Fantasy Football Tips Gameweek 4

Welcome to Fantasy Football Tips Gameweek 4

Whilst you have all been engrossed in the likes of Luxembourg 0-1 Belarus, and lapping up ‘Carsball’, or whatever, we have held a few writers under duress and forced them to come up with a few Tips for GW4 and beyond. Who knows, it may even help with some sneaky wildcards.

DEFENDERS

(Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

Dunk – Jamie Mc

“And Smith Must Score,” one of the most iconic phrases in FA Cup Final commentary history.

Well Smith did not score. Manchester United beat already relegated Brighton 4.0 in the replay of the 1983 FA Cup Final….and the rest is history.

From the Goldstone Ground to Gillingham’s Priestfield Stadium to the Withdean Stadium to the AMEX.

From the brink of relegation out of the Football League and their very existence under threat to the Europa League…. what a rollercoaster of a journey Brighton & Hove Albion have been on.

Players have come and gone for huge transfers fees. I am looking at you Cucurella (65m Euros) to Chelsea, Ben White (58m Euros) to Arsenal and World Cup winner Mac Allister (42m Euros) to Liverpool) to name a few. Goodness, Brighton even sold Caicedo to Chelsea for over 100m Euros.

The one constant in their recent history is captain Lewis Dunk (£4.5m).

Owned by only 6.6% of the game, Dunk is a nice differential who has as expected, started all three league games this season and will no doubt play all thirty-eight league games unless an injury and / or suspension occurs.

At the time of writing, 157,233 managers have transferred Dunk into their squad with 34,518 managers deciding to now go without.

It should be noted that Dunk is currently 85.3% (18,856 further transfers required) in FPL Statistics for a £0.1m price increase which should happen as we approach the game week four deadline.

Brighton have started the season well, sitting in third place with seven points from their opening three league games.

In the short term, Brighton has two favourable home fixtures against Ipswich Town and Nottingham Forest then away to Chelsea and home to Spurs until the next international break after game week seven.

For younger readers who have no idea who “Smith” is or to older readers looking to reminisce then the following You Tube clip will explain.

Other Defenders (in extension of Dunk) – OddDane

Right then. Let’s see if I can put something coherent together for once. Hey! Stop with the laughing in the back… No snickering either!

amie is right, Dunk is a decent choice. Now, let’s see if there’s a couple others worth looking at.

So far, clean sheets don’t come cheap. You need to dish out a lot of dough for expensive defenders and when you do, you’ve gone and spent it on Gvardiol with whom we can watch in horror as Ederson, Dias and the rest of the lot brainfart their clean sheets away… Yeah, I see you. No, you didn’t get double Pool and Arsenal defences, did you now? Nah, didn’t think so either.

So with clean sheets out of the way. What can we go for? There’s RAN, or Rayan Ait-Nouri (4.5), who plays Newcastle at home. You can hope he plays a sort of midfield-winger, and your wish might come true. He comes across as fairly attacking on the Wolves’ left side.

Then we have Ten Hag’s boys playing the Saints. Surely they’ll see a clean sheet there, surely… Right? Anyway, I’d aim to go cheap, just in case, you know… So that means either Mazraoui (4.5 and I probably didn’t spell that right) and Martinez (4.5).

Finally, you could go against the Seagulls and look to Leif to save your week. That’s Leif Davis the Assister to you. He’s the Ipswich (AKA the tractor boys? what the damn hell?) left wing-back who racked up quite the tally of assists in the Championship and already had one so far. If you don’t believe me, go ahead and ask MattX. Or, you know, the internet.

That’s it. You could of course also get anyone else, or try your luck with the Liverpool and Arsenal lads.

MIDFIELDERS – left, right and centre – OddDane

(Photo by Sebastian Frej/MB Media/Getty Images)

With us going into gameweek 4 you will have familiarised yourself with the popular picks and big hitters by now. No doubt the likes of Salah, Palmer, Son, Saka and KdB are likely to do well with their fixtures at hand. Yes that’s right, the North London derby isn’t too bad for attacking returns. The same I’d argue applies to middle of the road priced options such as the likes of Diaz, Jota, and Bruno, so I’ll give a few mentions outside the more popular/obvious choices spectrum.

First off we have the Seagulls fighting off an invasion from the Tractor Boys (An apt nickname for a crest with a horse, kicking a football, whilst walking on water..? Okay, you do you Ipswich). Here we could see Kaoru Mitoma (6.6) do well, butit’s also one where we should see Minteh (5.5) starting on the opposite side from Kaoru. The two of them actually have quite similar expected goal involvements, at 0.7-0.78/90mins (fbref). Quite impressive value (Small print; small samples yet, mind you, and… you’ll somehow be picking the wrong one). If you had to force my hand, then let’s point to Minteh, who is especially known for his good form in the Danish Super Liga, and whilst the EPL is no Super Liga, I reckon he could still do okay…

Then there’s the Toffees visiting Villa Park. Here you can see events like a young Rogers tearing out his last pieces of head hair after seeing Watkins burn his 5th big chance and you can witness the beautiful sport of Dyche set-piece terrorball. Speaking of set-pieces. There’s this Mc something guy who is supposed to be really good. McMeal! There it was… No? Let’s call him McNeil (5.4) then. He sports good prospects of goal involvements in his coming fixtures and has already shown decent expected goal involvement from his many crosses and set-pieces. Of course, expected assists may be all it ends up being, with the likes of DCL, Beto and random 2-meter tall defenders at the end of those beautiful passes. But yeah, it could be fun right? (Also, they have actually been scoring a few lately. Not winning, but that’s one for another day…).

