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We are settling back into the swing of things in the FPL season with our gameweek 5 preview.
Rather than doing deep dives into past gameweeks, we’ll now include any new takeaways in the upcoming gameweek previews. That’s simply because the amount of fresh insight we’re getting from the matches is starting to drop off quite a bit.
After that we will look at the best upcoming attacking and defensive fixtures and then later in the week we will look at players to buy and players to sell, captaincy and final thoughts.
But first…
Hold those rage transfers! We have cup football again this week and Champions League also kicks off.
Tuesday 16th September
Weds 17th September
Thurs 18th September
I was going to start with the return of Ange, but I think there is a more interesting story.
I feared coming into this game with no Salah so much that I free hitted to cover him. Of course, there were other changes I wanted to make too but that was a key reason. Having watched him play for the fourth time this year, I don’t fear going without him next week.
He has only had 4 shots this season – over his Liverpool career he averages 3.74 shots per game. He has never been an elite finisher, he needs a lot of shots to get points. For example, last season he had the 2nd highest number of shots – tied with Palmer.
I can hear you all saying: “Small sample size! It’s too small a sample size!” I know. But its not just the data, its the eye test too.
This is, at least, the third time he has looked peripheral to this attack. Last year, his heatmap has him coming inside and into the box. So far this season he is much wider and not coming in as much. And you can just see he is not as involved. I mean, he is 33 and one day he will decline. Maybe we are seeing that?
I want to be clear – I am not saying that he won’t keep returning. He is good enough to do that. And that consistency might be worth paying for. And, and, I am fully prepared to eat my words with this hot take.
But, what I am saying is that I CURRENTLY do not fear a mega haul like I would have last season.
Palmer came on on the 56th minute and had five shots, scoring one.
That’s right, Palmer had more shots in 40 mins of football than Salah has had all season.
He just looked really good too. And he seemed like his old self. I actually don’t know how he didn’t get two goals really.
The symmetry of these two things brings us to an obvious question – can I do better from Haaland and Palmer rather than any Salah draft?
Forest came into the game with the news that Aina was injured and Murillo also picked up an injury in the game. You might think from the scoreline that Ange was being a bit over aggressive but he was pretty measured – I don’t think we can say anything with any confidence after one game but based on this performance I don’t think they will be as crazy attacking as he was at Spurs.
Arsenal were pretty dominant in the game. Madueke and Eze were very threatening. I think Forest can feel a little hard done by conceding three goals but they were well beaten. Worth noting that Odegaard went off injured and, perhaps in a sign of things to come, Rice was rotated. Also, with Saliba out, Mosquera stepped in adequately.
Both Fullkrug and Richarlison were dropped for this game. I don’t think you can confidently start either so I wouldn’t look to bring them in. Porro retained some set pieces but Xavi was also taking some – he played on the left, looked pretty good and picked up an assist from a corner. The fixtures for Spurs look okay right now and I wouldn’t mind picking him up now we have seen him start.
Also, Spurs have three clean sheets from four games – thats mad. I am starting to believe in Spurs… I must be mad too.
Wolves put up a bit more fight this time but they are still shit. You can continue to target them. Woltemade made his debut for Newcastle and scored a header. Apparently he isn’t that good in the air but the finish was fantastic. He managed three shots in 65 mins which is great. One to watch if he can nail down that spot.
I am a big Semenyo fan and I am feeling smug about calling him the best mid in his price bracket at the start of the season. But even I can admit this is an FPL assist – he just handed the ball off to Scott at the edge of the box. And then I thought Evanilson was on pens when Kluivert wasn’t on the pitch. Still, he continues to get volume alongside his team mates. I mean look at the top 10 shot takers over at FBRef (screenshot as of Saturday night):
Three Bournemouth players just behind Haaland – this team is going to be a stalwart of our FPL teams this season. I think Brooks could soon lose his spot to Kluivert, who keeps coming off the bench for him so I wouldn’t go there.
Darlow started in goal but only because Perri is injured.
Fulham’s attack was basically shit until 15 mins from the end when Kevin came on – he looked fun and is one to watch. The Leeds attack was also shit.
In case you missed it, Villa are now the only team out of the top 92 in English football to have still not scored a goal. They only took seven shots to Everton’s 20. At least Martinez returned to the Villa starting eleven.
This iteration of Everton looks great and Ndiaye, Grealish and maybe even Beto are options.
Pretty disappointing for Palace. Pino or Mateta should have probably scored with one of their three and two respective shots. If you own either, count yourself unlucky.
