Fantasy Football Tips Gameweek 5

Welcome to Fantasy Football Tips Gameweek 5. What a six weeks it has been. We started off in Birmingham where a returning Steve Smith scored a century in each innings as Australia secured a comfortable victory. We then moved onto Lords where Smith succumbed to concussion and the Aussies held out for a draw. Next up was Headingly and despite not having Smith in their ranks, the Aussies looked set for victory until Ben Stokes hit a memorable 135 to win the game for England and level the series. The 4th test brought us to Manchester and with Steve Smith smashing an imperious double hundred the Aussies moved 2-1 up in the series, thus retaining the urn. What do you mean this isn’t a cricket article? But…

Oh well, I suppose I had better talk about football so. The season has started pretty much as expected. We’re only in mid-September and it already looks to be a two horse race. The form of United, Spurs & Chelsea suggests that this could be the season when a newish team breaks into the top 6. What does this mean from an FPL point of view? Well, for a start you’ll probably have 5/6 players from City & Liverpool. After that it becomes interesting.

Now, back to the cricket…No? Oh, ok. Spoilsports!!

Keepers

When Nick Pope was priced at £4.5m before the beginning of the season he was seen by many as the budget keeper of choice. However, with games against both Arsenal & Liverpool in his opening four games many instead opted for Brighton’s Mat Ryan, who despite facing City in GW4 had the slightly easier fixtures. Both have kept one clean sheet, with Pope conceding six and Ryan seven. Pope has made 17 saves across the four games which has seen him pick up four save bonus points and it’s these points that I feel will eventually make him the stand-out budget option. It should also be pointed out that he was quite unlucky to concede a late penalty against Wolves. Burnley now embark on a great set of fixtures which sees them face just one (Chelsea) top 6 side between now and the beginning of December. That’s surely a recipe for clean sheets?

I’m finding it very difficult to (get excited by) tip any other keeper. There’s Ederson at City, but given City’s options further up the pitch are you going to use one of your precious City spots on a keeper? Everton started the season looking defensively solid but have conceded four in their last two games. Even if they hadn’t would you want Pickford over Digne? A Liverpool keeper priced at £4.6 should be of interest, but Adrian hardly inspires confidence!

Just get Pope!

Defenders

Before the season started there was much fanfare relating to spending big at the back. There were drafts containing double Liverpool defence, Digne, Zinchenko and possibly even a United defender to make up the quintet. Didn’t last long, did it?! After the opening four game-weeks only three defenders priced at £6.0m or above are inside the top 10. I am however going to tip two of them, Everton’s Lucas Digne and Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold.

Digne is currently the 2nd highest scoring defender thanks to two clean sheets, two assists and three bonus points. His stats are also quite impressive. He’s had more goal attempts (7) than any other defender in the league. Admittedly only one of those has hit the target, but you have to buy a ticket and all that. He’s had eight touches in the opposition area, bettered by just five defenders. He’s put 25 crosses into the box (4th) and has created nine chances (2nd). Those of you that have seen Everton play this season will be well aware that the Frenchman is one of Everton’s most dangerous players and looks threatening anytime he’s within 30 yards of the opposition area. One thing to keep an eye on is how Digne & Iwobi develop as a pair on the left hand side. I saw someone note that it wasn’t until Iwobi went off against Wolves that Digne really began to threaten. As I said, just keep an eye on it.

Unfortunately, the Liverpool defence has not lived up to the pre-season season hype. I have my own theories as to why that it is but I’ll not get into those now. As a Liverpool fan I get excited every time TAA has possession in the oppositions half. As a non-owner in FPL I sh1t myself every time this happens. I got very little correct in my GW1 article but I did tip TAA as my Liverpool defender of choice and I standby that. He’s the 3rd highest scoring defender in the game thanks in no small part to three assists. His distribution stats are off the scale. He has put in 41 crosses which is nine more than any other player, not just defenders. He has created 14 chances, only KDB has created more. Four of these chances are considered ‘big’ chances and again, only KDB has more. His goal threat isn’t quite as impressive but he has still managed eight penalty area touches (joint 7th amongst defenders) and has had five goal attempts (joint 5th amongst defenders). Liverpool have quite a tough run of fixtures between now and the beginning of November but given that he’s currently the 3rd highest scoring defender despite keeping just one clean sheet I expect his returns to continue over this tough period.

