We have a fun lineup of fixtures this week. Arsenal host Liverpool at the Emirates. This fixture has been heavily favoured towards Liverpool in recent years, but it could be Arsenal’s best chance to knock off the Reds.
Manchester City host Southampton who City have failed to beat in 3 of their last 5 meetings. Can City’s bogey team stop the Haaland express?
Another fixture to watch will be Chelsea v Wolves. Both teams have had managerial changes after early struggles, but I am tipping that Reece James will have a day out under new manager Graham Potter.
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Best of Fantasy Premier League Twitter Gameweek 10
Erling Haaland – History Maker
I must admit, I have followed Erling Haaland’s career for the past few years overseas, but I did not expect him to hit the ground running in the Premier League like this. 3 Hat-tricks in your first 8 games in the Premier League are unprecedented and smashing all the records to pieces.
He is young, fast, strong and decisive; still, 13% of managers do not own him! So we will have to assume they forgot their password or have already given up on the season.
This week’s Public Service Announcement would be to transfer him in and leave the armband on him until further notice. Some people need to hear this.
Kevin De Bruyne – Supporting Act
So far this Premier League season it has been more or less the Erling Haaland show, and for good reason! However, we as FPL managers still need to turn our eye towards the rest of our squad to make sure they are also performing at the highest level.
Kevin De Bruyne is a World Class talent and is once again showing that in spades. The Belgian has created an almost instant partnership and understanding with his new striker, resulting in 8 assists for De Bruyne plus a goal in the first 8 matches of the season.
Haaland has been quoted as saying “It’s natural, that I go on the run, and he (De Bruyne) finds me. When this feels natural, there is nothing better.” I have been running with both in my lineup for the last few weeks and would recommend it.
Just keep an eye on Gameweek 12 as Manchester City do not have a match that gameweek!
Don’t forget about Reece James
The trend over the recent gameweeks is to strip your defence down to a budget tier and use the money elsewhere in the squad. While this has been a wise choice so far, I would be cautious to go without England International Reece James in your squad for the upcoming period.
Now that new Chelsea manager Graham Potter has had some time with the players, Chelsea are looking like an improved team. In the mid-week Champions League tie against AC Milan, James scored a goal, recorded an assist and notched up a clean sheet. If you add in a presumed 3 bonus points, that would have been an 18 point haul!
For the reasonable price of £6.0m, you can’t go wrong.
Upcoming Fixtures
So if everyone has Erling Haaland in their lineup and is presumably captaining him, we as managers need to look elsewhere in our squad to make decisions that will boost our overall rank.
FPL Focal has kindly provided us with a fixture ticker that is sorted by difficulty from now until the World Cup (after Gameweek 16). Wilfried Zaha is the standout option when looking at his fixtures over the next 7 weeks with many of his opponents being known for their defensive fragilities.
Leon Bailey – Injury
Once again we have more injury news to report! Budget midfielder Leon Bailey has picked up a “small muscle issue” and is a doubt for this weekend’s match against relegation candidates Nottingham Forest. This would be frustrating for owners as it was his best opportunity to put some goals on the board.
With the wealth of attacking options at Aston Villa, I would say it is almost certain that Bailey will not start this week and potentially not feature due to his historical injury issues.
Nick, also known as StatsmanFPL, is a qualified data analyst with a love for FPL. He analyses the data so you don’t have to. Make sure to follow him on Twitter and Instagram.