With the new Premier League season in full swing, Sky Sports has launched a weekly column bringing you essential tips from the best Fantasy Premier League managers in the world.
In our latest column, Holly Shand, FPL Heisenberg and FPL Family – who between them have 10 top-10k finishes and more than 30 years of fantasy experience – discuss what their wildcard teams would look like and who their captain is for the week.
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Who is your captain for the week? Salah, Haaland, Jesus or Kane?
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FREE TO WATCH: Highlights from Tottenham’s match with Wolves in the Premier League
FPL_Heisenberg: I’m going Mohamed Salah (£13m) as even when Liverpool aren’t at their best he still pops up with goals and assists. I’m fully expecting them to bounce back at home against Bournemouth and Salah to get plenty of opportunities to score points. Couple that with his reliability over the past few seasons and a fixture versus a newly-promoted side, and I’m keeping the faith with the Egyptian King.
Holly Shand: This week is perhaps the toughest captain decision of the season so far, but I’m also on Salah at the moment – he has a home game, is on penalties and has scored every time he’s played Bournemouth. The Cherries have conceded seven goals in their last two games.
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FPL Family: Currently I have Salah but I can’t ignore the form of Gabriel Jesus (£8.2m). He’s been involved in five of Arsenal’s goals already this season and, if you take penalties out of the data, his xG (expected goals) is the highest in the league, which means he’s doing all the right things to get FPL points.
Are you trusting Rodrigo and Gundogan’s form?
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FREE TO WATCH: Highlights from the match between Leeds and Chelsea in the Premier League
Holly Shand: I think we can trust Rodrigo’s (£6.3m) form looking at his underlying numbers: he’s top among midfielders for shots (13). He’s scored four goals from three big chances so he may be overperforming slightly, but the returns are still sustainable. Ilkay Gundogan (£7.6m) is high on my watchlist, but I would be more interested in him if Bernardo Silva (£6.8m) departs in the transfer window: less competition should mean more minutes for him. He’s certainly adopting great positions, similar to what we saw from him in the 2020/21 season, when he scored 13 goals.
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FPL Family: Jesse Marsch has built a very creative supporting cast – particularly Brenden Aaronson (£5.5m) and Jack Harrison (£6m) – so whoever plays up top is going to benefit. At the moment that’s Rodrigo and, as a midfielder, he’s going to pick up an extra point for each goal and has a chance to get a clean sheet point too.
As Holly notes, Gundogan has FPL history. Erling Haaland (£11.7m) is occupying defenders and that’s creating space for runners from midfield and in Kevin De Bruyne (£12.1m) they have someone who can execute those pinpoint through balls, so I think Gundogan is a great pick going forward in FPL.
FPL_Heisenberg: Both are good mid-priced midfield options but I’m saving a transfer this week, so neither of them will be in my team. Rodrigo is on fire but when Patrick Bamford (£7.4m) returns he’s likely to drop back a bit and there’s even the possibility of him losing his place in the team in future weeks when Marsch has all his attacking options fully fit.
Gundogan seems to be nailed on for starts and is getting into the box regularly, finishing off the chances he’s presented with. Word of warning though – you have to be wary of Pep Guardiola rotating his team, especially with the condensed fixture schedule coming up.
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What are you doing with premium defenders such as Alexander-Arnold, Robertson, Cancelo, Walker and James?
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FREE TO WATCH: Highlights of Newcastle against Manchester City in the Premier League
FPL_Heisenberg: I’m not panicking and I’m holding the premium defenders as they all have good fixtures and FPL can swing quickly – I wouldn’t be surprised to see the likes of Reece James (£6.1m), Joao Cancelo (£7.1m) and the Liverpool full-backs back in the points sooner rather than later.
FPL Family: I too will be keeping the faith. The points may not be flowing too freely yet this season, but all of these players were sensational for us last season and historically in FPL. Chelsea, Liverpool and City all have decent-looking home fixtures in GW4 as well. They may cost a fair amount of our FPL budgets but I think they’re worth holding.
