The Complete Guide to our FPL Gameweek 17 tips and advice

Just when we thought it was safe to sell him, last season’s top points scorer in FPL issued a brutal reminder to show us just why he is this season’s most expensive player – Mohamed Salah (£13.0m) bagged a hat trick.

G-Whizz immediately asked the obvious question – Mo Salah or No Salah?

Not every Salah seller will be as sanguine as Fitzy in their reply, who commented (no doubt through gritted-teeth):

Glad I sold him this week so I don’t have to consider what to do with him…

Joe appears to have ditched his plans to sell Salah for another midfield heavyweight, as his confidence in Salah’s ability to justify his price tag is reinvigorated. Joe discussed his plans in this week’s FPL Question Time:

I’m likely to stick with him over the next three fixtures then re-assess ahead of Arsenal and Manchester City clashes in Gameweek 20 and 21 respectively.

FPL General wasn’t as definite in his opinion piece this week, confiding that he will be mulling over a possible Salah to Sterling (£11.6m) transfer. Although he admitted that:

Most likely, I’ll just do Arnie to Aleksandar Mitrovic (£6.8m) or Javier Hernandez (£6.4m) and roll the other transfer.

West Ham’s run of fixtures and attacking form has not gone unnoticed by the community and article writers alike. Geoff asked if we should consider a double up, and on Wednesday David ran the rule over their enticing prospects in a members article. Two of their players – Felipe Anderson (£7.3m) and Hernandez – make the Scout Picks squad.

Adding more weight to the move, the new leader in the FFS Mods & Cons mini-league, Gregor, singled out Hernandez in his ‘Eye Test’. However a word of warning – it has emerged that the Mexican had a knock and didn’t train earlier in the week. Although he reportedly did train on Friday and should be fine…

Neale (aka Skonto Rigga) has rounded-up the rest of the team news ahead of Gameweek 17. Injuries to the Liverpool defence, including 27.2% owned Trent Alexander-Arnold (£5.3m) poses a dilemma for FPL managers. Liverpool have four clean sheets in their last five Premier League matches but with fixtures stiffening perhaps this is the time to sell?

Jealous Viper began a discussion about TAA replacements on Friday morning.

One team to consider for candidates is Watford. In his article, FPL General pointed out that over “the next seven Gameweeks, Javi Gracia’s side face just one of the top six” and that “Kiko Femenia (£4.2m) could be a nice differential”. For those interested this appears to be the player transferred in by World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen (currently 1,084 OR), if we are to trust new predictive website FPL Transfer Spy.

As ever, we have the important decision on captaincy to make. How lucky we are to have ‘Mr 100% captaincy record’ David to help us. He “continues to exhibit voodoo like powers in his armband choice” observed Greyhead in his Gameweek 16 analysis of The Great and The Good. David has moved into the top 10,000 for the first time this season.

David has prepared the invaluable Captain Sensible article and shared his thoughts with Joe in the Captaincy Options video. Despite noting some improvements in the Burnley rearguard, he appears set to trust Kane with preserving his 100% record.

In the interests of impartiality, other armband options are available – for those still holding City’s Aguero (£11.2m) he could be a canny choice against an Everton side who will be lacking the protection of Idrissa Gueye (£4.8m). The Rumour Mill helpfully summarised an article from StatsBomb, which highlighted just how valuable he is to Everton’s system.

City have been discussed throughout the week in several Hot Topics starting with a look at their midfield options.

However Maximus Bonimus Pointimus questioned their captaincy potential due to Pep’s unpredictable squad rotation. Irbox largely agreed but, as a result of Mendy’s injury, he feels Sané (£9.6m) could be the exception to Pep’s rotation roulette. avfc82 followed this up with a detailed look at Pep’s player selection on the left when Mendy has been injured.

Arsenal and Chelsea are also on our radars.

Maximus Bonimus Pointimus marvelled at the Aubameyang (£11.5m) and Kane captaincy rotation stretching as far as the end of the season. Having seen his ownership rise to 36.1% following six prices rises since the start of the month, and after being rested in the Europa League, the Gabonese striker could play a big part in determining if we end the week with a red or green arrow.

