FPL GW7
The current state of FPL
FPL is starting to settle a little bit now that we have more information. As we know, things still change quickly and that never stops. A sidenote, play your bench boost if your bench looks good this week and you still have the chip left.
I would advise to still apply a patient playstyle. Salah is not performing well. Haaland performing extremely well. While there may a slight adjustment in what we can expect from their performance, a lot of what we have seen will very likely follow the principles of regression to the mean over the season.
Keep your eyes on the structures, especially the new rules for bonus and DEFCON, and how the fixtures pan out. When Arsenal has a fixture run like what is coming up, it would be wise to have planned for that. The fixture swings are not as influential as previously with the midfield teams in Premier League being extremely competitive, and it’s not very often you get all three bottom teams in a fixture run of five weeks.
Newcastle has a fantastic run of fixtures too, but I have a very hard time finding any players that are not minutes risks. Gordon on penalties looks shiny, but the odd benching will likely occur (if not due to being sent off), which leaves only Pope as an option. I think he is a serious contender on the wildcard, but not with free transfers.
Premium structures
Always a hot topic and the trend have continued. Do you have to swap to Haaland now?
No.
You don’t have to, but you can certainly do it. For myself, I will stick with Salah unless we see a benching or early subs in the Premier League. Haaland is not a necessity until GW15, where Salah shortly after goes to AFCON, and he will be the best premium by some margin. Until then Haaland is not the best captain with margin over the other good assets.
I would much rather make sure I have a plan to have Palmer in the team for GW11, where City and Liverpool face each other, and Palmer has Wolves at home.
With the uncertainty of whether Palmer will be back post international break and Saka having the best fixture run of the season, Palmer is too much budget to place on the bench if you still own him and have free transfers available to make the moves.
Team assessment and selection
Currently I have two issues as seen below – Palmer and Agbadou. You can add that my squad flexibility is limited with two non-playing forwards, which puts further pressure on my need for transfers.
Agbadou has not been performing well and Wolves fans have called for him not to start, which we saw last GW. Agbadou had a role in the team for gameweek 8 & 9, but now I’m less certain that I can field him in my XI.
Maresca was not explicit about the situation of Palmer in the press conference today and having Palmer on the bench for more than this gameweek would see me sacrificing too much points potential. Ideally, I would’ve liked to keep Palmer if he was back for gameweek 8 with certainty.
I have 3 FTs and I would like as much flexibility later as possible. I have decided to leave Agbadou in the team as I only really need him in gameweek 9, and a lot can happen before then that puts Agbadou back in a nailed role. If I were to sell Agbadou I would’ve probably sold Palmer for Mbeumo and bought an Arsenal defender. Timber is insane if you believe he is fully nailed, and Saliba and Calafiori look really promising too. Arsenal defensive triple up would be sweet, but that would make it hard to get back Palmer in either gameweek 9 or 11.
I would prefer not to start Paqueta against Arsenal as his potential is low, which leaves me with the option of selling one of my two cheap forwards.
Fortunately, a cheap forward with great potential has appeared – the legendary FPL asset Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Luckily, I do not have the scars from last season, but a 5.5 forward with penalties and high minutes in the short term seems too good to pass up in my situation. Worst case he can be my backup forward permanently on the bench as the budget allocation is low.
This will also leave me with the option for a straight swap from Palmer to Saka and money enough in the bank to be able to swap back 1:1 in the future. I really like that option to be certain I can get Palmer in at least gameweek 11, where he is the best captain by some margin.
Here is the team:
Bench: Dubravka, Paqueta, Agbadou, Kroupi
Captain: Bruno Fernandes
Vice: Saka
I have one caveat with this strategy. I don’t like Saka in my team. He is not worth the money as he will not be captained in any gameweek. His fixtures are great, and he is a good placeholder for Palmer, but he is expensive, not guaranteed minutes or penalties, and hasn’t performed well on the underlying statistics for some time just like Salah. He will mostly be in the team from the fact that he is the best of a lot of bad expensive options as only Haaland is really performing. Hopefully, I can get lucky in the short term and move him on.
Good luck everyone!