low bar – not being the absolute worst, only just. I’d say so at least.

Wolves’ form isn’t great, but they have been scoring goals. Well, five from five games, but that’s more than many expected them to! The recent form of Neto (MID 5.5), Hee-Chan (MID 5.5) or Cunha (FWD 5.5) may be of interest if you were to play around with the idea of some enablers for the week with the added bonus of playing Luton.

Neto has 4 assists in the last three and a pretty decent expected goal involvement. Similarly so for Hee-Chan, their topscorer with three goals, and also a decent expected goal involvement. Finally, if you need a Forward then Cunha is probably your guy. He has decent xGI, but so far only a single goal against the eagles to show for it.

That concludes this week’s summary of Operation Luton. In other dubious defensive records’ news, the magpies face Sheffield, the citeh bois face Forest, Burnley face the devils (or was it the other way ’round? Hehe…) and Matt’s belowed eagles face Fulham. We just happened to think Luton, probably, is the worst of the lot…

Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Tips Gameweek 6. This article was written by FF247.

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