Enough rambling, next one is the Cottagers getting Hammered. It could be by anyone from Bowen, Paqueta and Kudus to Andersen scoring an own goal at his debut game. It could be a 0-0 snooze fest or goals galore. Mind you, it may also get cancelled after each side has had three reds each – Soucek and Andreas to start the party is my wager. On the Fulham side the choices are fairly well known unless you’ve gone for a certain pro-wrestler/bodybuilder who moonlights as a premier league winger. In which case I can’t help you anyway… So, from the Hammers’ side I’d find Kudus (6.4) an interesting pick, as he’s looked quite lively even if he has had little to show for it so far. Bowen is the obvious choice if you have the funds and are not scraping the poor man’s barrel for players like yours truly.

The Eagles have been busy selling their players, but somehow have retained the services of mister Eze, E (6.9). He’s a bit of a talisman for them, and even though they’re not attractive from an attacking output point of view (amongst the very worst so far, actually) he is one of the main ones to make it happen. In fact, he should’ve probably had a return or two more than he has already.

I thought I’d keep going, but at this rate it’s already a long one and the likes of Semenyo (5.6) and Tavernier (5.5) probably are a hard sell with their upcoming fixtures. Even if I like Tavernier’s set-pieces. Then there’s Chelsea, but this would require me speaking to, I’m just guessing, 14 different attacking midfielders who may or may not start. Just get Palmer, I guess…

That’s that then, let’s move on and see how many times Rosco the rascal has recommended Haaland. He’s just about my only knowledge of scoring forwards. In my team anyway.

FORWARDS – who are not Haaland – Rosco

If you’re in the market for a new forward (s) this week, then you have a plethora of options available, from the budget-saving £5.7m all the way up to the budget-breaking £15.2m.

So, who do you pick? Well, from a fixture perspective, Villa sit top of the ticker over the next 4. Ollie Watkins (£8.9m) would usually be a shoo-in but he’s had his minutes managed thus far, and whilst the fixture have been mixed, owners will have hoped for more than a single assist across the 185 minutes he has played. In terms of the limited data we do have, Watkins sits 6th for NPxGI (Non-penalty involvement) with 1.60, there’s certainly room for improvement but he’s a wait and see for now.

Sticking with fixtures, the budget Brighton duo João Pedro and Danny Welbeck (both £5.7m) have amassed over 1 million transfer in this week alone. Many started with Pedro and have reaped the rewards with 18pts across his opening 3 fixtures. All the more impressive is that he scored his 2 goals in the ‘harder fixtures’ against Man Utd and an Arsenal side reduced to 10 men. Welbeck meanwhile has matched his teammate for goals and added an assist for good measure, an unexpected 23pts means he sits behind only Haaland of points (from forwards) thus far.

With back-to-back home games against Ipswich and Forest up next, its easy to see why the Seagull’s pair are popular. Of the two, Welbeck’s data is better, but as ever you could frame it to suit any argument; with an xG of 0.81 for his 2 goals has Pedro been fortunate or clinical? Similarly, with an NPxGI of 1.47 has Welbeck been lucky to come away with 3 returns? You get the picture. There’s little to separate the two, Pedro seems to have had the better minutes thus far but in truth, it’s a coin flip on which one is the better option. (For the record I bought Pedro this week).

Over the next 4, Chelsea sit higher in the fixture ticker with away trips to Bournemouth and West Ham followed by a brace of home games against Brighton and Forest. Nicolas Jackson (£7.6m) has 2 goals and an assist across The Blue’s opening 3, this is despite coming off before the 70-minute mark in two of those three. In terms of data, Jackson’s lines up. 2 goals from an xG of 2.22 and an NPxGI of 2.29 against his 3 returns. Chelsea are creating plenty of chances, their 7 goal return is bettered by only City, if you can handle those early substitutions, then Jackson could prove a nice differential (6% ownership).

If you’re on a Wildcard or looking for a rotation forward(s), then both Wissa and Wood (both £6.1m) could prove better buys than all the aforementioned players. In the short term purely from a fixture perspective, Wood trumps Wissa with away trips to both City and Spurs next up for the Bees, however, the expected data favours Wissa. Like the Brighton forwards, there is little to separate these two. Historical data suggests Wood is a lot more clinical, indeed, he matched Wissa with 131pts last season in significantly less minutes, but the issue is, that whilst Wissa’s stock has risen significantly (with the departure of Ivan Toney), Wood still has the same issues he had last season in terms competition from Taiwo Awoniyi. I like both. I’d pick Wissa of the two, I would consider both from GW6.

Calvert-Lewin (£5.9m) feels worthy of a mention, and not just because of the 12pts he scored in GW3. If we’re focusing on fixtures, then Everton have a sea of green that runs from GW5 through to GW14. The problem? It’s Everton. Bottom of the table with 3 losses, the worst defensive record in the league and other than Southampton the worst goals record. But let’s get some perspective, we’ve only played 3 games. The Toffees have the fixtures to dig themselves out of this mess, if DCL can stay fit, he COULD be an option (don’t quote me on this one!).

Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Tips Gameweek 4. This article was written by Jamie C, OddDane and Rosco.

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