MyFPL is a series where we will go through our thought process before every FPL Gameweek in the 2017/2018 season.
Current Overall Points: 1,624
Current Overall Ranking: 19,137
Last Gameweek Points: 78
We’re back with our first MyFPL article on TheVideoScope.com, and there will be many more to come. We already started strategizing with our article on Monday, talking about how to use your remaining chips. If you wanna know when to use your wildcard, “Free Hit”, “Triple Captain” and “Bench Boost”, check that out here.
But in MyFPL, we’re looking more specifically at players and look forward to the upcoming gameweek and what to do with transfers. We had to wait through a whole FA Cup weekend, but we’ve finally arrived, at the home stretch no less.
I’m gonna go ahead with a new format for these articles. Instead of going through my own team and my own watchlist, I figured it would be better to find one player each for these 4 categories: Buy Him, Sell Him, Keep Him, Stay Away. I got the idea from a different FPL type of site, but can’t remember exactly where. Pretty sure it was RotoWire, which is another fantastic FPL site. Please check them out 🙂
Buy Him: Virgil van Dijk
You just have to get a Liverpool player at this point. By now, I’m pretty sure you already have Roberto Firmino, so I won’t mention him (except I did). Mohamed Salah has been a no-brainer all season, if he’s not on your team, I’m sorry. But that third elusive Liverpool player has been hard to pin down.
Sadio Mané has not been up to his last season best and is too expensive when Salah and Firmino are right there. They’ve had rotating sidebacks, changed GKs, haven’t settled on a centre back pairing and their midfielders have just been doing hard non-FPL related work after Phillippe Coutinho joined Barcelona.
Until now. VvD is finally settled now, after a back and forth season where he took a while to even start playing with Southampton. The flying Dutchman has been close to scoring on a bunch of set-pieces, as he did on his Liverpool debut.
The reason that you have to get a Liverpool player at this point is that they are going into a really easy stretch of games. WHU, NEW, mun, WAT in the next 4. Best of all, the home game against Watford is in GW31, when there are not too many players to choose from. You should try not to use your “Free Hit” there. Even if you do, Virgil van Dijk will still be a good player to have the next 2 gameweeks. After all, you should have some funds in defence, because:
Sell Him: Nicolas Otamendi
First I’m gonna defend keeping him this long. WAT, liv, NEW, WBA, bur, LEI… That was his schedule the last 6 GWs. The 6 GWs before that run, he averaged 6,8 points per game. Do you wanna know his next 6 GWs? ars, CHE, stk, BLANK, eve, MUN with an away game to Spurs after that. Sell, sell, sell.
Not only that. Aymeric Laporte was brought in during the January transfer window, John Stones is back in action and Vincent Kompany will also play in 2-3 games before he gets injured again. Pep is known for rotating his players and it’s gonna finally bite you in the ass in defence too.
Keep Him: Marcos Alonso
This is another defender who has been disappointing in the last few weeks. The circumstances for him have been a bit different however, as he was ruled out right before game time in the last 2 gameweeks. Had he played away to Watford and at home to WBA, he might have been a must-have going forward.
But his next 2 matches are away to Man Utd and Man City I hear you say. Well, it might not be as bad as it looks. Take Man Utd’s performance in the Champions League yesterday. They are not really dangerous going forward, are they? When a Mourinho team is that dysfunctional offensively, he tends to go super defensive, even more so than usual, which helps Alonso’s clean sheet chances.
Man City will likely score against Chelsea, but the beauty of Alonso is his offensive firepower. Like Liverpool, Chelsea have the tools to cause some damage against a low-key shaky Man City defence. In a game that will likely be hard-fought, I wouldn’t be surprised if Alonso gets the chance to line up for a good free kick opportunity.
If you stick by Alonso, you will be rewarded in his 3rd game, at home to Crystal Palace. Hopefully all the people who don’t check this site will have sold him by that point, and we get a nice little 15 point type of haul for ourselves. Then you can recalibrate either by selling him in GW31, wildcard him out GW32 or keep him for the rest of the season.
Yes, Chelsea did bring in Emerson Palmieri, but the guy just came back from a major injury and needs to get acquainted with the Premier League first. I’m not all that worried about rotation issues for Alonso this season. Maybe next year.
Stay Away: Sergio Aguero
Sure, he banged in 4 goals last gameweek, but don’t get tempted to buy him now. I’m almost writing this as a reminder for myself not to do it. Ironically I’ve done the mistake of staying away from Aguero the past couple of weeks, but now that I’m here, I gotta stick to it. It’s too late to join the bandwagon.
As I mentioned in the Sell Him: Nicolas Otamendi part, Man City’s upcoming schedule is dreadful. The reason why I didn’t put Aguero in the Sell Him part is that he does have an outside shot of scoring against Arsenal. If he doesn’t however, I don’t have much hope for him.
Also, Gabriel Jesus is back. Here are some stats for you: Aguero when Jesus is injured: 9,5 Points Per Gameweek. Aguero when Jesus is fit: 5 Points Per Gameweek. With the League Cup Final and Champions League left to play, Pep will surely rotate. Remember when Pep benched Aguero against Man Utd? @KevNissanka remembers.
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