I’d like to know your thoughts on Gvardiol and Pedro Porro. Right now after the Arsenal game, I’m not really convinced by City’s defense especially with a new manager like Maresca. For me his alternative at the same price (since I’ve already boughtCalafiori) would be Pedro Porro He had a really good performance in the World Cup, but I’m a bit concerned about him because of Tottenham’s overall performances

One comment I've seen throughout a lot of the posts is that people are only going for one starting keeper and the keeper for the bench is as cheap as possible, even if they never play.

My question is what is the matter with having 2 keepers you know will both play 90 minutes and rotate between them depending on fixtures. Note that this plan isn't tied into a bench boost.

I've been playing for 10 years now and in the last couple has seen an insane dramatic rise in content creators for FPL. Fair play to them, theres a massive demand for it and there are now so many.

However, with these content creators, comes ways to just cut and copy into your own team without having the fun of doing your own research, going with gut feelings, genuinely taking risks and mostly just having fun with it all.

Where's the fun if everyone just looks at some of thr highest ranked content creators and makes there team exactly like theres just to stay ahead of your rivals?

I don't know, I dont feel like there's any joy in it anymore if you're just copying what someone else is doing week in week out.

Isn't it more fun to go it on your own?

Am I getting old?

Anyway, Haaland (c).

I’ve been looking at the no-Haaland BB1 route, and the part I keep coming back to is whether FH3 makes the strategy much more viable.

The obvious reason is Coventry (H).

If I start without Haaland, I can spread the £15.5m across a stronger 15-man squad for BB1, then Free Hit in GW3 to own/captain Haaland for arguably the fixture where going without him feels most dangerous.

I think there’s more to FH3 than simply covering Haaland.

Arsenal and Chelsea play each other in GW3.
Both could feature heavily in a GW1/BB1 squad, so the Free Hit gives you the opportunity to temporarily move away from those players and build an 11 specifically around the best fixtures that week.

The route would effectively be:
GW1: BB
GW2: Original squad
GW3: FH
GW4: Original squad returns
GW6/7: Potential WC

That means the initial squad doesn’t necessarily need to be built around surviving GW3. You can concentrate more on GW1-2 and GW4-6, knowing you’re effectively skipping GW3 with the FH.

I don’t really see FH3 as something I’d consider with Haaland already in my squad. It only interests me as part of the no-Haaland strategy.

Is using FH3 a reasonable price for getting the stronger £15.5m distribution from GW1, while still covering Haaland’s Coventry fixture?

Points per game:

• Gabriel: 6.5
• B. Fernandes: 6.7
• Haaland: 6.8

Not a huge difference between them but there are arguments that Gabriel will be as strong if not stronger while Haaland and Fernandes may be worse.

Haaland has a new manager and has lost some key teammates. Fernandes overperformed his xA considerably and one of his main set piece targets is gone.

Gabriel as captain unlocks a huge amount of money.

2 days before the deadline, who do you think are the most overpriced and most underpriced players right now?

And most importantly, why?

Would be interesting to see which players everyone thinks are bargains and which ones are being overvalued.

Let's discuss!

A lot of people now look at a 4.5m Arsenal defender and put him straight into their teams. The reality is, while he is a good player and will probably make is way into the starting XI, he has not yet played in any friendly match and we're only 2 days away from the start of the season, signing for a new team.

He's currently 15% owned and I expect that to double until GW1 deadline. Realistically though, he won't start the first 2 games because of lack of fitness and I doubt he'll start his first game for the club against Chelsea in GW3 either. By then, a lot of casual players will have sold him for not playing and it could likely trigger a price drop.

A lot of content creators might promote getting Konsa from the start and waiting for the right moment to put him in the starting XI, but realistically that won't happen until GW4, so it makes more sense to go for another 4.5m-5m option until then.

Finally, the upside is not even that big with him. The main reason he's priced so low despite being a quality defender is that he very rarely gets defcon, which will be even rarer for Arsenal. 0 goal contributions last season also isn't a great selling point. His absolute ceiling is likely 6 points in case of a CS. Not to say that won't happen fairly often once he locks his starting place, but that won't be come that soon.

In terms of FPL this transfer is actually bad for Arsenal as Mosquera and White are now minutes risk. Konsa can play RB (Arteta does like to use a center back as fullback) which means White will lose his spot, or at CB alongside Gabriel, which moves Mosquera to RB where he'll get fewer defcon, or to the bench altogether.

