We’re trying something new ahead of the Gameweek 24 deadline of Fantasy Premier League (FPL) with a Scout Picks ‘bus team’.
Essentially a first draft of our regular XI, this is partly in response to feedback from some users who wanted certain features or articles to be available earlier in the week.
We’ll be endeavouring to do the same with the Team News tab going forward, too.
The Scout Picks widget on the home page is generally only in use for a very short space of time (one or two days a week, at most) and becomes largely redundant once the deadline passes, so this new article strand will also hopefully give it a bit more shelf-life.
The pre-deadline picks will stay as they are and cement our weekly selection based on the Scout Squad long-list entries but this ‘bus team’ – a rather macabre term coined by the Always Cheating boys, as it’s the team you set at the start of the week in case you get hit by a bus before the deadline – will discuss the players who are likely to be in the running.
And so we begin with Gameweek 24…
THE LIKELY LADS
There are few weeks when Trent Alexander-Arnold (£8.5m) and Joao Cancelo (£7.1m) don’t feature in the Scout Picks and the premium pair will be yet again pushing hard for inclusion ahead of Gameweek 24.
FPL’s leading points scorers among defenders have 21 attacking returns and 22 clean sheets between them this season, with Cancelo especially maybe even a shout for the armband this week: he’s sixth in our captaincy poll, with around 5% of the vote, at the time of writing.
Of slight concern with Cancelo is the fact that Kyle Walker (£5.4m) is suspended in Europe, so he will presumably be asked to operate at right-back against Sporting Lisbon a week on Tuesday. Does that make the Portuguese full-back a slight rotation risk against Norwich City in Gameweek 25, as a result? That’s a question for the next set of Scout Picks, for sure.
It’s not beyond the realms of possibilities that we end up with two City defenders in our side this week, with Walker and Aymeric Laporte (£5.7m) – who is on a run of eight matches without a blank – also in the running.
As for Alexander-Arnold, his escalating price is the only real obstacle to him finding his way into our weekly selection, which has a budget of £83.0m. Don’t be surprised to see Andrew Robertson (£7.1m) feature instead in a few of our Scout Picks XIs when we’re going big further forward, with the Scot in excellent form: he averages 8.25 points per match over his last eight appearances, registering a goal and seven assists along the way.
A Liverpool defensive double-up is also a real (expensive) proposition when easier tests await the Reds but with Leicester the fifth-highest-scoring team in the Premier League per game, perhaps it’s not the time.
Arsenal defensive representation, be it through Aaron Ramsdale (£5.1m), Kieran Tierney (£5.1m) or the cheaper Ben White (£4.5m), also looks on the cards for the Scout Picks, with only Norwich and Burnley scoring at a worse rate than Wolves this season. Whether the Scout Squad nominates save merchant David de Gea (£5.2m) en masse will also likely have a say in whether it’s Ramsdale or one of the defenders in front of him.
Returning to City, the in-form Kevin De Bruyne (£12.2m) is arguably the leading captaincy candidate for Gameweek 24, after a run of 55 points in just eight matches. Phil Foden (£8.0m) is a cut-price alternative or companion pick against a Brentford side with only one clean sheet to their name in 18 fixtures, while Riyad Mahrez (£8.6m) is also hovering on our radar after Gabriel Jesus (£8.5m) returned from international duty with an injury.
Jarrod Bowen (£6.9m), FPL’s second highest-scoring midfielder, will also surely be a consensus Scout Squad pick against a Watford side he delivered 14 points against little more than a month ago.
IN CONTENTION
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