Given Burnley’s upcoming fixtures there is every reason to have a Burnley defender in your squad. You already own Pope? Don’t worry about, double up. Given his pair of assists on the opening day of the season Eric Pieters is the popular choice, but is he the correct choice? Ben Mee, James Tarkowski, Matt Lowton as well as Pieters have all started the four games to date and barring injury, I would expect that to continue for the foreseeable future. Let’s look at their respective stats. Unsurprisingly Tarkowski and Mee lead the way in terms of penalty area touches with 13 and nine respectively. Tarkowski has five goal attempts, with Mee and Pieters having three each. Lowton has put in 15 crosses and Pieters five. Lowton has created five chances, Pieters three and Mee two. As you can see, there’s very little to separate the four of them but that’s not a surprise given the small sample size. Given the threat that Tarkowski brings in and around the opposition goal I’d be very tempted to go with him but I appreciate he is £0.5m more expensive than Lowton and £0.4m more expensive than Pieters. Head on the block time. If you can afford him, get Tarkowski.

It’s difficult to know who to turn to next! The fixtures suggest that both Arsenal & Chelsea should be good bets for clean sheets over the coming weeks but I am yet to see anything from either team, particularly Chelsea, to suggest that this will be the case. Both Azpilicueta and Emerson have some half decent stats but not enough for me to seriously consider them at this stage. And then there’s City. As I mentioned earlier when discussing the keepers, given the form of Messrs Sterling & Aguero, do you want a defensive players from City? Let’s assume you do. Kyle Walker and Oleksander Zinchenko have been the popular choices to date and if you own either you’ll probably hold onto them. However, my tip is Nicolas Otamendi. He’s £0.6m cheaper than Walker and is more likely to play than Zinchenko given the return to fitness of Benjamin Mendy. Granted Otamendi isn’t the best but he’s playing in a team unlikely to concede many and he can be a threat in the opposition area.

Midfielders

Mo Salah or Sadio Mane? Just pick one and stick with him. Seriously, you’ll break your heart if you start switching between the two. For the sake of this article let’s take a look at the two of them. After the opening four game-weeks Salah is out in front with 36 points compared to Mane’s 25. Salah has returns in three of the four games compared to Mane’s two. Salah has three goals, two assists and five bonus points. Mane has two goals, an assist and three bonus points. Salah also leads the way when it comes to the stats. He has 34 penalty area touches compared to Mane’s 16. 13 goal attempts to Mane’s seven. Six of the 13 attempts were on target with four of Mane’s hitting the target. Mane does lead the way in terms of chances created with 10 compared to Salah’s eight. It would appear that Salah is the one to have. Last season when there was anything from 2-3m between the two there was a great argument to be made for having Mane over Salah. Based on the small sample we have from this season that argument may no longer stand the test. I’m not saying it will, and it obviously won’t, but if the trend of the opening four game-weeks was to continue over the remainder of the season Salah would outscore Mane by over 100pts. Is 100pts worth the extra £1.0m? I think so. I tipped Salah ahead of GW1 and despite initially sitting on the fence above, I’m sticking with Salah over Mane. Mind, Mane is still a good pick!!

Ahead of GW1 I suggested you pick one of Kevin de Bruyne or Bernardo Silva in addition to Raheem Sterling. I hope, for your own sake, that you went with KdB over Silva. The Belgian is well and truly back to his creative best. City have scored 14 goals in their opening four games with de Bruyne claiming five of the assists. It comes as no surprise to see that he has created more assists (16) than any other player in the league. What did somewhat surprise me was that he sits joint 4th in the goal attempts charts with 12. Perhaps he can top the eight goals he scored the season before last. I made the point ahead of GW1 that it’s unlikely that you would captain him over Sterling, but with returns in each of his four games and two of the returns being double digit, maybe I was wrong. Fck knows, I got a lot wrong ahead of GW1! Given his price and consistency, including him in your squad appears to be a no brainer. Don’t believe? Take a look at what he did to Scotland a few days ago! However, let’s for a moment assume you have Sterling and Aguero. Can you afford KdB? I say, yes, find the money. But if you have that money tied up elsewhere you could consider David Silva. The diminutive Spaniard is available at £7.5m and has bagged a pair of assists in each of the last two game-weeks. Over the past three seasons he has averaged 147pts.

