We’re back to preview Gameweek 9 with the deadline just around the corner - don’t forget it’s a Friday deadline this week!

Table of Contents

• Harry's Team

• Ross's Team

• Oscar's Team

• Harry's Captaincy Rankings

• Clean Sheet Odds

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Is it worth using 2 transfers to pivot from Sarr to Mateta, or from Gyokeres to Saka?

I (Ross) have received quite a few questions in recent weeks about people that are tripled up on a team but want another asset from that same team. Lots of people have Raya, Gabriel and Gyokeres, but they want Saka. Or you might have Richards, Munoz and Sarr but want Mateta. Is it too sideways, or can you justify it?

The first thing to consider is how many free transfers you have. If you are using your only 2 free transfers to do this, it probably isn’t a great move. However, if your team already looks very good and you don’t need those transfers, and/or the players you are bringing in look good value too, I don’t hate it.

Last week, I had 3 FTs and sold Raya and Bruno for Pope and Saka. You might not consider that an optimal move for my team, but I really wanted Saka, and had to sell Raya to get there. I had the FTs, and felt the upside was there.

Now, do I think selling Sarr to buy Mateta is a great move, not necessarily. I think Sarr is excellent. However, if you have 4 FTs, and the moves are something like Sarr and Watkins to Enzo and Mateta, that doesn’t look bad at all!

So essentially, I can’t answer yes or no to this question - but I would only consider it if you think it is a sizeable upgrade and you have the FTs and team balance to deal with making the moves. Also, FPL is about having fun, so if you think it’s a fun move, why not?

If you go for it, good luck!

So I am going to cut straight to it! I am majorly concerned by Joao Pedro’s data and am looking to sell him next week to Mateta potentially so I want to leave at least £0.1m in the bank to do that if I want to!

However, I also want to upgrade one of Reijnders or Stach to Enzo Fernandez to keep some Chelsea if I sell Joao Pedro.
HOWEVER, I also have the Andersen injury now!

So I can do Andersen to a £4.0m like Gudmundsson and then do Reijnders to Enzo. Seems sensible, however, it leaves me £0.0m in the bank so nothing spare to do Joao Pedro to Mateta.

So other solutions are, Andersen to Tuanzebe at £3.9m and hope he keeps his place at Burnley.

Tarkowski to Keane or Gudmundsson and Reijnders to Enzo which would leave me some money in the bank for next week.

Or do Stach to Miley (£4.4m) and Reijnders to Enzo leaving £0.1m spare for Joao Pedro to Mateta next week.

The final option of course is I roll and do not add any Chelsea this week, and just do Joao Pedro to Mateta next week with the money in the bank if needed.

Right now, I actually think the Andersen to £4.0m Gudmundsson is the most likely and find £0.1m elsewhere if I want to go Joao Pedro to Mateta but I have not fully decided!

I have definitely had stronger starts to the season, but I think most people are also one chip ahead of me (most have played BB or TC), and the ranks are still quite tightly bunched together. A long way to go.

My plan had always been to bench boost this week, but the injury to Andersen has made that a lot more difficult, especially given I would rather not sell him if he is only out for a short period of time (I am working under the assumption Andersen will be unavailable for GW9 at the very least).

As of right now, I have 4 possible options. Options 1 and 2 would involve selling Andersen and bench boosting, Options 3 and 4 would involve keeping Andersen and delaying the bench boost.

• OPTION 1: Andersen —> Richards

• OPTION 2: Andersen, Gyokeres —> Munoz, Mateta

• OPTION 3: Reijnders, Gyokeres —> Enzo, Mateta

• OPTION 4: Reijnders, Tarkowski —> Enzo, Van Hecke

• OPTION 5: Roll the transfer

Basically, I need to decide if I want to bench boost, and how much I want Enzo this week. I am quite tempted to just roll, given it isn’t the ideal entry point for Palace and Sunderland have actually been decent defensively.

Well, last gameweek ended up one of my best ever in terms of gameweek rank, with 96 points. Very unlucky with Mukiele as the driving force behind the huge green arrow with the goal, clean sheet, defcon and bonus. I was on the Official FPL Pod with Harry on Monday and he wasn’t best pleased that I’ve gone level with him after that.

I’m in a fortunate position to have 5 free transfers as well, and I therefore need to spend at least one. I was hoping to see Enzo involved for Chelsea in the Champions League, he started, scored a penalty and could have had a second but handed the penalty to Estevao who won it. Came off at half time - perfect.

The plan is to sell Reijnders for Enzo. The question is how do I fund it? Gvardiol is the logical one to sell, the next question is who do I buy for 4.5m?

Richards and Keane look the best long term, both have a bad fixture this week. Keane’s is better with TOT (H), though it’s not as simple as that. I’m looking to sell Joao Pedro to Mateta in GW10 potentially for Palace’s fixture swing, plus I may want to swap Gyokeres and Stach to Guiu and Saka. The problem with selling Gvardiol for 4.5m defender is it leaves 0.1m wiggle room for all those moves. I’m therefore looking at Rodon who has WHU (H) this week and ensures I should be able to make all the moves below if I want to. Don’t get me wrong - I hope I don’t want to sell Gyokeres, but if he blanks again this gameweek and Saka hauls it’s going to be hard to ignore that switch. Gyokeres did score a brace in the Champions League, not the most glamorous brace but they all count - hoping that can spill over to some league form next.

Enzo Fernandez is back and played 45 minutes midweek so looks set to start against Sunderland. However, Guiu also played 45 minutes and also looks set to start with Joao Pedro dropping into the no.10 and Enzo playing no.8/no.10. This makes Enzo Fernandez very slightly worse but still a very good pick.

Joao Pedro has a non penalty goal every 419 minutes in the premier league and is yet to score from open play this season with just 2 headers from set pieces…

This week’s disasterclass used their free hit but only scored 44 points, and benched 32 points 😬