FPL Tips Gameweek 4

Welcome to FPL Tips Gameweek 4.

The first and most important tip you’ll get this year is to buy players that are on penalty kick duties. This season has seen 20 kicks from the spot in the 28 games that have taken place. That’s an average of 0.71 awarded penalties per match. To put things in perspective 2018 saw 103 penalties for an average of 0.27 per match while in 2019 there were 92 for 0.24. Three game-weeks is still a small sample of course but these 20 penalties did not happen in a random way – they were a result of the new rules in place. Or of the interpretation (not) being made of them by the refs.

Speaking of which, another interesting way of looking at this is precisely from the perspective of the referees who awarded them. So, it seems that Anthony Taylor has an itchy whistle. The Cheshire arbitrator tops the table of awarded penalties in the last two seasons with 8 (0.25 PM) and 11 (0.34 PM) and is already on 4 with only two games. So just the 2 penalties per game then.

Which match will he be officiating in GW 4 I hear? Man Utd-Tottenham…….. Bruno Fernandes captain anyone? I can already see it, Eric Dier leaves the pitch for a quick toilet visit and the ref points to the spot based on … interpretation.
If you don’t like Anthony’s prospects (man we are now discussing the ref’s and not the players FPL potential…) you may look at Michael Oliver who leads the way with a whopping 5 PK awarded in 3 games for an average of 1.67. Mike has pedigree at this too with 8 and an average of 0.27 in the 2018/19 season. He’s appointed to Stamford Bridge so whoever gets the penalties when Jorginho is not on the pitch will probably have a chance from the spot.

Goalkeepers
Well, with that intro I probably should be looking at goalkeepers with good penalty saves stats. First up is Alisson Becker. The Liverpool shot stopper has faced 3 penalties in his 70 match career at Liverpool and he saved two of them for an average of 66.7%. Now Liverpool of course conceded vs Leeds and Arsenal but the clean sheet at Chelsea and a general improvement on the teams’ fitness that we witnessed against the Gunners probably tells us that he is very reliable for CS points in the foreseeable future. I appreciate that at 6.0 he is not cheap and he takes a Liverpool spot but if steady points is what you are looking for you can do worse than him.

A decent-ish alternative is Hugo Lloris. Sure, he’s capable of some comic defending now and again but other than that he should be fine between the sticks and he has saved 8 penalties from 30 strikes in his career. Rui Patricio could also be a good call with 3 saved from 8 and if Wolves get their act together, which they should given the opposition this week, he’s also good for CS points.

The best value pick tough is probably Emiliano Martinez. He faces Liverpool this week so perhaps not the best shout given Salah’s (or Milner’s) conversion rate, but long term he can prove to be a shrewd investment. He tops the GK table at the moment with only two games in his pocket. I appreciate that is mainly due to stopping (the legend that is / was) John Lundstram’s penalty kick in GW 2 but with two clean sheets in two games he would still top the Points Per Match table had that penalty not existed.

Defenders
I’ll start with the elephant in the room: Robbo or TAA? That’s assuming you are not one of those visionaries that have doubled up on them or even tripled with VVD in there too. I digress. So, Robertson leads the way with 20 points coming from 1 goal, 1 assist, 1 CS and of course 6 bps. TAA has 15 coming from 1 assist, 1 CS and 4 bps. What do their (attacking) underlying stats say though? Well, Robbo has 3 shots and TAA 5. Robbo has 1 big chance created while TAA has 2. Robbo has 33 crosses against TAA’s 25. Not much to separate them so given Robertson’s early better form and cheaper price he’s arguably the shrewder pick for now. I’ll be honest though, I’m a TAA owner and he’s not going anywhere. The eye test counts for something and his performance against Arsenal in which he got all 3 bonus points despite receiving a yellow card and only assisting one vs Robbo’s goal shows that he’ll probably outscore Robbo come May (or whenever this season ends). Having both is probably your answer here really.

For less money Timothy Castagne offers great value. He looks good on the eye and he is in fact very good in FPL terms. The Belgian international has hit the ground running at Leicester with 14, 9 and 4 pts in his first three Premier League appearances, forcing two price rises already which means he’ll cost you 5.7. Fixtures are a bit of a mixed bag but his attacking exploits of 1 goal and 3 assists in as many games tell us that he’s not CS dependant.

Speaking of defenders with an attacking mindset I give you Tariq Lamptey (4.6). The once Chelsea academy prospect looked brave in last season’s final stage after the restart and took that form into this season with 3 assists in his locker already. No clean sheets yet for him but that’s only because he limped off in the 57th minute at Newcastle. A game that Brighton dominated entirely to win 0-3 and in which Lamptey would have most probably be amongst the bps had he lasted three more minutes. The other two games were against top opposition in Chelsea and Man Utd but that did not prevent our man from nicking an assist in each of those games. Brighton are playing as a strong unit and more valuable FPL points are to come, starting at free scoring Everton, who despite scoring a lot are also likely to concede.

