FPL Captain Picks GW3

And the winner last week was of course… anybody who chanced the Triple Captain chip on Erling. 51 points if you did so, and you can happily chalk that off as a successful use of that particular chip for the season. After all, enough of us remember such DGW disasters as Kane with an assist, etc. The (only) downside there was that nearly everyone else captained him too, so just a 17 point jump start there. Whilst GW2 looked fairly obvious in the armband respect, GW3 looks less so. As such we have wheeled our team out to purvey the options for you. Off we go…

Loud Atlas — Bukayo Saka v Brighton & Hove Albion

(Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

No spoilers or anything, and sorry to disappoint, but Saka is going to be my vice captain this week. Yes, I can’t even persuade myself to look past a certain Norwegian for the armband (no, not Sander Berge, you joker!).

Arsenal have started strongly – two 2-0 wins. Saka has a goal and two assists so far (18 points, including two bonus points!), not bad for someone who had a long hard summer at the Euros (looking at you, Rashford…what’s your excuse?!…ahem…). Bukayo continues to be a strong option in an attacking side, threatening to bend one on his left peg at every opportunity (according to FPL’s stats, he has the second most Threat, behind Salah). He’s an eminently likeable young chap, too, and I can’t see his points tally dwindling any time soon.

Saka’s opposition in gameweek three is Brighton & Hove Albion. Recent history backs the Gunners to win – yes times, players and managers change, but Arsenal have won the last two meetings, winning 0-3 and 2-0 respectively.

Another strong start in August has seen Brighton become one of the in-form teams, alongside Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool, but they’ve had a pretty easy couple of games, let’s face it. The Seagulls won comfortably against an unsettled Everton in gameweek one, and then against (but only just!) a misfiring Man Utd last weekend. They’ve been lulled into a false sense of security – that new manager bounce, exciting new (and old!) players, and have had enough time to ride on that particular wave of emotion after beating United again. But this week Brighton and their young new manager, Fabian Hürzeler, get a Saka-shaped wake up call. Goals, assists, penalties – the kid’s got it all.

Matt – Mo Salah vs Man United (A)

(Photo by Eston Parker/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

It’s Mo Salah and we all know this lad is already a FPL legend and a Liverpool legend. I don’t need to convince you too much but I’ll give you some stats and a little bit of discussion about the man who will be taking charge in the middle on Sunday in case you are worried about that!

Liverpool have been given a 38% chance of scoring 2 or more goals this weekend. This puts them tied 3rd best odds with Chelsea, behind only Man City and Arsenal. Decent enough odds to get 2 goals so you would think they definitely score one. I don’t think United keep them out as Pool are looking just as scary up top under Slot as they did under Klopp.

Looking at the odds for Salah, he has been given the 2nd best for odds for an anytime assist with a 26% chance. He only sits behind KdB who plays West Ham. Points predictions has Mo scoring a solid 8.6 points this weekend which is 2nd only to Haaland on 9.8 points. These are all nice viewing if you fancy the Egyptian.

Most of Liverpool’s chances so far this season are coming from the middle and the right with 12 and 11, respectively. This is largely due to Trent, Szobo and Salah all linking well on that right side and creating space for Jota in the middle or someone else cutting inside. Something else that’s interesting is that the attacks from the right-hand side aren’t usually ending in crosses but rather shots or passes with only 7 crosses on the right compared to 12 on the left. Now something that could be important is that United have been more solid on their left-hand side this season with more of their weaknesses and chances conceded on the right so the likes of Diaz or Robbo could have more chances but only time will tell.

Mo loves to play Man United and his record in the league against them is 13 appearances, 11 goals and 4 assists. He also has 5 yellow cards but that’s for taking his shirt off in celebration. He has blanked 6 times but four of those times came in his first two seasons at Liverpool. He has returned 7 times in the last 9 games played. Basically, it’s very rare for him to not return when playing United.

Just something else that I, and many Liverpool fans, are worried about is the ref. Anthony Taylor, a Manchester-born referee, has been assigned to officiate. This decision has sparked controversy among Liverpool fans, who are unhappy about Taylor’s Manchester roots. However, I looked at Taylor’s record with Liverpool games and they have fared well under his supervision.

In their previous four encounters with Taylor as the referee, Liverpool have won three times (4-2 and 5-0 victories in the 2020/21 and 2021/22 seasons) and drawn once (last season’s 2-2 stalemate at Old Trafford). On the other hand, United have won only once (a 1-0 victory at Anfield in 2017), drawn twice (including last season’s 2-2 draw), and lost twice (including a 5-0 defeat in the 2021/22 season). Taylor has refereed Liverpool more than any other club in his career: 58 times in total. Of those, Liverpool have won 32, drawn 16 and lost 10, meaning they do have a better record with him as a referee than either Manchester United or Manchester City.

Now, it’s notable there that Liverpool have a worse-than-normal winning percentage but Taylor has typically been in charge of big games where the Reds have been less likely to win than normal. Two of those defeats were against Manchester City, for example, another two against Arsenal, one against 2015 champions Chelsea. Another was on penalties to Burnley in 2010. Liverpool did lose their most recent fixture with Taylor in charge – the 3-1 against Arsenal. Before that, though, the Reds did go 15 games unbeaten with him as the referee. They’ve also benefitted from three penalties in their last three Taylor-reffed games. In fact, Taylor has given more penalties to Liverpool than he has any other side (14).

But the real problem here is that he’s in charge of a game between Liverpool and one of his local teams. So what’s the record there?
Taylor has managed eight fixtures between Liverpool and one of the two Manchester sides. Liverpool have won three of these and lost two.
• Games vs Manchester teams: 8
• Wins: 3
• Draws: 3
• Defeats: 2

But in terms of winning against Manchester teams with Taylor on the pitch, the Reds really don’t need to worry about anything. The last two times he refereed this exact fixture, Liverpool won convincingly – including their record 0-5 win at Old Trafford.