Brentford played a back five with Pinnock stepping into the team. I think that could happen against better opposition which is bad news for O. Dango who missed out on starting with Thiago and Schade being the two front men. I liked Schade going into the season and this performance just underlines that and not just because of the goal. He also had four shots.He will be an option when they have good fixtures. I also loved how many long throws they tried and that he was involved in that too.
Hato started at the left back for Chelsea and they played him inverted with three centre backs also defending in the first half. Maresca changed this at half time with Reece James coming into right back and inverting and Cucurella coming on at left back/striker and Chelsea looked much better. I think Maresca is experimenting with this team still but he said himself they have a lot of football to play this year so I guess we could see Cucu’s minutes managed going forward. For the time being though, I am happy to hold him but I wouldn’t rush to buy him.
Joao Pedro is joining Semenyo as one of those players that are just too obvious to ignore. I thought there would be more rotation and I didn’t think he was this good. Right now, I think I was wrong and that I should correct that mistake sooner rather than later.
This was such an incredible defensive display from Burnley. Their deep defence and counter almost got them a point. This might tell us not to triple captain Haaland against them in gameweek 6 – one to think about.
Pool were a bit lacklustre. They took a lot of low xG shots and really struggled to create good opportunities. Without the last minute penalty they wouldn’t have scored.
With all that being said, Konate missed a sitter (0.49 xG). Actually, Virgil kind of missed it too. If that had gone in, Burnley would have had to have pushed up to try and equalise and Liverpool likely would have exploited that to score a hatful.
Haaland is just the best asset in this game. He had 5 more attempts this game to take his total shot count to 19 with an xG of 5.67 xG and 5 goals. His shot count is almost double the second best player, his xG is more than double the second best player. He is currently in a league of his own being just fed chances constantly.
United, in contrast, have Mbeumo (and Cunha when fit) constantly twatting low xG shots. Its not filling me with confidence in them overall but I like the picks. Sesko wasn’t very impressive in his debut but I think we can give him a break.
Apparently to get our message out we now need to tell Chat GPT to look here at our new fixture ticker.
Well, I don’t believe it. We don’t need to tell Grok or Gemini or whatever either.
Instead, we have you reader. I know you want to keep us a secret from your mini-league rivals but do us a favour and tell your dad will ya?
At Liverpool, Salah remains the most consistent option and is the only one I feel confident will keep getting minutes in the medium term.
There is nobody at City I want besides Haaland so just ignore that mess of rotation and FPL mediocrity. Yes, I am including Reijnders here – even at that price tag I am not bringing in a guy when they play the best defence in the league.
Aston Villa have obviously been a bit lacklustre so far this season but this run looks quite tasty.
At Bournemouth, if you don’t have Semenyo yet I don’t know why. Evanilson is also a great pick.
We have covered the best Chelsea options above. Joao Pedro is a beast and Palmer could be great.
At Spurs, I think I am most interested in the new toy of Xavi in the attack. I just think his creativity is desperately needed so he is probably nailed.
Even with this awful gameweek 5 matchup against Man City you could tempt me with an Arsenal defensive move. Our ticker was made when Isak was at Newcastle and whilst one man doesn’t make a team, he was a huge part of their threat last year.
At Liverpool, just get Virgil. I said at the start of the season I thought he would be a beast with defcons and I stand by it now having watched him play.
For City, I am not super keen on any of their defence – they all have question marks because of the bald fraud’s love of rotation, especially with European football starting next week. I suppose Gvardiol is the most nailed.
At Bournemouth, Senesi is the defcon merchant and Truffert is the attacking wing back. I like them both and grab one depending on how you like to play the game.
For Chelsea, I like Cucurella for attacking output, Chalobah for defcons and Toisin because he’s just so damn cheap.
At Newcastle, I would ignore Livramento – even though he plays full-back or wing-back he has never really had any attacking threat. Over the 96 matches he has played in the PL, including 72 starts, he has two goals and three assists. For comparison, Kerkez is a similar age and he had a good season for Bournemouth last year where he got two goals and five assists over 38 games and 38 starts – that’s the sort of player you are looking for in FPL from an attacking full-back. The real gold here is Hall but he seems a way off being fit.
At Forest, I would basically ignore them. If you have them, hold Murillo, Milenkovic and Williams. But be prepared to sell them in gameweek 7 – this is probably the last time they will be in your team with Ange at the helm.
I am already regretting the main theme of this piece. I can see the social media reaction to suggesting that the GOAT isn’t that GOAT at the moment.
Still, I am going to give you my opinion. That’s the fun part about this for me. And, we are right more often than we are wrong so I hope its the case here.
Don’t forget to come back later in the week for transfer and captaincy tips!
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