FPL 22/23 – Gameweek 2 Preview

Yeah, you guessed it. We are gonna talk about Haaland.

With not many stand out picks emerging from game week 1 that weren’t in the template, the main attention of the FPL community is on whether Kane owners should switch to Haaland. It’s complicated more by the fact that Kane has dropped in price to 11.4 and Haaland has risen to 11.6. So, unless you kept 0.5 in the bank (and let’s face it, you probably didn’t) you’ll have to take a hit. 

If you have 0.5 in the bank, it’s the simplest move of your life. As you will see, City are top of my 5 game week fixture ticker, Haaland is the best captaincy choice in gameweek 2, he seems to be the FPL talisman of Man City and he is on pens.

I think I would probably move for a hit as well to be honest. Hopefully you have 5.0 defender you can move to a 4.5 like Dunk, who also has a lovely run of fixtures. Or, you can move Grealish or Coutinho to Martinelli (see more below). 

City midfielders and pep roulette 

A lot of us, myself included, were considering moving to a city mid in our GW 2 team. We wanted to see who started the first game because Mahrez, Grealish and Foden were all contenders for two spots in the team and they have a great fixture run.

BUT, the information we gained from game week 1 puts a spanner in the works. Grealish and Foden started and Mahrez came on the 88th minute. So Mahrez is out as we don’t trust him. Neither Foden nor Grealish looked key to the City attack. Grealish had a higher xGI than De Bruyne (0.66 v.s. 0.53) but he looked absent. Foden’s xGI was only 0.33 (for context, Rashford’s was 0.34). On top of all this, we know that Pep likes to rotate so we aren’t confident who starts.

I think it’s a wait and see. I would hold if you have them but I’m not bringing them in.

Best five week fixture runs

Playing Fantasy Premier League by buying good players with good fixtures is a sure fire way to improve your rank. So, I will make this five week fixture run a regular feature. The teams are ranked in order of best fixture (just focused on the top 5 teams) with home fixtures in caps and away in lower case.

Best captains

I can’t look past Haaland for the best captaincy this week. Salah would be my second choice. De Bruyne third. No need this early in the season to try something different. Just back one of these guys.

Should I drop?

Jesus – no way. Should have had a goal and arsenal attack looked good against a pretty solid Palace team. Four good fixtures coming up. Hold.

Kane – see above.

Reece James – being transferred out by a lot of managers. He looked great and if you think it’s a problem that he probably won’t get a clean sheet in the next game and that’s why you want out you are being too aggressive with your transfers. Players like him are long term holds.

Rashford – I said in the round up, he got 3 shots in the box in 90 mins. Yes United are bad but I would hold off.

Bailey – the Birmingham Mail reckons he’s getting benched. Villa looked crap. I think you could sell. Equally you could hold and wait for more information.

Should I buy?

Haaland – yes.

Mitro – No. He looked great and I’m interested. But his fixtures aren’t great and Fulham are still not a good team. We normally go for these guys for a good run and not before then.

Darwin Nunez – ooh that’s a tough one. It’s quite likely you already have 3 Liverpool players so it’s probably a moot point as it’s too early to take a hit for a non-captain. But yeah, he’s good isn’t he? I’d probably hold off until we see him start.

Martinelli – yeah, I would. He’s gonna make a mockery of that price tag if he carries on like this.

Should I wildcard?

Hopefully you came into the season with a bit of a plan and spent some time picking your players. Remember that you did that and pull the mouse away from the wildcard button. It’s too early.

Strategy corner – What’s a mini wildcard?

This is the ideal strategy for the first three weeks of your FPL season. You hold your transfer for game week 2 so you end up with two free transfers going into game week 3. You can now make 3 moves for a four point hit. This is a good strategy because it allows you to make bigger changes to your team structure. It also gives you two weeks of data to make your decisions on. That can be eye test or stats or whatever you want. The key thing is you doubled your data.

Or, as Hindu Monkey puts it: https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey/status/1557470878031646720?t=BaBclB1TvAq8MX14–WfDA&s=19

Now, I said it’s ideal. That doesn’t mean you have to or should do it. If you have a big problem in your team that needs fixing, you should fix it, particularly if you don’t have a good captaincy option for GW2. As I said before, finding your problem and fixing it is a great use of transfers.

I’ll explain this all through the prism of my team. I have Mount. He is a problem – he only played 60 mins, did nothing and Chelsea attack looks bad. He has a bad fixture against Conte’s Spurs. They are both solid in defence and attack so I’m expecting 2 points from Mount this week. 

If I had an open Arsenal spot in my team and didn’t have Martinelli I would have made that move already but I’m such a genius that I already have Martinelli.

I don’t like any other midfielders under 8.0 and Joe very wisely pointed out to me that if I don’t like anyone, I should wait to see who might emerge in GW2.

So I’m going to hold my transfer and possibly/probably mini wildcard into GW3.

Good luck everyone, see you on the other side!