Pras’s FPL Gameweek 1 team + dilemmas: Watkins v Pedro

With Fantasy Premier League (FPL) live for 2023/24, we’ll be welcoming back our team of Hall of Famers and guest writers for the new campaign. Next up, The Wire co-host Pras shares his deadline-day dilemmas and two possible team drafts.

Our writers will be providing regular articles and team reveals throughout the new season, with only Premium Members able to access every single one.

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I was hoping to do an article on my thoughts for my final Gameweek 1 team but I am not there yet, so instead I will do one on my current dilemmas going into the deadline today.

Firstly, though, the players I’m sure of.

Goalkeepers

Matt Turner’s (£4.0m) move to Nottingham Forest is a game-changer for me. The rotation potential with both Sam Johnstone (£4.5m) and Jordan Pickford (£4.5m) means I am hesitant to spend more than £8.5m in those two slots. I feel that £0.5m saved could be needed into my other 10 outfield slots by Gameweek 3 or 4. But more on that later.

I am fairly set on the Pickford + Turner combo that gives me the following set of fixtures until Gameweek 10: FUL, SHU, WOL, shu, BUR, bre, LUT, BOU, LUT and whu.

Everton’s pre-season results also give me a nice confirmation bias that they will play Dyche-ball a bit better this year and not score too many. Therefore, more potential for Pickford bonus:

Defenders

With the Gabriel Jesus (£8.0m) injury and lack of midfield slots, Gabriel Magalhaes (£5.0m) or William Saliba (£5.0m) feel like an automatic inclusion if one wanted to go for triple Arsenal. Similarly, Pervis Estupinan (£5.0m) with his excellent first three fixtures is also a no-brainer. I do have plans to move him on to a City defender or Reece James (£5.5m) in Gameweek 3 or 4.

I am also fairly sure on my fifth defender in Issa Kaboré (£4.0m), who I think is the most attacking and nailed of all the £4.0m options.

Midfielders

My midfield four of Bruno Fernandes (£8.5m), Marcus Rashford (£9.0m), Bukayo Saka (£8.5m) and Gabriel Martinelli (£8.0m) have not changed since day one. There is a lot of ‘FOMO’ relating to Mohamed Salah (£12.5m) in Gameweek 2 against Bournemouth but people forget that Manchester United play Wolves and Forest at home and Arsenal play Forest and Fulham at the Emirates in that same three-Gameweek window.

In fact, if you see the projected points, there is little to nothing to differentiate these players – notwithstanding the staggering gap in price between the Arsenal and Man Utd boys and Salah. I understand that captaincy changes things in Gameweek 2 but Erling Haaland’s (£14.0m) expected points are also closer to 6.0 in that round, so it’s not like there is no strong captaincy alternative already: