As the FPL deadline fast approaches – 19:00 UK time – the Fantasy Football Scout Gameweek Guide offers a recap of the latest advice, statistics, and opinion.
Scout Picks and Team News
Manchester City, Arsenal, and Liverpool provide four premium attackers for this week’s Scout Picks. Agüero and Sterling the two City players of choice ahead of a home match against bottom-of-the-table Watford.
Their inclusion is supported by the DS stats, fixtures and clean sheet odds provided by G-Whizz. But isn’t this a case of deja vu? We all know what happened last week as the Premier League champions lost 3-2 to Norwich City.
Nonetheless, as the dust settled, the stats provided some comfort to owners of the Citizens as Neale reported earlier in the week.
TheFantasyFreÆK highlighted their performance in his Gameweek 5 review:
Aguero accumulated 3 big chances while Sterling recorded 15 penalty area touches, 4 chances created (including 2 big chances created), 4 shots inside the box (including 1 big chance) and was particularly unlucky to come out of the game without any attacking returns.
For those who would prefer to avoid the stress, Sam from FPL Family made the case for Aubameyang:
For me, the fixtures and the injury to Lacazette mean that Aubameyang is impossible to ignore, with a run of 6, 6, 5, 9 and 13 points in the first five Gameweeks he is a priority asset.
Neale brought us the latest team news, among the headlines Mason Mount is set to miss this weekend’s clash with Liverpool, while Martial and Pogba remained sidelined with injury. Lanzini is also struggling with a small problem.
Rotation’s Alter Ego provided a handy team-by-team rundown.
Survival Guide for a bad Gameweek
Even the best can suffer. Greyhead noted in his review of The Great and The Good that:
Four now sit outside the top 1 million including Ville Ronka and Matthew Jones which should give us mere mortals hope that such FPL legends are not immune to the difficult start that has befallen most of us.
A talking point on this week’s Scoutcast, the panel discussed how to recover from a terrible start.
Joe quoted the advice of Simon March, a former FPL winner and a graduate in behavioural economics, that:
FPL is a game you play against yourself
In his Meet the Manager video with Joe last year, Simon described the “What the heck? Effect” – where we are more likely to take risks following a loss.
Karam offered further sage advice on the Scoutcast counselling viewers not to worry too much. Ranks at this stage of the season are still squeezed, so big jumps up/down are possible. The best thing if you are having a bad Gameweek is to close your laptop and come back midweek when you are feeling calmer.
A hot topic on the subject provided a platform for further discussion.
Captain Pick
In the Captaincy Video earlier this week, David pointed out that, since January, the Watford defence has conceded more big chances than any other team. However, the Hornets were more defensive under Flores. Neale pointed out in his Scout Report that:
The key numbers suggest Watford were more solid defensively under Flores but less of an attacking threat. They conceded 32 fewer gilt-edged chances under Flores (66) than they did in Gracia’s final full season in charge (98).
While long-time FFS user Bøwstring The Carp in his community piece on the returning Watford boss added:
We saw a tough-tackling, direct approach mixed with a negative and counter-attacking defence; as if it were the love-child of Allardyce and Mourinho. The stuff of nightmares to some.”
The reason for playing special attention to the Watford defence is their encounter with Manchester City this week. Sterling and Agüero currently lead the Captain Poll on this site with 27% and 25% of the vote.
In his Captain Sensible article, David concludes:
[Agüero] looks the more likely of the two to feature from the beginning and has proved the better goal threat, while Sterling probably offers better creativity and the fact that he gets more points for goals and clean sheets.
The Argentine was benched for Manchester City’s Champions League win over Shakhtar Donetsk midweek. Whereas Sterling played the full 90 minutes after starting both matches over the international break. FP Elephant rounded-up the midweek action and playing time for popular FPL players in his They might be tired article.
Outside of Manchester City, Salah and Aubameyang offer the most appealing armband alternatives.
Salah faces a Chelsea team who have conceded 11 goals this season, only Norwich have shipped more with 12. While Aubameyang faces an Aston Villa side who have allowed their opponents to take 90 shots this season, just Norwich and Arsenal themselves have given up more.
Away from the Premier League, for fans of Swedish football and true fantasy lovers, Meltens previewed Gameweek 24 in Fantasy Allsvenskan.
To view all our discussions please visit our Hot Topics page, and if you’ve got some analysis, scout reports or features brewing, be sure to visit our community section to submit your article.
If you’re a member and are yet to get to grips with the custom statistics tables, you can view this movie for an explanation of how they work. Also, remember to tag them so that people can find the tables with ease.
COMMUNITY TOURNAMENTS
Updates on the latest FFS mini-league and community-run competitions can be found here.
For those interested in the Head-to-Head Leagues, the main page can be linked to here. A link has also been added to the ‘Scout Leagues’ section on the home page. And next week an important update will be published.
Registration remains open for the Pundit’s Play-Off Community Tournament. The deadline for entry is 30 September.
Best of luck with Gameweek 6!