While most will be favouring Kane in the captaincy stakes, keep in mind that Aubameyang faces a Southampton side who have conceded 9 goals over the last four gameweeks.

Having suffered with injury recently, Hazard (£10.9m) recovered some form in Gameweek 16, as Neale observed in his analysis of the key statistics. Neale confessed to being nervous about not owning the Belgium star in FPL Question Time, he feels that:

Chelsea’s own enticing run over the next six Gameweeks (bri, LEI, wat, cry, SOU, NEW) has almost been overlooked.

One thing for certain is that we won’t be able to cram all the premium players into our sides. Although no doubt some of us will try. A perfectly timed community article from Reckoner brought us up-to-date on which players are providing value for money. He points out that “the best value players are never the most expensive players.”

However buyer beware – value can also be a hindrance:

It can put you in a position of weakness when you have a lot of value tied up in a player.

The point was well made by top 50 Hall of Fame manager Adam Hopcroft, a guest on the Scoutcast last Tuesday (see 01:14:21 in the Scoutcast). Being reluctant to sell a player because they have shot up in value can hamper decision making, Adam cited the example of Mané (£9.7m) earlier in the season.

The cloud that hung over the week was the racial abuse suffered by Raheem Sterling, who later challenged the media to reconsider their coverage of black players. An insightful discussion was to be found on the excellent Double Pivot Podcast. They explained why it’s important to confront race as a discourse, and examined how it can influence people working in football, such as coaches and scouts, to reinforce stereotypes.

To view all our discussions please visit our Hot Topics page, and if you’ve got some analysis, scout reports or features brewing, be sure to visit our community section to submit your article.

If you’re a member and are yet to get to grips with the custom statistics tables, you can view this movie for an explanation of how they work. Also, remember to tag them so that people can find the tables with ease.

COMMUNITY TOURNAMENTS

The draw for the third round of the FFS Members Cups has taken place, 128 managers remain in the competition.

In TorresMagic’s Last Man Standing the safety score in Gameweek 16 was 40, this saw 147 managers depart leaving 1,476 still standing.

Matthieu Raoux held onto his lead in our main FFS League despite slipping one place to fourth overall. This is Matthieu’s third FPL season and by far his best. He has yet to play his wildcard or any other chips, and is only 26 points behind the overall leader.

Tore Bjorheim scored an impressive 81 points to maintain a slender four point lead at the top of our FFS Members League. He is now sixth overall and first in Norway!

Moving up to third in our Members League is Fábio Borges, this is only Fábio’s fifth season playing FPL yet he’s been remarkably consistent and successful so far. In his first season he finished 17,996 and has improved incrementally each year – a rank of 4,682 in 2015/16 was followed with one of 1,145 in 2016/17, and last year he came 671st overall.

He is currently 39th, and at the last refresh had moved up to 11th in the Live Hall of Fame despite being up against managers who have played the game for considerably longer. He seems certain to move into the top 10 at the next refresh.

As mentioned, Graeme Sumner (aka Gregor) is the new leader of the FFS Mods & Cons mini-league. Featured in my Top Five articles last season, Graeme is currently 39th in the FFS Live Hall of Fame (probably higher after the next update). He has finished in the top 10,000 six times in nine seasons, three of them in the top 1,000 with his best finish being 29th in 2016/17.

Luke Aiello holds an 18 point lead at the top of RedLightning’s Top 10k Any Season mini-league. He wisely captained Salah on his way to a score of 81 points, and is now 24th overall.

After the third round of FFS Manager Melee Community Tournament, three teams remain undefeated and three teams are yet to scrape a victory. With three matchdays to go before the start of the knockout phase, can one of the teams on zero points win all their remaining games and make the quarter finals? I certainly hope so.

If you are running a community tournament and would like the latest scores included in future Community Round-Ups, please email us a summary of the current leaders and a link to your league, spreadsheet or head-to-head competition at geoff@fantasyfootballscout.co.uk