I was worried but after doing the research I don’t know if we should be too worried and perhaps Mo will benefit from a penalty this weekend.

Matt – Bryan Mbeumo vs Saints (H)

You all know I love my differentials and in lieu of no tips this week I wanted to champion a differential captain pick instead. That person is the man who may look 35 but is surprisingly only 25 so is fully in his prime, Bryan Mbeumo!

Ivan Toney looks to have agreed a transfer to either Chelsea or Al Ahli. I’ve seen tweets with bids from both clubs accepted so I don’t know which will happen but either way it looks like the English striker will be on the move before the transfer window closes. This should be good news for the Cameroonian attacker. Just have a look at these stats below:

Stats since 22/23 with Toney: 12 attacking returns, (5 goals and 7 assists, 3.37 points per game.

Stats since 22/23 without Toney: 23 attacking returns (14 goals and 9 assists, 6.56 points per game.

For me, this shows that Mbeumo flourishes when Toney is not there! HE becomes the new talisman and absolutely thrives on that tag. This could be the differential of the weekend if everything clicks into place.

Mbeumo has started the season well with a goal in 2 games. He has started with a xG of 0.12, xA of 0.57, xGI of 0.69 all meaning it is 17.9 minutes per FPL point. There has also been a brilliant partnership developed between himself and Wissa that I think could be fruitful now that it will be the main two.
Looking at the odds, Brentford have a 31% chance of scoring 2 or more goals which isn’t far off the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea, City and Arsenal for seeing goals this weekend.

There is also a 38% chance for a clean sheet based on the fact, Forest only had to deal with 5 shots from Southampton so there could be an extra point for the midfielder.

Saints conceded 6 big chances against Forest putting them tied with Everton. They also conceded 23 shots and 2.45 xG. It should have been a goalfest for the Nottingham side. Could Brentford feast this weekend? Probably!

Something else that’s improved Mbeumo’s appeal is that he should be the new penalty taker with Toney leaving the club. If you fancy a punt, take the Brentford man and if you are feeling extra reckless put the armband on him too!

Jamie Mc — Palmer v Palace (H)

(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

I hope that the season has started well for you with your team looking in good shape.

Hopefully you have not needed to rage use your first wildcard chip to sort out any poor pre-season choices that you made to your team. Talking of using chips, a massive round of applause to those managers that decided to activate your triple captain chip (in game week 2 as well) for the “Robots” 17 points haul; a chip well played.

As we move into game week 3 there is in my opinion no outstanding top against bottom type of fixture with very similar teams playing against each other this game week.

So, who to captain…. I present for your consideration Chelsea’s Cole Palmer. Fresh off his own 17 points haul via a goal and three assists at Wolves with a couple of bonus points thrown in for good measure. Palmer is currently owed by 38.5% of managers which makes him the fourth most popular player and most popular midfielder in the game.

At the time of writing, 501,461 managers have transferred Palmer into their squad with a surprising 125,624 managers deciding to now go without.
For any managers considering transferring Palmer into their squad then a word of advice, FPL Statistics has at the time of writing Palmer at 98.6% with only 1,778 nett transfers required for a £0.1m price increase.

For any manager planning in transferring Palmer into their squad then please be aware that Chelsea have a Conference League qualifying second leg away in Switzerland on Thursday night. With Chelsea leading 2.0 from the first leg then I don’t expect Palmer to travel never mind play.

Chelsea have a run of good fixtures over the next five game weeks at home to Palace, Brighton & Forest with away games at Bournemouth & West Ham. All five of these opponents have a Fixture Difficulty Ranking of 2 according to the game.

If you don’t own Haaland then this is an obvious captain choice as Palmer was after all the top points scorer in the game last season. If you do own Haaland then this is a very tempting captain choice as Palmer was after all the top points scorer in the game last season.

Inittowinit — Haaland v West Ham (A)

(Photo by Visionhaus/Getty Images)

So that’s now 10 Man City hat-tricks for Erling, 7 in the Premier League. He achieved the full 10 in 101 games, the 7 in 68. Rooney got 7, but in 491 games. Owen, Kane and Henry got 8, but in 326, 320 and 258 games. So yeah, he’s good. With the lack of anything else to tell or inspire you we thought we’d look at how he follows up his hauls, in respect of the old adage(s); ‘he won’t do that every week’ (he almost does), and ‘don’t go chasing points’ (do, with him).

Soooooo….

1. vs Palace GW4 2022.
Next game – 3 vs Forest in GW5!

2. See above.
Next game – scored 1 away at Villa in GW6

3. vs Man Utd GW9 2022.
Next game – scored 2 vs Copenhagen in the CL in midweek and then 1 vs Saints in GW10

4. vs Wolves GW10 2023.
Next game (ish, difficult to tell but it was 2 weeks later!) – scored 1 vs Arsenal away

5. vs Fulham GW4 2023.
Next game – scored 1 away vs West Ham in GW5

6. vs Wolves GW35 2023. 4 goals
Next game – 2 vs Spurs away, GW36

7. vs Ipswich GW2 2024.

Possibly also worth noting that when he got 5 vs Copenhagen he followed that up with 3 vs Burnley in the FA Cup that weekend. Likewise, 5 vs Luton was followed by 1 vs Man Utd.

Other than the fact that he’s not exactly shy about cracking on the week after, the main notable thing here is probably that the 7 PL hat-tricks have all been at home. Which is a bit of a bugger this week. But aside from that, not much not to like here really, is there?!

Thanks for reading Captain Picks GW3. This article was written by Matt X, Loud Atlas, Jamie Mc and Inittowinit.

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