With Erling Haaland‘s (£14.0m) fitness still in question at the time of writing, we’ve gone without the free-scoring Norwegian in our Scout Picks selection for Gameweek 17.
Our weekly ‘Free Hit’ XI instead features double-ups on Bournemouth, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur.
As ever, we are limited by certain restrictions in our selection:
- An £83.0m budget for our starting XI
- An overall squad limit of £100.0m
- No more than three players per team
And there’s the usual caveat about unforeseen injuries that we normally give when we put the picks out this early, with pre-match press conferences still to come on Friday.
GOALKEEPER
Having delivered clean sheets in three of his last five outings, Murara Neto (£4.5m) gets the chance to further boost his shut-out total when Bournemouth entertain Luton Town. The Hatters are scoring at a rate of just 0.88 goals per game on the road and sit in the bottom three for expected goals (xG) in away fixtures.
The in-form Cherries, by contrast, rank second for fewest expected goals conceded (xGC) over the last six Gameweeks.
Neto adding clean sheet potential to his predilection for collecting save points makes him quite an attractive prospect in FPL: his points-per-match average of 4.1 is bettered by only one other first-choice goalkeeper, Liverpool’s Alisson (£5.6m), in 2023/24.
DEFENDERS
Manchester City are the bookmakers’ favourites for a clean sheet this weekend but the ongoing uncertainty over which combination of defenders Pep Guardiola chooses leads us to overlook the reigning champions’ backline.
There’s usually some uncertainty about the composition of the Chelsea defence, too, but with Ben Chilwell (£5.4m) injured and Marc Cucurella (£4.8m) seemingly joining him on the sidelines, Levi Colwill‘s (£4.6m) ‘expected minutes’ at left-back get a big boost for Gameweek 17.
Up against an admittedly reinvigorated Sheffield United side that has scored the fewest Premier League goals in 2023/24, Colwill also brings a bit of modest goal threat with him: he’s Chelsea’s leading defender for goal attempts (10) this season, finding the net in the Blues’ last home game.
While Colwill’s inclusion is primarily made with Saturday’s opponents in mind, our other two defenders are rather more fixture-proof.
Trent Alexander-Arnold (£8.2m) and Pedro Porro (£5.4m) have eight attacking returns between them in the last five Gameweeks alone, delivering the goods against high flyers like Manchester City, Newcastle United and Aston Villa.
The attack-minded duo, both of whom advance into more central midfield positions from their right-back berths, are among the top three defenders for both shots and big chances created in 2023/24.
With Manchester United yet to take a point against anyone higher than 10th and Nottingham Forest on a run of one win in 12 games, there’s hope that clean sheets – which have been elusive of late in Porro’s case – could also follow.
MIDFIELDERS
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