Midfielders
I’m going to avoid the usual suspects as you are likely to either already have them (Salah, KDB and Bruno?) or finding it tough to bring them in (Mane, Sterling and Bruno?).

There is however a plethora of good options throughout the price spectrum at the moment.

First up is hype of the moment James Rodriguez (7.7). The Colombian international is a class player. The two times Champions League winner is a Carlo Ancelotti favourite as he looks to sign him whenever he’s at a new club. Despite the two price rises the fact is that James has two blanks in three games. Why am I tipping him then? Well, for the simple reason that Everton are looking very strong at the moment and he’s heavily involved in the attacking play. He’s good for set-pieces too and with DCL on the form of his life I wouldn’t bet against him being amongst the points in the next few weeks whether it being by assisting people or indeed putting it into the back of the net.

Next up is Harvey Barnes (7.0). As many of us are, Gareth Southgate too now seemingly, I’ve always been a fan of him since he came to Leicester. He looked like one of those promising youngsters with the quality and tenacity that you just know will shine when given consecutive game play. He has struggled for that to be fair in the last two seasons but with 6 goals and 10 assists last term he seems to have finally carved a spot under Rodgers and has now three full 90´´ appearances. He leads the way for shots from midfielders with 12 which is also within the top 5 in the whole game right now. To put that in perspective, that’s Harry Kane’s tally. The 22 year old is facing a West Ham team that has just trashed Wolves 4-0 but we can’t really read too much into that in terms of goal conceding prospects for West Ham. Before that, they had shipped 2 from Newcastle and 2 from Arsenal and Leicester are of course joint top of the table. He’s not on penalty kick duties, I know, but he’s on form and has a nice fixture.

Finally, for the lower budget tier, I give you Matheus Pereira (6.0). His abilities have been vastly described by yours truly in my WBA pre-season article, so I won’t repeat that again. I’ll just say that those abilities have already been put in place by the Brazilian genius with 1 goal and 2 assists in three games. He’s missing the bonus points that those numbers should entitle him but that’s because WBA are really bad defensively and ship goals for fun leading to opponents garnering such bps but that shouldn’t put you off Matheus. Especially against Southampton. The Saints like to play a high line and as Tottenham (and Brentford the midweek before) have shown that can lead to goals if the opposition is well set for the counter attack. Well, guess what? All five of WBA’s Premier League goals either came from a set piece or from a counter attack. He scored a beauty from a free kick and assisted twice on the counter. Now, I fully expect Southampton to beat WBA, but not with a clean sheet and Matheus Pereira may well be on the FPL returns sheet here.

Forwards
There is only one name you should be considering here if you don’t have him already and that is Dominic Calvert-Lewin (gulp) (7.4 on his way to 7.5). With 5 goals to his name including a hat-trick he can’t be ignored. Especially at that price point. You see, the ‘other’ player on 5 goals costs 10.0 (Jamie Vardy). Surely, Patrick Bamford (5.8) and Maupay (6.5) are close to him in total points and I wouldn’t ignore them either but DCL has just scored another hat-trick yesterday in the Milk Cup. Sure, it was against a B-West Ham team but that shows his form. Ancelotti has had a role to play in his progress as a forward as he basically cemented him as the main striker as pronto as he took the Everton job last season so it seems that this can only get better. Don’t make that same mistake of betting against a player based on your bias opinion of his capabilities. Ride the bandwagon. If he fails, it doesn’t really affect you. If he scores and you don’t have him your overall or mini league rank will plummet.

Another partner in crime for you to consider is that man Danny Ings. His injury ridden times seem to be behind him and he has an incredible shot accuracy that reads, 6 shots, 5 on target, 3 goals. Keep’em coming lad. The cherry on top is that he faces the worst defence in the league in the shape of WBA’s 11 goals conceded. What’s not to like? He is of course captain material as has been well documented in this week’s captaincy article so whether you captain him or not do at least own him. Don’t forget, he’s their penalty taker.

Last but (one hopes) not least is Raúl Jiménez, also known as “Jiminez”. Now Wolves have just been humiliated by losing 4-0 to West Ham of all people. I mean, one can be excused from a battering at the hands of say Liverpool, Man City or on their day say Man Utd or even Chelsea, but West Ham? No idea what happened there to be honest. Before that though they had also shipped 3 at home to City with the 0-2 win at Sheffield Utd in the opening day being the only good news to write home about. Our friend Raúl actually scored in both those games so despite the City loss the signs were there that Wolves, and him in particular, would be carrying their great form from last season to this one. Should we think otherwise after the West Ham battering? I honestly don’t know. The fact is that West Ham have some good individual players so maybe we can put that down to ‘one of those days’ where everything goes against you and in favour of your opponent. What I do know is that if there is a game for them to bounce back, that’s a home game against Fulham, the second worst defence in the league, just one goal behind WBA on 10. And that’s whilst playing at lesser opposition than that of WBA’s so I expect no less than a good old trashing of The Cottagers and if that’s the case then Jiménez, whom is on penalties, may well top the goal charts come the end of the game-week.

Thanks for reading FPL Tips Gameweek 4. This article was written by DMC.

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