Our team of Hall of Famers and guest writers will provide Fantasy Premier League (FPL) tips and advice throughout 2023/24. Here, two-time Indian FPL champion Lateriser reveals his current thoughts after activating the Wildcard for Gameweek 10.
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My Wildcard button has finally been pushed, so I will talk about what my current draft looks like.
I do want to caveat by saying this is ongoing and will probably not be my final one. There’s plenty of time to change things by the Friday deadline.
Before drafting, I go back to my drawer of FPL philosophies – the ones I want to follow when squad building. With few teams trusted from a Fantasy perspective, I want to attack their fixtures and take things from there.
ALL VILLA, NO FILLER
Looking at the Season Ticker – sorted alphabetically with only the teams I find relevant – there are a few sides that have a good run of fixtures in the short, as well as the medium, term.
Liverpool and Aston Villa sit second and third for expected goals (xG) so far and have juicy games coming up. The latter have been a different beast at home, netting 17 goals in four outings, and they’re about to host Luton Town and Fulham. Having said that, the fixtures do worsen from Gameweek 15 so I have to ensure the other picks are slightly longer-term.
Until then, they warrant at least a double-up, possibly even a triple-up. Ollie Watkins (£8.3m) is averaging almost a return a game under Unai Emery and he’s in the form of his life, with 20 goals and a place at Euro 2024 being chased.
“Before, I would run into the corner flags and be chasing things but now we have attacking full-backs that do that so I try to stay central. I make more clever runs, I would say. There were times where I was dropping too deep to get touches on the ball whereas now I’m not as bothered about that.
“I let the other creative players do what they need to do and receive the ball from them. I’m not too worried about touches. It’s working well. Over 20 goals and going to the Euros is what I want to do. That’s my goal and it’s what I’m pushing for. I know my club form has to be good with Villa.” – Ollie Watkins
Although Matty Cash (£5.1m) doesn’t have good fixtures for long, his attacking threat makes him a shoo-in for me. The team plays in such a manner that a lot of their play comes from the left-hand side where Lucas Digne (£4.7m) creates, allowing Watkins, Cash and Moussa Diaby (£6.7m) to get in and around the box.
Since his good run of fixtures in Gameweek 5, Kieran Trippier (£6.9m) has amassed 54 points in five Gameweeks. Such is the potential damage that a high-upside defender can cause, I must have Cash in my team.
As things stand, I also have Diaby over the likes of Kaoru Mitoma (£6.5m) and cheaper pair Antony Gordon (£5.6m) and Cole Palmer (£5.0m). Whilst his underlying numbers don’t look very encouraging, I just happen to think it is happenstance. Even Watkins described Diaby’s position as a ‘second striker’ on Match of the Day and I do think that, from positioning alone, he should be in and around the points over the next three Gameweeks.
Mitoma has a slightly longer run of good fixtures but I am worried about Roberto De Zerbi’s rotation, especially around the important Ajax games. It was impressive how many times Diaby found Watkins versus West Ham United. In fact, when it comes to chances created for each other, Diaby and Watkins top the league at 17. Next up is the 11 of Darwin Nunez (£7.4m) and Mohamed Salah (£12.8m).
NO TO SPURS
We discussed mine and Pras’ Wildcards at length on this week’s episode of The FPL Wire. As well as that, there’s a look into who to prioritise from this plethora of strong FPL options.
