This Much We Know – Gameweek 9

Not all knee-jerks have a happy ending as some surprising (and some less surprising) rotation decimates our teams and makes a mockery of our benches.

Harry, meanwhile, has a magic moment at Wembley as we find ourselves listening to the winds of change.

Here’s my take on the lessons learned from Gameweek 9.

Sometimes we can be too clever

If patience is a virtue, it is not one possessed by the average FPL manager.

And this was the Gameweek that reminded us that for every hit taken buying and captaining Romelu Lukaku before his four-goal foray (my luckiest move last season), there’s any number of occasions when our tinkering can cause more harm than good.

My “Skeye’s the Limit” line-up was one of 200,000 sides which took one look at Mohamed Salah’s short-term fixtures and, perhaps blinded by the iridescent riches on offer at the promised land in Manchester, decided it was time to ditch the “erratic” Egyptian.

Almost twice that number were exasperated enough by Dele Alli’s recent dry run and unpalatable schedule to move him on and, once again, I have to admit to having my head turned by a certain David Silva’s glittering performances for the champions-elect at the Etihad.

Captain Hindsight now shakes his head as my armband choice, Raheem Sterling, is auto-subbed in disgrace. He allows me no respite from his disdain when I point to David Silva’s clean sheet point and proffer the Match of the Day highlights which suggest – to my desperate eyes at least – that it could easily have been more than that.

I’m no clown and I won’t back down, but, like many this week, I’m cursing my surrender to the pursuit of fool’s gold.

Pep has a formidable bench, so we need one too

When six of the top 20 scoring FPL players are wearing a Sky Blue shirt, it is perhaps a little unfair to refer to Pep’s players as fool’s gold.

Yet between 2.01pm and 4.50pm, Saturday’s comments were full of contrasting emotions for those of us who had dared to dream that we had sussed Guardiola’s team selection.

The German word ‘schadenfreude’ (meaning to take pleasure in someone else’s suffering) is an apt description of the behaviour of many a troll, but also encapsulates what we have come to expect when we load our teams with the free-scoring and defensively sound City stars.

Undoubted “freude” (pleasure), as Sergio Aguero, Leroy Sane and Nicolas Otamendi helped continue City’s ruthless and relentless run towards all manner of new records. But also a fair share of schaden (damage) as those who had brought in and captained Sterling or Gabriel Jesus (or both) were left checking their vice-captaincy and, later, ruing Jesus’ brief cameo.

So is the answer simply to bring in the three scorers?

For a combined quarter of a million managers already this Gameweek the answer is a resounding yes. However (with the possible exception of Otamendi) surely we cannot keep playing the Etihad hokey cokey and wasting transfers and points when it seems that every City player has a part to play in Pep’s masterplan. There’s just no way of predicting whose turn it will be from week to week.

Indeed, many of us would be better served getting our benches sorted out because…

It’s horrible when you can’t scrape a side together

Ben Davies and Phil Jones remain in the top five scoring defenders of the game, albeit sharing third place jointly with goal machine Nacho Monreal (whose last league goal before this season came five seasons ago).

In Gameweek 9, however, we were treated to a combined one point tally from the pair, with Jones hobbling off in an all-too predictable injury scare and Davies forced to sit alongside fellow wing-back Danny Rose.

We seem forced to scan press snippets and forum rumours in an attempt to unlock the complex managerial speak and ascertain whether our players are likely to turn up.

It is, therefore, no surprise to note that Jones and Davies (and Eric Bailly) are the most sold defenders ahead of Gameweek 10.

Whether or not you intend to continue to put yourself at the mercy of Mauricio Pochettino’s whims or Jones’ fragile limbs, it seems we need to prepare for disappointment. The key lesson I’ve gleaned is that if I am to gamble on City’s ephemeral delights or injury-prone defenders, I need to sort out my bench.

It may be mainly psychological (after all, your bench players by their very nature are rarely going to score heavily), but the frustration felt at having just one active substitute has stirred the need to ensure that never again will I be knowingly understaffed.

Desperately ringing around to find last-minute replacements for those whose Saturday night exertions render them “unfit” is a scenario which must be left in the local Sunday leagues.

And perhaps by dealing with my deadwood, I’ll be less likely to tinker away more points from my big hitters.

Kane silences his Wembley doubters

One such asset now likely locked in our squads is Harry Kane, who comprehensively ended his Wembley duck with a 16-point masterclass against an obliging Liverpool defence.

Whether the Spurs striker represents value is a separate discussion. However, as an explosive captain (or vice-captain, for the 12,000 who had the foresight or fortune to back up Stirling’s captaincy with Kane) and an assured starter, he is surely peerless.

But arguably Kane can’t be labelled fixture proof just yet. In fact, when it comes to his opponents, we perhaps need to dismiss the regular rules. Bournemouth, Swansea City and Burnley all produced that alluring dark blue on the season ticker for Spurs and yet yielded a total of just two goals.

Liverpool, in contrast, seemed a more testing opponent. And yet their own attacking ambition, coupled with a disastrous defending, appeared to play into the hands of Spurs and Kane.

With 15 goals conceded from five away matches, perhaps a travel-sick Liverpool are just the new defensive whipping boys. West Ham and Stoke – their next two hosts – will be the ultimate test of that theory.

Is the four, or even five, man midfield back?

Barely three weeks ago, we were spoilt for choice at the premium end of the striking scale with the likes of Lukaku, Aguero, Jesus, Kane, Alvaro Morata and Jamie Vardy locked in a Golden Boot race. That threatened to force us into an expensive 4:3:3 formation and to hell with points per million.

Almost inevitably in what has been an unpredictable opening to the season, many have already brought in a “value” third striker, such as Tammy Abraham, Mame Biram Diouf or Shinji Okazaki, and reinvested in midfield.

The high-end options, like Alexis Sanchez and Eden Hazard, are possibly showing early signs of recapturing last season’s breathtaking form, but there are also consistent performers one level down in the aforementioned Alli and Salah, a myriad of Manchester City marauders and the 26%-owned Christian Eriksen.

Cheaper still, Watford’s Richarlison could have been leading the midfield charts if he hadn’t left his scoring boots (and, er, head) at home against Chelsea. Behind him team-mate Abdoulaye Doucoure and Brighton’s Pascal Gross provide an even less expensive ‘in’ to the top ten midfield scorers, with a plum run of fixtures to boot.

Personally, I saw enough of Everton’s defence this week to keep faith with Vardy for at least another week and get that bench of mine sorted (cheerio, Mason Holgate and Nathan Chalobah).

But it is undeniably a fascinating season of shifting strategies, however poorly my own campaign is faring.