FPL Tips GW2

Welcome to FPL Tips GW2

Rather than come at you with a whole list of players that you should suddenly pick up, after just the sample size of one GW, we have decided to offer up some quick-fire observations from the past weekend. More food for thought than anything else, really. More to discourage knee-jerk reactions than anything else, truth be told.

We will then take a look at the FPL Team of the Week, in a similarly contemplative light.

Talking of ‘knee-jerk’ we shall then look at the transfers in and out so far this week.

WE shall then touch on Captain options ahead of GW2.

GW1 Musings

In Defence…

Six of the ten games in GW1 produced a clean-sheet. Which is actually relatively high. Or it feels like it is anyway, sans any stats to actually back that up.

Some were fairly obvious to predict, with the benefit of hindsight. Liverpool away at newly promoted Ipswich for starters. For those who went premium with Trent it was a relatively strong start with the clean sheet allied to 2 BPS. No attacking returns for your investment but rest assured he looked lively, and those will surely come, on the evidence of this. For those who went budget with Quansah, it was an all together different story. Hooked at HT and with Slot saying ‘Jarell lost every duel’. Which he later downgraded / clarified to something similar but without the ‘every’ bit. He also then praised Konate for providing the control in the aerial duels in the 2nd half. Either way, your £4.5m punt may have been short-lived.

Arsenal vs Wolves felt inevitable. As did Newcastle’s cleanie vs Saints, although this one was harder work than it perhaps should have been, thanks to Schar and his red card.

Less obvious, but perhaps just as inevitable, was Man City’s, and this may be ominous once again for the rest. Man United fared a fairly good chance of getting one at home to Fulham, and duly did, but again it was hard work.

Probably the least obvious was Brighton away at Everton. Although whether thats says more about Everton than Brighton we will just have to see.

It was an odd week for defenders as only 3 of them actually managed to get an attacking return. Collins (Brentford) and Munoz (Palace) got an assist each, whilst Porro (Spurs) was probably the star of the week in this department with the sole goal. None of them got a clean-sheet, to boot.

Only 9 got a bonus point, or two. Nobody from Arsenal did. Bizarrely, 3 from Man U did. The rest were from the above teams. Five of the keepers involved in the 6 cleanies got one, with poor Onana missing out.

Mids

That’s your top scorers so far, folks. The take-aways here really are that the likes of Salah, Saka and Jota are probably of no real surprise. If you got them then great, if you didn’t then it will have been for a good reason – probably something along the lines of Salah; spreading budget, Saka: Palmer or similar, Jota; went for Salah! They’re the main 3 that you would probably expect to see in the same list come Christmas / end of season.

Kovacic, Joelinton and Onana less so.

Mbeumo and Semenyo may be different though as based purely upon GW1 they are the rare commodity of genuinely being ‘OOP’. Both played up top, both mainly because of Toney and Solanke. Whether that continues depends largely on whether the aforementioned are replaced.

Mitoma… let’s be honest, how many had the same thought of ‘d’oh, forgot about him!’. He hasn’t played since Feb but looking at how attacking Brighton seemed to be in this one he’s definitely one to keep an eye on once more.

Forwards

Using the same logic then the answer is Haaland, and maybe Isak. Probably sub in Watkins for team-mate Duran.

I’d be surprised to see any of the others.

Perhaps apart from everyone’s favourite ultimate sh*thouse himself, who is back, of course! And what an absolute delight it is to see him. Even unfit and with no pre-season the Red Bull got him through, even to the point when he got taken off he still had just about enough energy to goad the entire Spurs end and then tell Romero to f*ck off, twice. Even when Leicester got relegated I think most of us still ended up with him in our teams, and let’s face it we wouldn’t bet against that particular scenario again.

Beyond some combo of Haaland plus Isak / Watkins / Solanke / Havertz* (*sub in Toney if that happens!), you’ll only really be looking at Mateta or a cheapie like Wood or Muniz so pick your poison / budget in this position and you’ll be fine.

Solanke deserves a quick word as he looked fine and sharp, he probably just needs that opener to settle him down. And Everton are that gift for him on Saturday evening.

Transfers IN / OUT GW1 so far

This is the bit where the experienced players get to have a chuckle at the GW1 wannabees, or point chasers as they are also known.

Although, to be fair to them, they have a point. Maybe just not this soon in the week! Jota, Salah and Saka are pretty obvious. Havertz may be the replacement for those shipping Watkins and Toney. Trippier was benched, and Rodri was always injured, but thus also begs the question why he was there in the 1st place? Mazraoui is presumably because of price. As for Palmer… if you picked him then surely it wasn’t because of all the points you thought he may get just against Man City…

FPL Team of the Week

Two real questions here…

How many of these players would you realistically have picked in your team this week?

And… How many of these players would you realistically expect to be in the FPL Team of the Season come the end?

The answer to both is probably somewhere between 2 and 4.

Perhaps / likely Salah and Saka for one or the other? Maybe Pope for this week, maybe Porro for either? Havertz at a push?

Starts getting difficult beyond that, doesn’t it? The point to which is simply this; regardless of how well or otherwise you did this week then just remember that you picked your players for a reason, and that reason was not just points on the board in GW1. No need to rip your teams up to chase this week’s points, as this team will also look very different next week, and a whole lot different come GW38.

CAPTAIN GW2

We shall touch briefly on the topic of Captain contenders for GW2, simply because we didn’t think it was worth getting our writers out of bed this week to tell you that Haaland is playing Ipswich at home, Salah Brentford, likewise, if you went for him instead. If you really want something different then perhaps Solanke to strike gold vs a wounded Everton or Palmer to awaken and punish his sellers above vs Wolves.

But, seriously, Haaland is at home to Ipswich….

Thanks for reading FPL Tips GW2. This article was written by Inittowinit.

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