One of the keys to success to FPL is picking up a player at the right time. Spotting a player before he goes bang! One such player is possibly Heung-Ming Son. Spurs have had an indifferent start to the season and look a shadow of the side that qualified for the CL final last season. They’ve scored just seven goals in their opening four games, which I thought was pretty poor until I realised that only Liverpool & City have scored more. Despite missing the opening two games of the season due to suspension his stats, compare favourably against the likes of Sterling & Salah. Those of you looking to ditch Harry Kane but maintain Spurs ‘cover’ should look no further than the Korean. Despite playing all four games to date Kane has only five more penalty area touches than Son and five more goal attempts, they’ve both had four shots on target, and Son has created four chances to Kane’s four. Son currently features in just 2.6% of teams.

There are a quite a number of mid-priced midfielders performing well at present, such as Mason Mount and Daniel James. There are however a couple of such players who are playing well but not yet generating the returns and like Son could very well go bang, soon. One such player to have caught my eye is Manuel Lanzini. The Hammers were thumped 5-0 by City on the opening day of the season, but that will happen to many sides. Since then, they have seven points from a possible nine. Lanzini has picked up a couple of assists but currently features in just 3.3% of teams. He has created 14 chances over the first four games, a figure only bettered by de Bruyne. West Ham have a great run of fixtures over the coming weeks and if Sebastian Haller can maintain his recent form, Lanzini could very well add to his assists.

Forwards

Six goals, an assist and six bonus points means that Sergio Aguero is the highest scoring player after the opening four game-weeks with 40pts. In seasons past such a start to the season from Aguero would have resulted in his ownership being in excess of 40%. But not this season. Despite his blistering start to the season, he features in just under 25% of teams. Not quite a differential, but low enough that should you own him his goals should see you climb the rankings. Why is he only owned by a quarter of teams? I suspect this is due in some part to the fact that Raheem Sterling features in nearly 50% of teams and until now managers have been reluctant to double up. Given City’s current form I imagine that this may change over the coming weeks. The form of the budget strikers like Pukki, Abraham, Barnes and Haller means that managers can have a cheap & productive forward line leaving them funds to invest elsewhere. However, would you bet on these forwards sustaining their form consistently over the season? I wouldn’t. Whereas, with Aguero I would bet your house on him hitting 20+ goals over the season. There will of course be talk that Jesus will affect his game time but we’ve heard that before and until I see that happening, I won’t believe it.

With the likes of Augero & Sterling having scored six & five goals respectively, players who have scored three times in the opening four games are considered to have had a slow start. One such player is Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. In PEA & Lacazette Arsenal undoubtedly have two of the best forwards in the league. It’s just unfortunate they both want to be the #9. When they play together PEA is invariably pushed out on the left. Does his game suffer? I believe it does. Don’t get me wrong, he will still score goals but if he was played through the middle all of the time, I believe he would score more. Simples. However, given Arsenal’s fixtures over the weeks ahead Auba could play left full-back and he’d still score goals. They play just one top 6 team between now and GW17, and that’s only United. Given the fact that many managers may not have a place for Kun, as they already own three City players, Auba may be the premium striker to own.

In the recent GABO article, Mito asked us if Bobby Firmino was being overlooked. I said that he wasn’t, as I didn’t believe he would keep pace with Salah and Mane over the course of the season. I still feel as though this will be the case but perhaps it would be hasty to rule him out completely. His form over the opening games has been better than both Salah & Mane. This has seen him pick up two goals, two assists and five bonus points. He’s had more penalty area touches and more goal attempts than any other forward in the game. He features in just under 12% of teams, which has to be considered something of a differential given that he plays for the 2nd best team in the league!

Our final tip this week is Sebastian Haller. There was much excitement amongst West Ham fans when the club shelled out a club record fee of £45m of the Frenchman. He got something of a free pass in GW1 as nothing was expected of either him or West Ham against City. He didn’t feature in GW2 but has subsequently scored three and picked up five bonus points in game-weeks 3 & 4. His stats from the last two games aren’t anything to write home about but he’s had had eight shots, five of which were on target and three of them ended up in the back of the net. Not bad. Apart from some bloke called Albian Ajeti, Haller is now the only recognised striker at the club so his game time is pretty much assured. With a wealth of talent supplying him with chances the goals should flow, particularly when you look at their fixtures. The fact that he features in just 6.2% of teams is an added bonus.

Before I finish, I should point out that all refernces to the top 6 obviously refer to the top 6 at the end of last season and not the current top 6!

Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Tips Gameweek 5. This article was written by Kop.

Follow @KenLyons79

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