Heading into Gameweek 2 of Fantasy Premier League’s (FPL) 2024/25 campaign, two-time Indian FPL champion Lateriser talks us through a few thoughts and observations from the opening weekend.
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Now that Gameweek 1 is behind us, I’m going to talk through some key observations and share some of my early thoughts concerning certain players, as well as a couple of big-picture thoughts.
HAVERTZ
I was pretty happy with my Gameweek 1 team, except for the non-ownership of Kai Havertz (£8.1m). He’s been an explosive pick since the end of last season, where his latest 15 starts have featured 10 goals and nine assists. That’s a rate of 1.26 returns per game. The question is whether he’s firmly Arsenal’s first choice or do we need to worry about Gabriel Jesus‘ (£6.9m) presence.
Rio Ferdinand recently shared what Declan Rice (£6.5m) has recently said about Havertz:
“Do you know what, I spoke to Declan Rice the other day and he spoke about Havertz in such glowing terms. Declan was like ‘we don’t need a number nine, Havertz is our guy.’ The confidence he exuded about Havertz… I was like, I didn’t know you guys felt like that about him.”
And I firmly believe that Mikel Arteta might stick with this winning combination. Havertz just seems like the guy and he’s a regret that I’m desperate to correct on an early Wildcard. As things stand, I’m likely using it in Gameweek 6 rather than Gameweek 3, due to the big fixture swings for Arsenal and Manchester City.
EARLY WILDCARD THOUGHT
Some of you might be looking at an earlier time to activate this chip, maybe even Gameweek 2 for some – for which Scout has provided some drafts.
When building a Wildcard squad, due to the higher quantity of European games and teams now needing 15-18 points to qualify for the knockout stages, I expect a fair amount of both rotation and injuries.
If planning a longer-term team, which we will if Wildcarding before Gameweek 7 and 8, a deeper squad might help. Now that the rules allow managers to save up to five free transfers, we can be organised for fixture swings and don’t immediately need to resolve fires within your squad if there are some decent back-ups in place. That seems doable, considering there’s a fairly substantial amount of good £5.5m midfielders and cheap defenders.
BRUNO FERNANDES
Another individual that I’ve mentioned on several occasions is Bruno Fernandes (£8.5m), who still hasn’t returned to the heights of his 244-point season in 2020/21. His three subsequent attempts have ended with between 17 and 19 attacking returns but I have an inkling that he’ll record over 20 this time.
There are a couple of reasons why. In pre-season, Manchester United have been trialling a 4-2-4 formation which was very much on display against Fulham, with Fernandes and Mason Mount (£6.5m) being the two ‘half-nines’.
Last season, the Portuguese international had to do a lot of everything. That included progressing play from the back in the absence of injured ball-playing defenders Luke Shaw (£4.9m) and Lisandro Martinez (£4.5m).
Now there’ll be more depth in the form of Matthijs de Ligt (£5.0m) and Noussair Mazraoui (£4.5m), whilst likely buying a midfielder (with legs) to partner Kobbie Mainoo (£5.5m). Even Casemiro (£5.0m) is suddenly looking fitter. When he isn’t burdened with many minutes, he can be useful too.
What does this mean? Well, Fernandes can stop doing everything, instead focusing on being more impactful in the final third. Especially if this new 4-2-4 sticks. Even if you replace Mount with Joshua Zirkzee (£7.0m), I don’t think it’ll impact his output to a large extent as Zirkzee loves to drop deep and is great at enabling the attackers around him. Fernandes is one of them and therefore he, alongside Alejandro Garnacho (£6.5m), is firmly on my shortlist for the first Wildcard.
OTHER NAMES TO CONSIDER
Meanwhile, it looks like Ivan Toney (£7.4m) is about to leave Brentford to then make Bryan Mbeumo (£7.0m) one of the most ‘no-brainer’ midfielders. Eberechi Eze (£7.0m) is another, should he stay at Crystal Palace. They tick so many boxes when it comes to minutes, set-pieces, penalties and talismanic status. Both are still fairly young (yes, Mbuemo is 25) and on a positive trajectory. Mbeumo has particularly great fixtures from Gameweek 6 onwards, locking him into Wildcard squads.
One other note I’ve made to myself is that if Kyle Walker (£5.5m) gets injured, Rico Lewis (£4.5m) becomes an auto-pick. Some of the positions he – and Spurs’ Pedro Porro (£5.5m) – took up in Gameweek 1 were unbelievable, inverting not just into midfield but almost a ‘number 10’ role.
I’m slightly worried about Christopher Nkunku (£6.5m), though. His 58-minute one-pointer against Man City was followed by starting Chelsea’s midweek Europa Conference League match.
The 26-year-old did play fairly wide but I thought he was good, tidy and showed quality. I don’t expect Chelsea to stick with three defensive midfielders against Wolverhampton Wanderers and hopefully, this will make Nkunku play more centrally. But the addition of Joao Felix (£6.5m) adds more uncertainty to his minutes.
As things stand, I’m happy to give Nkunku a game or two more. He’s an elite goalscorer and deserves some more time.
That’s all from me this week. If you want more, check out my latest FPL Wire podcast with Pras and Zophar.
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