International Break - Early Wildcard Thoughts

This is a great moment to be on a wildcard. You have two weeks to tinker and a good amount of fixture swings.

Basically I am super jealous so I’m going to go position by position and give you my early thoughts.

Injuries

But first, we have to talk about injuries.

I have five flags in my 15 at the moment and I assume your squad looks similar.

Most of these injuries will have been faked to get players out of international duty. Everyone does it. The annoying thing is that we don’t know which ones are fake and which ones are real.

So, hold those transfers if not on wildcard and pay attention as we get closer to the deadline. Someone like PremierInjuries.com is a good resource to check.

Defences

We recently updated our FDR and this is how we ranked the defensive capabilities of each team:

FDR	Teams
5	Arsenal, Liverpool, Man City
4	Notts Forest
3	Everton, Bournemouth, Chelsea, Aston Villa, Brighton, Newcastle, Fulham
2	Spurs, Man United, Crystal Palace, Wolves
1	Ipswich, Southampton, Leicester, West Ham, Brentford

We are happy to start 5s in any game (although we much prefer Arsenal and Liverpool over City). We like 4s and 3s in good fixtures. We rarely like 2s and we never want to own 1s.

Defensive Fixture Ticker

And here is what the defensive fixtures look like for the next 10:

	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21
Brighton	bou	SOU	ful	lei	CRY	whu	BRE	avl	ARS	ips	25
Chelsea	lei	AVL	sou	tot	BRE	eve	FUL	ips	cry	BOU	25
Arsenal	NFO	whu	MUN	ful	EVE	cry	IPS	bre	bha	TOT	26.5
Wolves	ful	BOU	eve	whu	IPS	lei	MUN	tot	NFO	new	27
Bournemouth	BHA	wol	TOT	ips	WHU	mun	CRY	ful	EVE	che	27.5
Newcastle	WHU	cry	LIV	bre	LEI	ips	AVL	mun	tot	WOL	28.5
Aston Villa	CRY	che	BRE	SOU	nfo	MCI	new	BHA	LEI	eve	29
Liverpool	sou	MCI	new	eve	FUL	tot	LEI	whu	MUN	nfo	29
Man City	TOT	liv	NFO	cry	MUN	avl	EVE	lei	WHU	bre	29.5
Fulham	WOL	tot	BHA	ARS	liv	SOU	che	BOU	IPS	whu	31
Ipswich	MUN	nfo	CRY	BOU	wol	NEW	ars	CHE	ful	BHA	31
Brentford	eve	LEI	avl	NEW	che	NFO	bha	ARS	sou	MCI	31.5
Crystal Palace	avl	NEW	ips	MCI	bha	ARS	bou	SOU	CHE	lei	31.5
Man Utd	ips	EVE	ars	NFO	mci	BOU	wol	NEW	liv	SOU	31.5
West Ham	new	ARS	lei	WOL	bou	BHA	sou	LIV	mci	FUL	32.5
Southampton	LIV	bha	CHE	avl	TOT	ful	WHU	cry	BRE	mun	33.5
Nott’m Forest	ars	IPS	mci	mun	AVL	bre	TOT	eve	wol	LIV	35
Spurs	mci	FUL	bou	CHE	sou	LIV	nfo	WOL	NEW	ars	35.5
Everton	BRE	mun	WOL	LIV	ars	CHE	mci	NFO	bou	AVL	36
Leciester	CHE	bre	WHU	BHA	new	WOL	liv	MCI	avl	CRY	36

GK

At goalkeeper, going cheap is my advice. So, when they disappoint, you can’t be too disappointed.

My favourites would be Verburggen and Sanchez. The long-term fixtures are okay and so is the defence. I also quite like Arrizabalaga for the same reasons.

I don’t hate Sels for the price, but you’d be buying just ahead of a bad run of fixtures. And, if all keepers were priced the same, then I would take Raya, but I don’t really want to pay 5.6 for him. If you do, then that’s fine.

I would probably just pick a 4.0 backup or Fabianski. I don’t mind rotating 4.5s and if you want to do that, look below at my good defensive rotations.

Two Premium Defenders

Setting up my defence, I would get at least two premiums in an attempt to minimise transfers.

I love the idea of double Arsenal for the next seven games. And, if you have to keep them longer than that then, you aren’t worried because they’re just always good. So, I like Gabriel, Saliba and White. Equally someone like Konate is a good long-term pick and a great price.

If you really want to then Gvardiol could be okay, but I just don’t like the City defence as much as the others. Of course he also has an attacking threat (even if he has been significantly overperforming it).

I wouldn’t get Alexander-Arnold unless we are 100% sure of his fitness ahead of gameweek 12.

Cheap Defenders

I don’t want to play any other defender week in and week out. I want rotations of cheap defenders and I want relatively solid defences. All of the following rotations work well and cover defences that we think are reasonably good based on our FDR:

Chelsea and Brighton until gameweek 25
Chelsea and Newcastle until gameweek 25
Chelsea and Villa until gameweek 29
Brighton and Fulham until gameweek 18
Chelsea and Bournemouth until gameweek 21

In this scenario my fifth defender is a 4.0 I hope to never start.

One Premium Defender?

If you only want one premium defender, then rotate Chelsea and Newcastle/Villa/Bournemouth and Brighton/Fulham, but that only lasts until gameweek 18.