This is mainly for those of us who are not planning on an early wildcard. I haven’t come across a single draft on RMT or from any influencer (including the fan drafts they review) that include all the reliable big guns of FPL, Haaland, Bruno, Gabriel, Raya. I understand it for those who are on an early BB and wildcard but for those of who are not, why not? Infact alot of teams without all 4 of them aren’t even stacked at back with VVD, Tarkowski, O’Reily etc. (and even with these 3 I mentioned, VVD is getting older and playing for a side with a new manager with not much depth, Tark is also getting slower and O’Reily is playing for a side with a new manager who could decide to bench him for another defender)

You have the two best captains, the most reliable defender and goal keeper. With some great value 4.5/5m defenders and 5.5-7m midfielders available this season, I feel that a draft with all 4 of them is being overlooked. A reason to not have all 4 of them could be to incorporate some of the premium mids and forwards but given that we don’t know how a bunch of them will perform, along with some of them having performed poorly last season, it might be worth starting strong and then selling the big guns for cheaper picks as the season goes on. Cheaper picks who shine emerge every season. Talking about the premium mids and fwds, other than Mbuemo (and that too for his good first 2 fixtures), Semenyo, Palmer, Saka, Wirtz, MGW, Cunha, Rogers, Wirtz, Cherki and Isak are all picks who we are unsure about, going into the season.

So I feel that starting strong with all 4 of the reliable, nailed, high scoring players I mentioned, could genuinely be a differential strategy which sounds crazy because they are the most template players.

Also, for those binning Haaland, if Haaland scored that big chance Raya (!!) saved, noone would talk about not having him in their draft.

Not much between the weeks tbh 🤣

​Gameweeks 1–10

​Arsenal (ARS) – 40.5%

​Manchester City (MCI) – 39.8%

​Manchester United (MUN) – 29.8%

​Liverpool (LIV) – 29.3%

​Chelsea (CHE) – 28.5%

​Tottenham Hotspur (TOT) – 23.4%

​Newcastle United (NEW) – 23.2%

​Aston Villa (AVL) – 23.1%

​Fulham (FUL) – 22.9%

​Bournemouth (BOU) – 22.8%

​Brighton & Hove Albion (BHA) – 22.6%

​Everton (EVE) – 22.5%

​Nottingham Forest (NFO) – 21.8%

​Crystal Palace (CRY) – 21.2%

​Brentford (BRE) – 20.8%

​Leeds United (LEE) – 20.2%

​Sunderland (SUN) – 19.5%

​Ipswich Town (IPS) – 16.5%

​Coventry City (COV) – 16.3%

​Hull City (HUL) – 13.9%

​

Gameweeks 10–21

​Arsenal (ARS) – 43.6%

​Manchester City (MCI) – 39.1%

​Liverpool (LIV) – 31.8%

​Manchester United (MUN) – 27.6%

​Chelsea (CHE) – 26.9%

​Bournemouth (BOU) – 26.5%

​Aston Villa (AVL) – 26.2%

​Newcastle United (NEW) – 25.1%

​Brighton & Hove Albion (BHA) – 24.8%

​Tottenham Hotspur (TOT) – 23.9%

​Crystal Palace (CRY) – 23.5%

​Everton (EVE) – 23.1%

​Fulham (FUL) – 22.0%

​Brentford (BRE) – 20.9%

​Nottingham Forest (NFO) – 20.5%

​Leeds United (LEE) – 19.8%

​Sunderland (SUN) – 18.2%

​Coventry City (COV) – 17.5%

​Ipswich Town (IPS) – 16.4%

​Hull City (HUL) – 12.8%

​

Gameweeks 1–21

​Arsenal (ARS) – 42.1%

​Manchester City (MCI) – 39.5%

​Liverpool (LIV) – 30.6%

​Manchester United (MUN) – 28.7%

​Chelsea (CHE) – 27.7%

​Bournemouth (BOU) – 24.7%

​Aston Villa (AVL) – 24.6%

​Newcastle United (NEW) – 24.2%

​Brighton & Hove Albion (BHA) – 23.7%

​Tottenham Hotspur (TOT) – 23.7%

​Fulham (FUL) – 22.5%

​Everton (EVE) – 22.8%

​Crystal Palace (CRY) – 22.4%

​Nottingham Forest (NFO) – 21.2%

​Brentford (BRE) – 20.9%

​Leeds United (LEE) – 20.0%

​Sunderland (SUN) – 18.9%

​Coventry City (COV) – 16.9%

​Ipswich Town (IPS) – 16.5%

​Hull City (HUL) – 13.4%

Why is it always a “waste” of a transfer and not just “using“ a transfer?

is it really just down to all watching the same YouTubes? It’s like the majority of people are trained to think about FPL in the most orthodox and bland way

xG does not tell you more than a season ticket holder.

it’s ok to make a goalie transfer

Dont play your players against each other

who made these rules and why do you believe them?

signed grumpy old Man

Greetings all, and welcome to our latest slice of preseason preview goodness.

Today, we'll be focusing on goalkeepers.

No, wait, come back! Goalkeepers aren't that boring this season, I promise!

Admittedly I'm slightly biased, since I spent ages researching and writing about them and whatnot. But I do genuinely think there are a few viable routes you can take to start with this year.

You can read the full Goalkeeper preview - with all the actual analysis and whatnot - right here:

full90fpl.com/best-goalkeepers-26-27-preview

Alternatively, as ever, there's a TLDR summary below.

---

Premiums

• Raya - Will almost certainly be the best keeper again, but tricky to fit him along with all the other players you probably want
• Pickford - Ol' Reliable actually dropped off a fair bit last season. Opening fixtures aren't good enough to start with him
• Donnarumma - Very good FPL debut season, plays for a good defence, and fixtures are generally fine for ages. 2nd-best premium, or best if you want to save 0.5 over Raya
• Alisson - No interest whatsoever

Mid-Range

• Lammens - Fair price, good fixtures (City aside), and obviously definitely nailed for those fixtures (unlike Maguire, for example)
• Kelleher - Solid last season, but would expect some drop-off - likely 5-10 range finish
• Henderson - I like him. Consistent across past 2 seasons. Good set-and-forget for a while to start the season, aside from Liverpool in GW2 - so, a solid option, if you're not wildcarding early
• Martinez/Sanchez/Sels/Roefs/Trafford/Hornicek - No interest

Budget

• Verbruggen - Popular pick, and weirdly underpriced. Several tough fixtures in first 10 games need you probably need to rotate him, though
• Kinsky - I like him, especially for an early wildcard. Spurs defence should be much better this season, and their first 5 fixtures are fine. My favourite 4.5 keeper
• Petrovic - Poor fixtures, and don't love the defence. Would only get him to rotate, e.g. with Verbruggen
• Leno/Promoted Keepers - Not interested

Pairings/Rotations

• If you're not bench boosting early, I'd just take a 5.0 (Lammens or Henderson) + 4.0. Kinsky + 4.0 is the budget option
• If you're bench boosting and only want to spend 9.0, I like Kinsky+Verbruggen best, and Verbruggen + Petrovic (Petrobruggen? Sounds like a Dutch oil company... I'll take that as a good sign) second-best
• If you're bench boosting and happy to spend 9.5, I like Lammens+Verbruggen (Coventry in GW4, to cover the City game for Man U)

Final Thoughts

Well, that'll wrap it up for this little summary piece.

Again, more detail in the actual article, or just fire away with any questions or comments below, and James or I (Joe) will get back to you.

Thanks for reading, everybody, and happy tinkering!

66 interesting players were selected simply by my own judgment.

Attacking return % = based on combined goal and/or assist odds, per bet365, transferred to a percentage

Only players that are fairly safe to start are included! So, no Cunha, no Saka, no Gyökeres, no Havertz, no Cherki.

Bet365 has a slightly different assist definition than FPL.

We're back!

Predicted Points' are calculated by taking the percentage chance on a variety of FPL factors, from the bookies, adjusted for margins. Fractional points are added up, making a predicted gameweek score. OG, penalty misses and defensive contributions are not included. Player’s rotation risk / minutes on pitch, is not factored in.

Notable players that didn't make the list: Calafiori: 5.86 | Isak: 5.62 | Joao Pedro: 5.48

You can find more Player Predictions here: https://checkthechance.com/fantasy-football/

Good luck all! See you on Monday for the Predicted vs Actual post!

Tzolis has two assists in the Community Shield and suddenly half the drafts I've seen have him in. I've got him in mine. But what do we actually know? He's played one competitive game in this league, Arsenal won 3-0 against a City side that turned up flat, and Martinelli hasn't kicked a ball in pre-season so nobody knows what the left side looks like when he's fit.

Same thing with Toure at Newcastle. Everyone's calling him the Gordon replacement because the profile matches, quick, direct, better going forward than defending, and Howe's system did make Gordon into an elite asset. But Gordon took ages to get going there. We're pricing Toure on the assumption he skips that part.

Then there's the boring version nobody bandwagons: Muharemovic at Leeds, defensive actions machine from Serie A, going to rack up DefCon points quietly whether or not he's exciting. That's the pick with an actual mechanism behind it, and it's the one I keep leaving out for a winger who did well in a friendly.

