With Gameweek 3 of Fantasy Premier League (FPL) almost upon us, we’ll be getting some top insight from our team of pundits and Hall of Famers.
Here, three-time top 200 finisher Lateriser discusses the keep-or-sell dilemma facing Florian Wirtz (£8.4m) owners and which midfielders to buy in Gameweek 3.
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FPL is well and truly back this week. A lot of chaos has already unfolded and a lot of engaged Fantasy managers are having not-so-great starts. I’ve already spoken about patience levels so I’m not going to repeat myself. Instead, you can just check this article.
A lot of FPL managers might have some midfield-sized holes in their team, depending on the news coming later for Cole Palmer (£10.5m) and Bukayo Saka (£10.0m). A lot of Fantasy bosses are also losing faith in Florian Wirtz (£8.4m).
So, my focus of this article will just be that: midfielders.
FLORIAN WIRTZ: KEEP OR SELL?
Firstly, I want to give my opinion on Wirtz.
While he is taking his time adjusting to the league right now, I think no other midfielders are really putting their hands up at the moment. I think we also take the game against Newcastle United with a pinch of salt. Liverpool, in general, were very poor.
I do think Liverpool’s fixtures against low blocks in Gameweek 4 and 5 against Burnley and Everton will suit Wirtz. Liverpool will have a lot more possession in the game and there will be a lot less chaos. Wirtz is still playing far up the field and his teammates are still getting used to each other. Given his knack of finding defence-splitting passes, he’ll be a lot more useful in those games as well.
In fact, he makes a lot of useful runs which his teammates are not finding at the moment. That will improve weekly as the team chemistry improves with the players getting used to each other.
This is my current standpoint but if you have no other burning issues in your team, feel free to sell. I just think with the fixtures in Gameweek 4 and 5, it isn’t the biggest problem.
MBEUMO V CUNHA V FERNANDES
Now, coming to midfielders that we can buy. With Liverpool and Arsenal facing off against each other week, there is no real stand-out captaincy option for Gameweek 3, with the exception of Erling Haaland (£14.1m).
Now, if you don’t have a direct route to Haaland, a certain Jekyll-and-Hyde Manchester United side do face Burnley at home. There were glimpses of improvement against Arsenal in the first week and the first 20 minutes against Fulham but once the Cottagers adjusted to United, they couldn’t catch a break.
That said, the good side was that Matheus Cunha (£8.0m) and Bruno Fernandes (£9.0m) should have taken us out of sight in the first 20-30 minutes.
So, which United midfielder to go for? Let’s look at some data.
Note that this data is very short-term and hence there is a lot of noise with the same. The long story made short is that it’s tight.
Cunha has the highest non-penalty expected goal involvement (NPxGI) amongst the three. He is also behind only Anthony Gordon (£7.5m) for shots taken in the league.
Fernandes is playing a little deeper but he (hopefully) won’t be as deep against Burnley. He’s on penalties, and I don’t think he goes off them despite the Gameweek 2 miss. He also has set pieces from one side, which United have gotten better at. On top of that, there is the defensive contribution (DefCon) potential: he’s hit the threshold once against Fulham and was close to doing so against Arsenal. Once we contextualise that it is just one point less than an assist and very repeatable, it adds ammunition to Bruno as a pick.
Bryan Mbeumo (£8.0m) is on set pieces from the other side and is United’s most effective outlet on the counter. This might be useful in Gameweeks 4 and 5 against Manchester City and Chelsea.
The caveat here is that we haven’t seen United start a game with Benjamin Sesko (£7.5m) yet. The different patterns of play with him in the side could impact Mbeumo/Cunha/Bruno as FPL picks.
That said, I don’t want to sit on the fence with my opinion. I do think because of the quality of the player, Cunha’s involvement will just be very high. He’s the one I’m leaning towards at this stage. I don’t think there’s much to separate between the three but because of the price, I feel comfortable taking on Bruno with Cunha and saving £1.0m. He also has the ‘he is him’ factor, which worked perfectly fine for Joao Pedro (£7.6m) despite not ticking other factors like set pieces or penalties.
If going for Bruno, I do recommend waiting as late as possible. You never know what surprises the transfer market will throw up.
SARR
It is unfortunate that Gordon has a three-match suspension because he was right up my list of midfielders to consider.
One midfielder I really like and I am likely to go for this week is Ismaila Sarr (£6.5m). Oliver Glasner has Crystal Palace playing good football and I don’t think the impact of losing Eberechi Eze (£7.5m) will be as significant as losing Michael Olise last year.
Palace played well against a stubborn Nottingham Forest defence and only tailed off in the last 30 minutes, probably due to their shift on Thursday night. That might be the case again this week but Sarr does love a game against Aston Villa. Last season, he had four returns against them over two games. In six appearances against Villa, he has seven goals and three assists.
He’s playing as an ‘out of position’ (OOP) asset and his underlying numbers last season under Glasner were delicious to say the least.
The entry point for him is also really good as he faces Sunderland and West Ham United in Gameweeks 4 and 5.
OTHERS ON THE WATCHLIST
Cunha and Sarr are the top two picks on my list as things stand. Some others on my watchlist at the moment are:
Semenyo/Kluivert
Antoine Semenyo (£7.2m) has started the season on fire, clocking the highest number of big chances in the league. He could have a huge season in front of him. That said, he plays away to Spurs this weekend and I want to see how Bournemouth function when Justin Kluivert (£7.0m) is in the team. Penalties could still be worth it.
Eze
I want to see his role at Arsenal and the fixtures make him a watch-and-wait.
Rogers
I still haven’t lost faith in Morgan Rogers (£7.0m) and he has good fixtures Gameweek 5 onwards but I am waiting for Aston Villa to click into gear first.
Damsgaard/Ouattara
Both Mikkel Damsgaard (£5.9m) and Dango Ouattara (£6.0m) were impressive against Aston Villa. Damagaard is also good for DefCon and is on set pieces, too. Gameweek 3 is a good entry point but the fixtures after that don’t look the best.
Grealish
If we have our old Jack Grealish (£6.5m) back, I am interested. But I wonder about his potential as a goalscorer and want more proof in the pudding before I jump there. I am impressed by Everton’s window, though; they have done some strong work in the transfer market.
Kudus
Spurs have a great run of fixtures but I have the same doubts about Mohammed Kudus (£6.6m) as I have with Grealish with regards to his goalscoring potential. His role in that Spurs team seems to be to create.
Nottingham Forest midfielders
The Nottingham Forest midfielders are also worth monitoring but we don’t have full clarity on whether Nuno Espirito Santo will be managing there long term and how they will rotate during Europe.
That is all from me this week. We’ll be discussing more on this week’s episode of The FPL Wire, which you can view here:
