Aguero early Gameweek 9 captain favourite as Salah deals with injury

Sterling, scoring good now days but still not part of the template. Worth getting as a differential?
Liverpool, good run of fixtures but who should we get? Some rotation risk and difficulty priced players.
Salah, should we keep and if not who should we get.

Player - Lacazette
Team - Newcastle

Would love to hear what you guys think about Firmino for this run of fixtures, even with his underwhelming stats so far.

Sterling - best mid after Haz but noone owns him
Arsenal - scoring goals for fun yet no love from Scouts
Which 3 Liverpool players to have for the good fixtures

Sterling.
Liverpool.
Captaincy - how do you decide on your captain in tough weeks with lots of good options.

Is sterling the most overlooked player so far this season?

Being .3 cheaper than Aguero and with the glut of good value strikers this season should our money be in a 5 man midfield rather than Aguero plus one or two mid priced forwards?

With fixtures turning for the good for Brighton and WHM, Murray or Arnie? Or probably both?

Also a case for going 4 atb with double pool def (Robbo, TAA), Alonso/Mendy and the likes of Doherty to rotate with a 4th mid (Kennedy) ?
Could work out very well in the distant future.

KDB - affordability, effect on others' roles/minutes
Wolves - the real deal?
Sterling vs Mane seems an ideal form vs fixtures discussion point.

The player has to be Salah with all the uncertainty around him as he would have been a lot of people’s go to captain choice

The team has to be Man City and what effect KDBs return will have on peoples thinking and does his return make Man City options more or less attractive

1. Mid priced Mids - Richarlison, Maddison, Fraser, Sig, Lucas Moura.. who is a must have?

2. Liverpool - worth tripple up for the good fixtures? if so, how?

3. Talk about players like Laporte.. are they worth keeping all season and playing 4 defenders (double up with Mendy). or go with only mendy and play 3 defenders. Same arguement with Trent & Robertson

For the talking point I'd quite like to hear the scouts thoughts on defensive structure for the long term. Firstly, would they favour 3,4 or 5 at the back? Secondly, what make up, ie. 3+ premiums, entirely cheap rotation defence, or a balanced approach somewhere between the 2?

In most seasons premium defenders offer predictable value according to fixture, however this season teams like Wolves could provide premium defender performance for a fraction of the price, enabling more spend further up the pitch.

Lacazette. Been going under the radar in the past few weeks but now everyone realises his appeal.
Liverpool. Salah to mane or a double up on defence has been causing confusion.
Fixture change - wolves defence still a good option? The likes of West Ham, Brighton, Newcastle have great fixtures - should we invest?

Also, it would be good if you could mention the IB wildcarders as having so much options and tinkering I’m getting confused and would like to know your opinions on great picks for the long term.

Player - KDB - what will his return mean for squad planning, especially given he is almost 9.5 now, is that price too good to be true.

Team - Liverpool - with Cardiff, Huddersfield, Fulham in their next 4, do you go big on their defence or attack or neither.

Talking point - fullbacks - is it time for a back 5 - especially with AWB’s horrific fixture list and Doherty’s emergence... Robbo, Alonso, Mendy, TAA, Doherty is a very playable back 5 - those 5 should keep pace with and even outscore most mids/fwds up to 7.0/8.0 but still allows 4 premium attackers due to TAA & Doherty’s price tags, and with many sub 6.0 (baseline price) attackers such as Ings, Jiminez, Fraser etc still allowing a strong squad, bench, and structural flexibility - if needed.

The Team: Newcastle with a mass of "easy" fixtures and relatively good defenders.
The Player: KDB, the impact to City and the players around him and when to buy.
The talking point should be looking at fixture changes and is there any real value in turning your team upside down.

Player: Salah - stick or twist
Team: Liverpool - which 2-3?
Talking Point: @FPL Twitter handles - stick or twist

Player:
Kane for giggles
Teams:
NEW & BHA, great fixtures poor teams, are their assets really investable or is it more a shot in the dark.
Talking point:
Wolves defence, have they been hugely overachieving defensively with 4 CS out of their last six, conceding just the one goal v City & another at Old Trafford over that run!
Can they keep it up (Benched Bennett points has been a killer for me personally as my only Wolves asset).

Sterling should be the player under discussion as he's being highly overlooked and the return of KDB might boost his prospects further

I'd like to know your thoughts on Arsenal as they have been going on a fine run, yet been under the radar so far.

Would be great if you talk about fixture scheduling and rotation risks as this will be a key point in the coming weeks especially among the big teams.

Brighton
Newcastle
Because both teams have good fixtures over a stretch but performance not worth getting into the team.(Esp.Newcastle)

Brighton: with good run which is the best assets from Attack or defense.

Arnautovic: with his injury on and off is he worth the risk.

Talking point: Premium defenders vs defenders with good fixtures (Newcastle, Brighton).

Player: Sterling Vs Mane
Team: Liverpool ( one midfielder plus two defenders or some other combo?)
Talking point: big hitters and captaincy, Aguero with limited mins, Salah of form, Kane play deep,should we stick to Hazard every week (nailed,on pens, doesn't have European duties,baps magnet -a 10 points for one goal),he could be close to last year Salah

Player. Aguero - justifying price tag when only getting 60 minutes and real fixture congestion coming up with CL.
team. Man City. Best use of picks with rotation and such a large squad.
Topic. Are premium strikers essential with so many decent options in the price brackets below

Player - Aguero. Worth keeping with minutes being monitored and rotation

Team - Liverpool. Fixture swing. Treble up? Which 3 assets?

Talking Point - Frontline Value. Better to have 1 Premium and 2 Sub 7m FW's or are the 0.5m FW's starting to work there way into teams, e.g. Laca, Firmino, Vardy

Player: De Bruyne. Usually the most nailed points magnet in City's lineup, a snip at £9.7m and owned by next to nobody.

Team: Leicester. Fixtures too good to ignore (even Arsenal away). With both Pereira in attack and Maguire finding the net in recent weeks, is it time to triple up?

Talking Point: Template breakers. As the season marches on and the points stack up, the tougher it is to break the top 10k. Should managers start looking to likes of Sterling (5.4% ownership), Vardy (4.9%) or Sigurdsson (4.3%) to shake things up a bit?

Player - Siggy. Is the old fantasy gold Gylfi back and being overlooked with

Is triple wolves defence too much? With such value there is it too good to miss or too many eggs in one basket?

Which player - Alonso and is a 4 match attacking blank period anything to be worried about? last season it was 7 or 8 games and he still clocked up a big total
Taking point - a playing and decent bench v taking hits ... the use of a decent bench seems largely ignored in the community with a preference for spending as much as possible on the starting 11 - is this a false economy when compared against taking hits ... is a playing bench worth more than spending the cash on the 11 players when hits couple be 40 or 50 points over a season ?

Robertson played 180 mins in IB, surely this is a chance to rest him?

Mane a good option now if you don’t have Salah?

If you’re selling Salah, who’d you rather get, sterling or mane?

Player: Sterling - scoring points, but noone owns him
Team: Arsenal - should we be on some of their players giving their long unbeaten run and goalscoring exploits
Talking Point 1: Fixture swing for Leicester, Newcastle, Brighton
Talking Point 2: xA and xG and aA and aG - particularly for players like Siggy, Richarlison, Maddison, Fraser, Auba - can they really keep up their FPL points given their xA and xG?

Player/Talking point:

Salah and Sterling

Is it worth keeping Salah if he’s 50-50 for the weekend?
If he’s fit everyone keeps and If he’s out for longer everyone will probably sell. But what if we don’t get definite answer?

Is Sterling the best replacement for Salah as he’s the closest to his price point and on form? Think Sterling is better than Mane?

Alonso - for one, I'm sick of hearing about Salah. I was glad David wrote an article because I had previously shown a heatmap comparison of 1-5 vs 6-8 to FPL Freddo on Twitter & it's a far more dramatic shift to a traditional fullback role which tallies with the eye test that Chelsea seem to have tightened up rather than allow a load of chances on goal and riding their luck. Admittedly, the latter selection of games includes Liverpool where, like vs City in the CS, they would have been more cautious but it appears to be a trend. If Alonso is only going to get CS's now - and he's played more defensively vs fodder like Cardiff and Southampton - can he really be a justified inclusion at 7M? There are plenty of cheap defenders who will get you CS's and if Chelsea are tightened up, you can even get in Luiz for a much better price.

How to handle Pool assets? Especially for those of us who are on their WC?

Which low budget defenders should we look at regarding the upcoming fixture swings?

Best keeper option from now on? Is Allison as a set and forget option a good idea? Missing cosistency in the offense and a great schedule call for pool defenders ...

A Dream Team Article! 😯

Absolutely Fabulous Darling! 🙂 +1

Your last sentence. I don't think you have to be brave to drop Salah.

All good options, but unaffordable because of the excessive number of big-hitters.

Probably need to downgrade either Aguero or Sterling, and also either Mane or Lacazette.

If you want to include Salah then you will need to downgrade a few others too.

The most owned players in FPL are:
Ederson (25.0%)
Alonso (46.1%), Trippier (34.2%), Wan-Bissaka (30.2%), Robertson (27.6%)
Hazard (47.5%), Mane (37.8%), Salah (32.8%)
Aguero (50.5%), Kane (31.2%), Mitrovic (26.1%)

These would set you back £94.3m plus the cost of the bench. But of course no-one owns all of these players - a very reasonable and affordable team could be created simply by downgrading Salah and Kane.

I have 9 of these but with Patricio and Richarlison instead of Aguero

Good read, but personally I fin it more amusing to look at the "best attainable team", rather than the dreamteam.

The best attainable team (given better teamvalue) would prob be something like this:
Patricio
Alonso-Rob-Trippier-walker-Doherty
Fraser-hazard-Sterling
Aguero-Laca

Total points: 561 (9pts off the dreamteam)

Personally I think this team gives a better picture of the FPL-landscape sofar this season, as it highlights where the value has been located sofar (defence).