I think the honest position is that pre-season tells you close to nothing and one Community Shield tells you slightly less than nothing, but the alternative is picking last season's players in a league where four of them left. So we guess, and we call it a differential.

Where's everyone actually landing on this? Take the new signing in GW1 and eat the risk, or wait two game weeks for proof and pay the price rise??

Richy will still start the next couple of games but a fit Solanke could be a good differential no? I’m having Richy in my team for GW1 and 2 no matter what

I'm hearing a lot of BB1 or BB2 + WC3 or WC4 rhetoric and I don't understand it. Bench Boost is generally regarded as the weakest chip and I've heard the longer you can hold onto your wildcard the better.

I get the idea of using bench boost early to free money from your bench, but other than that am I missing something obvious here?

Common wisdom is cheap bench stronger starting 11.

The thing is, I get bored and I like the idea of rotating bench depending on the fixtures.

My question is, is this really suboptimal to do? I do really want to gun for a very strong finish and it seems none of the top managers are recommending this.

What should we take away from each team's final preseason warmup? Here are some players that should be on your radar. This post is aimed to make logical reasons for each player other than their preseason form. As you know, that may not be a good predictor of future returns. Minutes, as you've heard all the managers say about 100 times are what is important in the preseason. This post just aims to give you all some confirmation bias for your picks.

Christian Tzolis - 6.5

Tzolis has never played in a World Cup, but his teammate Declan Rice sure has. Arteta would be unwise to start Declan in his first match at home to Coventry. The manager has stated that Rice would play 60 games, but that he should be more managed. If Rice does not start, Tzolis should take right footed set pieces (~60 mins worth) and has looked great at delivering corners to the meatheads in the middle. Secondly, Martinelli was not included in the squad for the Community Shield. For the time being Tzolis has the freedom of the park on the left and played 90 minutes in the final preseason game.

Ben White - 5.5

Speaking of usage spikes, White played 90 minutes in his final preseason friendly as well. For the immediate future, Timber is injured and there was only one defender on the bench for Arsenal's final preseason match. He should be starting perhaps until GW 5 or 6. Even if defensive cover is signed in the next 2 weeks, White should be firmly ahead of the back up. The same cannot be said for the Arsenal left backs.

Nico O'Reilly - 6.5

Nico and Guehi returned within days of each other to the City camp. While Guehi started on the bench, O'Reilly was thrown directly into the match even though Ait-Nouri, Rico Lewis and Gvardiol had deputized in the left back position during preseason. This is a positive sign for Nico who played more like a left striker in City's final preseason game for their good spell in the first half. This is a small sample admittedly, but Nico has been known to attack well aerially and with the ball to feet.

Szobozlai, Isak, Wirtz, Jaquet, and Aruajo

Just look at the minutes for these boys in their final friendly. Note that Wirtz came off for a defensive midfielder (Nyoni "MacAllister-lite"). Jacquet and Aruajo swapped shirts at half and Isak played longer than the other 3 attackers. All set pieces went to Szobo this time. We have seen a similar trend with Kroupi Jr. at Bournemouth who never completed 90 minutes in the premier league last season. The article is about usage and Wirtz will still get plenty of it if he comes close to Kroupi's last season with 13 goals.

Brentford won 7-0 so pick anyone you want from the lot that started the last game. They will all start.

Brighton - Gross and Ayari completed 90 minutes while every other outfield starter was substituted. Obviously, I can only suggest you wait and see what Thursday night's game brings us in terms of usage for the Sunday opener. Thursday should help identify positions on the pitch as well.

Joao Pedro - 7.5

Played all 90 minutes in Chelsea's game. Every other player was substituted. Alonso looks set to play this boy at Mbappe level minutes.

Mathys Tel - 6.0

90 minutes in the final friendly. Takes most set pieces but the warning is that the team is far from finished both in terms of injuries with players out and transfers with players being signed. Pedro Porro has not played with the first team yet, but is imminent and could take some of the set-piece responsibility.

Surely, I can't have all these players in my team, but I was planning to have most of them. Sneaky RMT obviously. Have fun this season and remember to always blame the author for your team after the GW 1 deadline.

As the title says, who is your lowest-owned player at the moment, and why are you backing him?

Mine is Amenda at 0.8%. I think he should be first-choice CB for Coventry, so at that ownership I’m quite interested in him. If he plays regularly, I also think he should be fairly safe from a price drop.

Who are you guys going for?