There’s precious little time to think ahead of the next Fantasy Premier League (FPL) deadline, with Gameweek 19 getting underway less than 24 hours after Gameweek 18 ended.
In this Scout Picks article, we discuss the players who we think could prosper in the first Double Gameweek of the 2022/23 season.
It’s a tricky selection, with team news in short supply and several clubs having tight turnarounds.
Players from Fulham and Chelsea, who both play twice, make up some of our team but we’ve resisted the urge to name triple-ups from the two sides, more of which below.
As ever, we are limited to £83.0m for our first XI.
After a reader vote ahead of 2022/23, an overall price cap of £100.0m is in place for our 15-man squad, too.
GOALKEEPER
Questions remain about the solidity of Chelsea’s backline, who conceded 10 shots in the box to Nottingham Forest on Sunday.
Kepa Arrizabalaga (£4.6m) nevertheless remains one of the best, if not the best, picks at his price point, averaging more points per match (5.1) than any other playing goalkeeper in FPL.
“The perfect blend of playing for a team just about strong enough to get a handful of clean sheets but not watertight enough to prevent him from accumulating those all-important saves” was how we summed up his appeal in our Watchlist article ahead of Gameweek 18.
And he’ll probably be racking up plenty of stops (if not clean sheets) in meetings with Manchester City and Fulham, who rank first and eighth for goal attempts in 2022/23.
DEFENDERS
So where are the clean sheets coming from this week? That was the main headache when it came to the Scout Picks for Gameweek 19, with the division’s two meanest defences for goals conceded meeting each other at the Emirates, the make-up of Manchester City’s backline tough to predict, and Liverpool continuing to look leaky at the rear.
Such is the dearth of choice that we’ve taken the unusual step of doubling up on the Manchester United defence for their home clash with Bournemouth.
The Red Devils are in a rich vein of form at the back, with five clean sheets in their last eight league matches. All of them have featured Casemiro (£4.9m), whose presence as a number six has been a marked improvement on what went before him.
United boast the fourth-best xGC figure in the division in that time, and they’ll be coming up against a side with the lowest xG total, by some distance, in 2022/23. Bournemouth’s Gameweek 18 performance was also labelled the “worst” of Gary O’Neil’s tenure by the man himself,
Luke Shaw (£4.9m) and Raphael Varane (£4.8m) are our two picks from the United backline, chiefly because of the uncertainty in the other two spots – there is a chance, for instance, that Lisandro Martinez (£4.5m) and Diogo Dalot (£4.8m) could be available for selection by midweek.
Fresh from a clean sheet in north London, Lucas Digne (£4.6m) prepares to face the division’s lowest scorers in the form of Wolverhampton Wanderers. And while FPL law dictates that the Frenchman must follow up a tidy score with negative points, we’re naively backing le troll and Villa to carry on the momentum that has seen them win three of Unai Emery’s first four league matches. All four fixtures have been against sides in the top eight, too, and yet Villa boast the Premier League’s fifth-best xGC in that time.
MIDFIELDERS
The rest of this article below is completely free to read but requires a Fantasy Football Scout user account for access – you can get yours at no cost here
COMMUNITY CHAMPION
Each week, a member of the Fantasy Football Scout community takes on the Scout Picks.
The community member who beats our team by the largest margin will win a £100 Amazon voucher and a place in our Moderators and Contributors League for the following season.
Boleyn Boy’s 81-54 victory in Gameweek 6 gave them the biggest win (27 points difference) of 2022/23 so far.
Our champion this week is Fpl_Jaafar, who has gone for the following: Kepa, Alexander-Arnold, Shaw, Digne, Rashford, Pulisic, Willian, DeCordova-Reid, Mitrovic(c), Havertz, Darwin.
The Scout Picks are 9-8 up on the community this season.
FOLLOW THE SCOUT’S WEEKLY TRANSFER PLANS
We’re running a Scout community team in FPL this season, with regulars like TopMarx, Geoff, Tom Freeman and more contributing to the weekly decisions.
And we’re not just looking one week ahead like we are with the Scout Picks but instead planning in advance for the weeks and months to come.
You can follow our team via the Premier Fantasy Tools Pro Planner, which you can learn more about here.
