FPL: GW22 Review / GW23 Preview

Gameweek Points: 45

Gameweek Rank: 3,674,084

Overall Rank: 218,093

(click to enlarge)

In my last post I wrote;

If Utd beat Spurs I could be a bit screwed this week. It'll be especially galling if they keep a clean sheet and I have Shaw sat on my bench, as per last week. I'm feeling fairly confident though.

So, yeah, United beat Spurs 1-0 meaning my three Spurs players picked up just 6 points between them, and Luke Shaw, sat on bench, got a huge (by his standards) 8 points 😅

So quite bad judgement from me on that call.

I went into GW22 hoping that some questions would be answered - particularly in regard the Spurs v Man Utd game, and also in regard Liverpool's tricky tie against Brighton.

United massively answered any questions I had about them with their win. Spurs stock went down a little, and Liverpool kind of impressed against Brighton. Just the one goal, but it did look like they created quite a few decent chances from the highlights. They didn't really demolish Brighton though. So juries still out a tiny bit for me.

Another game that I learnt a lot from this weekend was the West Ham v Arsenal fixture, which finished 1-0 to West Ham. They were quite impressive, however Arsenal looked like they completely lacked ideas going forward. Ramsey on the bench and Özil not even in the squad just seemed bizarre to me. On top of this both Guendouzi and Xhaka started ahead of Torreira, with Torreira just coming on during the second half. Again, this just seemed baffling to me, unless there was some minor injury or fitness worry. All in all I really lost a lot of faith in Arsenal.

Taking those games into consideration I quickly made my two transfers on Sunday night.

Pogba & Rashford IN - Son & Aubameyang OUT

I made them early just to avoid the price changes. The cash I've saved from the Aubameyang to Rashford transfer also gives me enough money to make a Torreira to Sané or Torreira to Mané transfer. However, this would require a minus 4 hit to do it this week 😠

It would also leave me with no free cash to transfer the currently injured Guaita back to Hennessey. I'm really not sure what to do regarding this decision. I could really do with a Palace keeper for Gameweeks 24 & 25 as Newcastle play Man City then Spurs. However, is it really worth making a transfer? Apart from those two games Newcastle's fixture aren't too bad. On top of this if Guaita recovers he could also return and push Hennessey back to the bench.

Ideally I'd like to bring Sané in for this week's game against Huddersfield, which looks like an excellent tie for City. I'm not too keen on owning more City assets for their following game away to Newcastle though. Then they have Arsenal and Chelsea. Though that Arsenal game could be great for their attackers in actual fact. So I'm really quite torn.

Whatever I do I'll wait until Friday to decide. I'll post an updated image of my team for GW23 below if I do make another transfer. I'm going with five at the back and Sterling captain as it stands. Sterling's assist pretty much rescued my GW22, so I'm going to keep the faith.*

(Provisional team for GW23)

Finally, I'm continuing to go without Salah. I don't know whether I doing this in judgement or just out of stubbornness at this point 😀 Not owning him is really destroying me, but surely he's been lucky with the penalty decisions. Or is that just wishful thinking?

*Transfer Update

I've took a minus 4. Sané in for Torreira. Hopefully I'll make the 4 points back this weekend.

What actually swung my decision to make this transfer was the keeper situation. I was considering switching Hennessey back in for Guaita - which would've require £0.3m - but it now seems Hennessey is out injured as well. In a way this is something of a plus as it's forced me to look elsewhere for a solution. Having looked I've found the perfect fit - Brighton's David Button at just £4m, who's now in goal in lieu of Mathew Ryan, who's at the Asian Cup.

It should perfectly cover Newcastle's two difficult games, so it's a nice little solution. Plus I can now bring him in with my free transfer next week.

Now I've got Sané it does mean that I have the headache of who to drop. I'm currently benching Alderweireld, which seems a bit unwise. So I may change that later in the week. There's always the chance that someone won't start anyway though, so it gives me a very nice replacement should I need it :D

(Line-up, now with added Sané)

Overall Points: 1,278

Overall Rank: 218,093