Alternatively, you could try backing Digne or Estupinian every week as sort of ‘false premiums.’ Those guys have okay long-term fixtures, and good attacking threat.

Attack

Again, we highlighted some of the best attackers in the league over the weekend.

Attacking Fixture Ticker

Of more interest to us going forward is fixtures:

	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21
Chelsea	lei	AVL	sou	tot	BRE	eve	FUL	ips	cry	BOU	23
Newcastle	WHU	cry	LIV	bre	LEI	ips	AVL	mun	tot	WOL	23
Brighton	bou	SOU	ful	lei	CRY	whu	BRE	avl	ARS	ips	24
Arsenal	NFO	whu	MUN	ful	EVE	cry	IPS	bre	bri	TOT	24.5
Bournemouth	BHA	wol	TOT	ips	WHU	mun	CRY	ful	EVE	che	24.5
Wolves	ful	BOU	eve	whu	IPS	lei	MUN	tot	NFO	new	26
Man City	TOT	liv	NFO	cry	MUN	avl	EVE	lei	WHU	bre	26.5
Aston Villa	CRY	che	BRE	SOU	nfo	MCI	new	BHA	LEI	eve	28
Fulham	WOL	tot	BHA	ARS	liv	SOU	che	BOU	IPS	whu	28
Liverpool	sou	MCI	new	eve	FUL	tot	LEI	whu	MUN	nfo	28
Southampton	LIV	bha	CHE	avl	TOT	ful	WHU	cry	BRE	mun	28.5
Leciester	3	1.5	1	3	3.5	2	5.5	5	3.5	2	30
Crystal Palace	avl	NEW	ips	MCI	bha	ARS	bou	SOU	CHE	lei	31
Ipswich	MUN	nfo	CRY	BOU	wol	NEW	ars	CHE	ful	BHA	32
Nott’m Forest	ars	IPS	mci	mun	AVL	bre	TOT	eve	wol	LIV	32
Brentford	eve	LEI	avl	NEW	che	NFO	bha	ARS	sou	MCI	33.5
West Ham	new	ARS	lei	WOL	bou	BHA	sou	LIV	mci	FUL	33.5
Man Utd	ips	EVE	ars	NFO	mci	BOU	wol	NEW	liv	SOU	34.5
Everton	BRE	mun	WOL	LIV	ars	CHE	mci	NFO	bou	AVL	35
Spurs	mci	FUL	bou	CHE	sou	LIV	nfo	WOL	NEW	ars	36.5

Midfield

Taking one, two or all three of Salah, Palmer and Saka is good. I would take them in that order of preference, as Salah is the best and Palmer has the best short-term fixtures.

This year we pretty much want very expensive or very cheap midfielders. Only B. Fernandes and Mbeumo seem to occupy our thoughts in the middle ground. They both remain good picks, but I’d be cautious on Mbeumo because the good fixtures end in two weeks, and then it’s a pretty hard run. Instead of Mbeumo, I would consider Gordon (if declared fit) or Mitoma for their good fixtures in the medium term.

In terms of cheap enablers, my favourite remains Semenyo, and the fixture run is crazy good for the medium term. I also like Georginho at Brighton, but I am not sure if he is nailed going forward.

Forwards

As we have said all season, Haaland remains amazing.

In the mid-priced bracket I like Isak the most, because I think he is the second best striker in the league and has good fixtures. I would also be very happy with Jackson, who can miss some easy ones but has the underlying data and good fixtures. The fixtures for Villa are okay, but Watkins rarely makes 90 mins and isn’t taking enough shots in that time to make me happy.

Evanilson, Joao Pedro and Cunha occupy my thoughts in the cheap forwards.

Evanilson is my favourite because of the fixtures. Our fixture ticker shows them as the best medium term, and I like the attack. Pedro is probably the best of the lot, I just don’t know if he is fit or nailed. As for Cunha, he is just a bit more expensive and the fixtures are just a little worse and Wolves are just a little worse so he is not my favourite.

Haaland or No Haaland?

There isn’t really a correct answer about owning Haaland or not. But, without him you can afford 5 of the top 6 attacking assets over the last 49 games. Check out the tables I linked to earlier but here is the quick snapshot:

LT Rank	ST Rank	Name	Team	xA	xG	xGI
1	1	Haaland	MCI	0.07	1.03	1.10
2	2	Salah	LIV	0.24	0.72	0.96
3	6	Palmer	CHE	0.28	0.59	0.88
4	16	Isak	NEW	0.11	0.76	0.87
5	12	Saka	ARS	0.35	0.43	0.78
6	7	Jackson (Nicolas)	CHE	0.08	0.61	0.69

In my current setup (and assuming Trent remains injured) I will own Salah, Palmer, Isak, Saka and Jackson. And, with Newcastle and Chelsea having great long-term fixtures I am super excited.

Fixture Pile Up – Get Eight Attacking Assets?

There are nine gameweeks over the next six real life weeks. This fixture pile up in December happens every year and we tend to see a little bit of rotation.

I’m not super concerned about it but I do think there is value in your 5th mid or 3rd striker being a guy that actually plays at the moment. I would back Pedro or Rogers for this role. They are both 5.4 and capable of scoring points.

That’s It.

Try not to overthink your defence, they all suck. Spend your time effort and probably money on your attacking eight.

International Break – Early Wildcard Thoughts