The Watchlist takes a look at the stand-out Fantasy Premier League (FPL) options over the medium term, rather than concentrating on just the upcoming Gameweek as the Scout Picks does.

With only a month to go, the four-Gameweek lookahead takes us right the way through until the end of the 2022/23 campaign.

We’ve had our first weekly refresh today, with the main changes explained below.

The caveat here is that there are still five Double Gameweek 34 fixtures to come, so one or two rankings could be affected based on what happens in midweek.

But with Gameweek 34 not over till late on Thursday night, we figured a preliminary update was needed rather than holding off till the dust has completely settled.

This article will be updated on Friday if anything does change.

ABOUT THE WATCHLIST

Players are selected and ranked according to factors such as form, club injuries, forthcoming fixtures, Rate My Team’s points projections and whether or not the player in question is likely to be a bargain in FPL.

Arrows before the name indicate whether a player has climbed or fallen in our reckoning since the previous update or if they are a new entry into the tables.

We typically toe the line with FPL’s definition of ‘form’ (average points accrued in matches played over the last 30 days), which takes us back to Double Gameweek 29 in this case.

The key for the factors you’ll see in the below tables is as follows:

THE WATCHLIST: BEST FPL GOALKEEPERS

And then there were five.

With Alisson (£5.4m) and Bernd Leno (£4.6m) jettisoned after their sole remaining ‘doubles’ and a string of favourable fixtures that failed to yield much in the way of clean sheets, there’s only a quintet of goalkeepers remaining on our Watchlist.

You don’t really want to be making too many transfers on the men between the sticks at this stage of the campaign, so our chosen five all have at least one Double Gameweek to come between now and the end of the season.

Not that Ederson (£5.4m) has been any better than the two names we’ve already mentioned, let’s be honest. Manchester City keep finding a way of shipping goals despite putting up strong underlying numbers: in their last 12 matches, they’ve got the best record for shots conceded, efforts in the box conceded and expected goals conceded (xGC). Yet they’ve managed to keep just two clean sheets in that time, conceding exactly one goal in the other 10 fixtures. So near, yet so far.

Still, with the possibility of outfield rotation on either side of the UEFA Champions League double-header against Real Madrid (which could affect Gameweeks 35-37)… you know the rest.

David de Gea (£5.0m) is the form ‘doubler’ with as many clean sheets since the post-World Cup restart (10) as Ederson has got all season. This is despite United allowing over 10 more expected goals (xGC) than their cross-city rivals from Boxing Day onwards, just to make Ederson owners feel even worse.

Since our last Watchlist update, Jason Steele (£4.0m) has seemingly cemented his place between the sticks at Brighton – there was a brief period of uncertainty when Robert Sanchez (£4.5m) threatened to make a return – and rises as a consequence. The Seagulls have more remaining fixtures than any other team but four of the six games are against potent attacks, namely Arsenal, Newcastle, Man City and Aston Villa, so there’s a quantity v quality argument to be had there and it’s the reason why he lies only third in our Watchlist.

Our Rate My Team (RMT) tool, curiously, has Kepa Arrizabalaga (£4.6m) as the leading projected points scorer among goalkeepers in the run-in, but there’s some salt-pinching to be taken with a Gameweek 37 double that sees a mediocre, mid-table Chelsea visit both Manchester clubs.

THE WATCHLIST: BEST FPL DEFENDERS

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