FPL Gameweek 17 team drafts: Chelsea triple-up

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Here, former FPL champion Simon March reveals his current FPL team ahead of Gameweek 17.

I don’t know about you but the World Cup came at a fairly bad time for me FPL-wise as, after an uninspired start and a miserable middle, I’d actually started to pull back some level of respectability to my season in the half-dozen Gameweeks before the break.

Still, it would be a rare Fantasy manager to give up the opportunity to totally restructure their team and I’ve embraced it like I once have embraced a long-lost friend encountered by chance in a pub, on a snowy Christmas Eve (turned out to be a case of mistaken identity but there’s no point in dwelling on that).

Anyway, here’s my current draft ahead of Gameweek 17 and some of the thinking behind it.

Before I get started though, I should mention that I have £1.0m in the bank (only FPL-wise, obviously) so please bear that in mind.

Goalkeepers

I’m not currently on the Kepa Arrizabalaga (£4.5m) train. As much of a cult hero as he might be among Chelsea fans, he’s not nailed on and even if he was, he’s one or two mistakes away from being replaced (and, as we know, Kepa is more than capable of one or two mistakes). He also doesn’t offer the benefit of save point potential since, believe it or not, Chelsea are the fourth-best defence so far this season when it comes to fewest shots conceded.

Instead, I’m sticking with my existing roster of Brentford’s David Raya (£4.6m) and Leicester’s Danny Ward (£4.1m) who, between them, have seven clean sheets and 52 saves in their last six matches. If I can somehow nail the rotation between them, I’ll be very happy if that form continues.

Defenders

Arsenal’s Ben White (£4.7m), Newcastle’s Kieran Trippier (£5.9m) and Man Utd’s Diogo Dalot (£4.8m) all retain their places, having offered great value so far this season (though I’ll be keeping an eye on the latter since, at the time of writing, he’s yellow-flagged with a hamstring strain).

Joining them are Chelsea duo Reece James (£5.8m) and Wesley Fofana (£4.3m) with an eye on their upcoming run of good fixtures and the Blues’ Double Gameweek 19. Of the two, Fofana probably needs more of an explanation but, at his price (he’s £4.3m fo-fana’s sake!) he has the potential to be one of the best value defenders in the game over the coming weeks – if he can remain fit and if Chelsea can pull it together defensively. Even if that doesn’t quite transpire, he’s cheap enough to bench and I should have enough coverage if that becomes necessary.

Both, naturally, are choices dependent on team news given that they are also both currently yellow-flagged.

Midfielders