FPL GW8
International breaks and their opportunities
I have a love/hate relationship with international breaks. Obviously, the lack of Premier League games takes away FPL and weekends feel completely wrong, and I’m not very interested in following the national teams unless it’s the big tournaments. On the other hand, it’s great to take a step back, reduce stress levels, and zoom out on the overall FPL landscape and strategic possibilities. Or you could engage in discussions whether Calvert-Lewin is a good FPL pick on social media. I spent the most time on the first, but I couldn’t resist the latter.
I think it’s fortunate we had a break to cool down emotions on Salah and Haaland. Haaland has overperformed and was lucky to outscore Bruno/Saka/Salah in GW7 based on expected points. This is the first indication of reversion to the mean. Across the major projection models, Salah is (still) better than Haaland for the upcoming period until AFCON, and on Managerbotten he is above Haaland in GW8. Just to say, the sentiment on social media is extremely in favor of Haaland, but it is likely very close. All we can do is try to make good decisions. Either fit that category in my opinion, but swapping between them right now does not seem like a good idea unless on wildcard and your views have changed.
Also, we had news Palmer is not going to be included for at least 6 weeks, which changes the landscape in two ways:
1. Enzo is a very good pick now being the most likely penalty taker and producing great non-pen numbers
2. We can prioritize our transfers differently now that we can be certain Palmer is not a factor in GW11, which also makes the Free Hit 11 strategy sort of obsolete.
Enzo is great and if you need to transfer out a mid, Enzo is likely the way to go. Remember, the best transfers are when you can both take out a player that is an actual issue and bring in a great option. “Issues” are not something you just convince yourself to satisfy your short-term taste for a certain player. Be your own devil’s advocate.
Lastly, it’s now time to start looking at the next major shift in FPL between GW15 and GW16. You get topped up to 5 FTs in GW16, so you must spend all transfers down to 0 FTs in GW15 to push out all the juice from your plans. A great exercise now is to imagine the perfect GW15 team going into the AFCON period and try to calculate backwards how to get there. That way you figure out how solid your team is and how much room you have to go for short-term options or swapping between premiums when Haaland and Salah alternate good fixtures in GW13-16.
If you don’t do this now, you are very likely to get caught into forced moves and hits later. This is one thing that distinguish the best managers from the rest.
Team selection and paths
With the current information I will roll my 2 FTs and have 3 available next GW. Salah captain, the best of all players according to Managerbotten (2.08 pm Oct 17).
I’ve been planning multiple Palmer paths depending on whether he showed up in GW9 or GW11, but they are now scrapped. Currently I’m very happy with my team except Agbadou who has become an issue due to not starting recent games. The plan was to start him in GW9, which does not look likely now, but I may get lucky that the landscape changes post international break or his competition gets injured.
While Enzo is tempting and would be a small upgrade to Semenyo or Paqueta this week, the gains a minor, so I might as well wait until next week.
Specifically for my team, Rodon is interesting next week in stead of Agbadou, but with a longer horizon Andersen would be the best investment. He is by far the best in his price category and fixtures are great from GW10.
As mentioned, Enzo is obviously interesting from GW9 when Paqueta has a poor fixture and so is Ismaila Sarr from GW10. I may not get the chance to bring Sarr back, who is one of my favorite FPL assets this season.
Lastly, I may be interested in Mateta and take Evanilson out in GW10. Both Evanilson and DCL have poor fixtures in GW10, so bringing in Mateta would give me a large bump up in points projections.
It’s all good for now though, we will probably have a lot of new information in the next couple of gameweeks that will change my mind.
And if anyone is on doubt, do not sell Bruno Fernandes.
Good luck everyone!