The Complete Guide to Scout’s tips and advice for FPL Gameweek 10

Remember it’s a 19:00 BST Friday evening deadline for FPL Gameweek 10. If you haven’t done so already follow the advice of Rotation’s Alter Ego and get a bus team set now so you don’t risk forgetting!

Here to help with your last minute tinkering and decisions a selection of regular articles and more than a smattering of opinion. 

Much of the talk on Fantasy Football Scout ahead of this evening’s deadline has been about Manchester City. The Scout Picks feature an attacking triple-up for their home encounter with Aston Villa. 

No team has taken more shots on goal this season than Man City. Their 188 attempts is nearly 40 more than Chelsea’s 149, who rank second for this metric. And as Neale highlights in his members-only analysis of the key stats for Gameweek 10:

162 shots on goal conceded by Aston Villa this season, more than any other Premier League club. A whopping 95 of these have come in away games (again, a league-high)

Their encounter at the Etihad could well be dubbed “the unstoppable force meets the very movable object.”

For those worried about Villa deciding to take a different approach in this game and attempting to park the bus, comfort can be found in David’s Captain Sensible article, in which Villa defender Matt Target is quoted as saying:

We will go there and try and beat them. It has been done before, by Wolves, so that gives us confidence. We will go there and take them on, the manager has already said that. – Matt Targett

Who is the best FPL captain for Gameweek 10?

Having decided that a Man City player is worthy of the armband, the sixty-four-million-dollar question, as ever, is who to trust?

The usual suspects line-up in front of us: Sergio Aguero, Raheem Sterling, and Kevin De Bruyne. 

We all know that Sterling is capable of monster hauls, having opened Gameweek 1 with a hat-trick, and he reminded us of his explosive potential with a hat-trick and two assists on Tuesday night as City put five goals past Atalanta in the Champions League. Look away now Sterling owners but that would have given him a 26-point haul in FPL.

It’s noteworthy that the return of Benjamin Mendy in the left-back spot allowed Sterling to take up more central positions. And an early substitution could mean the Frenchman is set to start on Saturday, as David observed:

The presence of Mendy this weekend could prove a big factor in Sterling’s appeal. Thankfully, he was replaced by Joao Cancelo (£5.3m) in the 71st minute once the result had been wrapped up, allowing the left-back to get some rest.

Nonetheless David’s pick for the captaincy is Sterling’s team-mate Sergio Aguero.

Aguero’s figures for volume of shots in the box of a high quality show that if he can improve his accuracy, there are more points to be had.

Last season Aguero averaged just over a 36% shot accuracy, over the last four Gameweeks that has halved to below 18%. If he can get back up to last season’s average and continues to receive a high number of chances, that will be good news for his owners.

The main man supplying the chances for the City duo this season is Kevin De Bruyne. For many he represents the safest option for the armband. Neale, Paul, and Geoff have all chosen him for the captaincy ahead of Sterling in the Scout Picks.

The concern with Sterling, and to a lesser extent Aguero, is rotation. Sterling has now started both of City’s previous two matches and as Neale mentioned in this week’s captaincy video:

Speaking as a rule of thumb [Pep] plays his attacking assets twice in a row and then benches them in the third game.

Encouragingly the Belgian has double-figure hauls in all three of his Premier League appearances at home this season.

If you are struggling to decide who to pick, you may be interested in an article by ProPundit LateRiser on “upside chasing”, which he defines as:

Upside-chasing is all about finding high impact players that have the potential to gain you a lot of ground in a very short time. It’s about finding those 20 to 40 point swings that shoot you up the rankings very quickly.

Ville taking hits!

The biggest indicator that this season is one of extreme frustration can be found in the news that ever-patient FPL enigma Ville Ronka has taken five hits already this season!

GreyHead’s latest review of The Great and The Good took on a disturbing twist this week with references to current box-office-hit Joker. But surely nothing is more disturbing than the news of Ville Ronka taking so many hits. 

Another manager struggling this season is ProPundit manager Holly, who finds herself in the unaccustomed position outside the top 1million. Holly however is showing what you would normally describe as Ronka-esque patience, and saving a transfer this Gameweek.

Team news 

Neale and Rotation’s Alter Ego have brought us the latest team news ahead of the deadline.

Pep Guardiola reported that Zinchenko is likely to be sidelined for 4-6 weeks, increasing Mendy’s chance of starting against Villa:

[Zinchenko] had a contact with a knee, felt something in the bone. He has to stop four weeks, five weeks, more or less. It’s not a big issue, but five weeks, six weeks, will be out. – Pep Guardiola

For more all the important quotes check out Neale’s two Team News articles. And for a handy summary head to RAE’s round-up.

In Case You Missed It

Shaun Drift analysed rotating £4.5m goalkeepers, an update on his pre-season community article. An interesting read for those considering a swap or on a Wildcard. 

G-Whizz brought us the latest DS stats, fixtures and clean sheet odds, unsurprisingly Man City are predicted to do well. And in a follow-up to his ProPundit’s article Tom Freeman questioned where have the clean sheets have gone in a hot topic, noting that:

In the last three Gameweeks, only The Blades, Chelsea and Wolves have returned more than one clean sheet.

Elsewhere, Meltens kindly previewed Gameweek 29 in Fantasy Allsvenskan. Well done to FFS manager Daniel Sebestyen who currently leads the overall standings with two rounds to go.

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 Competitions

For a full update on all FFS Mini-Leagues and Community Competitions, please click here to read the latest round-up. 

For those interested in the Head-to-Head Leagues, the main page can be linked to here. A link has also been added to the ‘Scout Leagues’ section on the home page. 

The fixtures for Gameweek 10 can be found below:

Use the drop-down menus to show your league and division. To find out which league and division you are in, follow the instructions on the main Head-to-Head page.

Once the Gameweek starts, if you click on your opponent’s name you will be linked to their team on the FPL website.

Best of luck for Gameweek 10!