Holly Shand: The double up on Liverpool full-backs is too much right now, but if you have other transfers to prioritise then hold onto Andrew Robertson (£6.9m) for one more week for the Bournemouth game. Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.5m) is the top defender in terms of chances created this season with eight. The lack of certainty around James’ positioning is a concern: he’s far more effective at right wing-back than right centre-back. Keep faith with Manchester City defenders for the time being – I think they will produce some more solid performances this season despite a shaky performance against Newcastle.
Are you considering any Man Utd assets after Monday?
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FREE TO WATCH: Highlights from Manchester United’s win against Liverpool in the Premier League
FPL Family: United were superb against Liverpool and Marcus Rashford (£6.3m) in particular seemed to find some confidence. If Erik ten Hag can get the Rashford we know and love back fit and firing in that team then he’ll be on a few Fantasy radars. I’ll be waiting to see a little bit of consistency from United before diving in.
Holly Shand: Man Utd assets were always going to provide fantastic value in FPL when they found form and Rashford looks to be the one to invest in right now. With Anthony Martial (£6.9m) back fit to lead the line, Rashford has the freedom to run the channels and cause problems for defenders on the counter-attack. He had five shots in the box against Liverpool.
FPL_Heisenberg: No, despite their good performance against Liverpool I’m not interested in any of their players right now. I think there are better options at similar prices from other clubs.
With clean sheets proving unpredictable, what is your goalkeeper strategy?
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FREE TO WATCH: Highlights of West Ham against Brighton in the Premier League
FPL_Heisenberg: If you are looking to bring in a goalkeeper, Brighton’s Robert Sanchez (£4.5m) is my preference because they have a solid defence and a favourable run of fixtures. Another good cheap goalkeeper with favourable fixtures is Brentford’s David Raya (£4.5m).
FPL Family: I too have Sanchez and I’m thinking of sticking with him. Brighton have been excellent defensively so far this season, only conceding one goal. Only Man City and Arsenal have a better xGC (expected goals conceded), which means their defensive performances so far – and the FPL points Sanchez is getting – should continue, assuming they keep it up.
Holly Shand: As the guys have said, Brighton have been great this season. I’m looking to move away from the Leicester goalkeeper double up to bring in Sanchez this week. With great fixtures ahead, he can easily recoup the points spent on making the transfer.
If you were wildcarding this week, what would your team look like?
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FREE TO WATCH: Highlights of Fulham against Brentford in the Premier League
FPL_Heisenberg: I’d be looking at going for Harry Kane (£11.4m) over Haaland due to the latter likely getting rested occasionally in this busy upcoming period. I’d also be looking to bring in some good value players with strong form and good fixtures, so the likes of Ivan Toney (£7.2m), Pascal Gross (£5.7m), Sanchez, Rodrigo and Gundogan. I’d likely switch to a 3-4-3 formation too, with Andreas Pereira (£4.5m), Neco Williams (£4.1m) and Nathan Patterson (£4m) as my cheap bench players, and I’d stick by Salah, Alexander-Arnold, James and Cancelo.
Holly Shand: I would be looking to play a 4-3-3 formation and move away from Haaland, who may be rotated now that the fixture schedule has become congested.
Sanchez; Alexander-Arnold, Oleksandr Zinchenko (£5.2m), Cancelo, Ivan Perisic (£5.5m); Salah, Gundogan, Gabriel Martinelli (£6.4m); Kane, Jesus, Alexsandar Mitrovic (£6.6m).
Bench: Danny Ward (£4m); Williams, Andreas, Josh Dasilva (£4.6m).
FPL Family: Arsenal, City, Liverpool and Chelsea all have good-looking home ties in GW4 and over the next few weeks. So my wildcard would largely comprise of those teams, probably with a Spurs full-back thrown in for good measure too (although choosing the right one is going to be the challenge). I would say, however, that there are a lot of highly-owned FPL assets from these teams in managers’ FPL setups already, so picking one or two differentials is going to be key if you’ve decided now’s the right time to wildcard and move up those mini-leagues. Leeds and Brentford in particular should be a good source of Fantasy differential points.
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