😱 BGW28 - how to not screw it up 👍

Summary for the lazy

⏰ Blank Gameweek 28's FRIDAY DEADLINE is 18:30 GMT, Friday 17th March

🤦‍♂️ Six teams - Brighton, Fulham, Liverpool, Man City, Man United and West Ham - will blank

👀 Jesus plays for the first time since the World Cup

🟨 Toney within 1 yellow card of a two-match suspension⚽️ Haaland, who scored five midweek, is the most transferred out player

Stay for some absolute top-tier bants from Specsavers. Yeah, you heard.

Alright?

After plenty of head-scratching, debate and analysis, the most difficult decisions ahead of Double Gameweek 27 ended up being fairly redundant.- Who is the best Brighton midfielder?- Who is the best captain?- Which Brentford defenders should you go for?The answer to all of these questions turned out to be pretty simple: whoever, mate. Just stop calling me at 3am to talk about FPL.

There's probably a lesson to be learned here.

Perhaps we shouldn't worry so much about these 50/50 decisions.

Maybe we're better off closing our eyes, jabbing our finger (or another body part of your choice) at the screen and giving the captaincy to whoever it lands nearest.

But hey, where's the fun in that? A Blank Gameweek awaits, and Blank Gameweeks are nothing if not golden opportunities to head-scratch, debate and analyse. I, for one, love it.

Here's everything you need to know.

Navigating the blank

There are six teams that blank in Gameweek 28 and, rudely, a couple of 'em are actually pretty good. How inconsiderate.

Brighton, Fulham, Liverpool, Man City, Man United and West Ham are the blanking teams in question.

It's likely you have players from these teams, but if you've been even moderately diligent, you shouldn't be particularly alarmed by this blank either.

Remember, it's okay not to field 11 players this week.

Managers will go to extreme lengths to field 11 players because the site of a blanking player in your side is, frankly, a little jarring. It's sort of like when you see a three-legged dog.

But remember, three-legged dogs are usually absolutely fine. They just look a bit weird. Even without the conventional number of legs, they function much the same as regular, four-legged quadrupeds. 

The same goes for your team. Don't make irreversible decisions for the sake of getting 11 players out. It's highly unlikely that extra player will make a great deal of difference.

Lazy summary: Brighton, Fulham, Liverpool, Man City, Man United and West Ham blank. Don't mess up your team to field loads of players.

Why is everyone getting rid of Haaland?

At the time of writing, 376,000 managers have transferred out Erling Haaland. 

The logic here is thus:1) Man City blank this week2) They only have one fixture in big-bastard-Double Gameweek 29 (and it's against Liverpool)3) They are "highly likely" to blank in Gameweek 32 (according to @BenCrellin)

But then he went and scored five in Tuesday night's midweek UCL game.

It's hard not to see that as a poetic, almost-celestial reminder of why we should approach getting rid of such an excellent player with utmost caution. 

Whatever pundits may tell you, this is not an easy decision.

Selling him means not owning him for his inevitable returns against Liverpool (H), Southampton (A) and Leicester (H), which, given Liverpool's fragility at the back, is hardly the worst fixture run for a superhuman goalscorer. 

The upside is that, by selling him, you can afford every other forward in the game, and some of those forwards have five fixtures in the space of Haaland's three.

But there is another consideration...

Lazy summary: because he's likely to only have three fixtures between now and Gameweek 33.

Consider your team value

Ugh, team value.

Team value is that boring Uncle who corners you at weddings and talks to you about the importance of doing your tax returns.

We at LazyFPL try to avoid discussing it where we can but, just like your tax returns, there comes a point where we have to crack out the calculator, don our reading glasses and hash it all out.

For the uninitiated, team value is needlessly tricky. Simply, your team value is the sum of the current price of all of your players. Yours is likely to be around ~£102m-£105m. 

But if your team value is £105m, you don't get £105m if you sell all of your players. That'd be far too simple. You'll probably get less, and that's because there's usually a difference between the sale price of your player and the buy price of that player. Let's use an example:

You buy Haaland for £12m. His price rises to £12.4m. Selling him will only earn you £12.2m, because you only get half of the amount of profit you've made on a player.

This is important, because most of you have probably owned Haaland since Gameweek 1 or 2. 

I bought Haaland in Gameweek 2 for £11.6m. He now costs £12.2m. That means I'd be able to sell him for £11.9m. In other words: if I sell him this week and I don't have any money in the bank, I won't be able to afford to bring him back in Gameweek 33 unless his price drops to £11.9m. 

The advice here is simply to be mindful of this phenomenon. It often catches managers out.

Okay, boring Uncle rant over.

Lazy summary: players are usually sold for less than their value, which can make buying them back hard. Be wary of this.

Who are the best Haaland replacements?

If you still want to get rid of Haaland (and most good managers do), any forward that:

• plays this gameweek

• has a double in Gameweek 29

is up for discussion here. Some popular considerations are:

Kai HavertzOllie WatkinsJoao FelixAlexander IsaacWe'll rank these using a unique scale that we're calling the Hipster-scale. The players at the top of the scale are the mainstream, obvious picks. Those at the bottom of the scale are the edgy differentials.

1) Ollie Watkins (BOU, che/lei, NFO, NEW). Watkins is by far the most popular Haaland replacement: 286k have transferred him in. Hipster rating: Ed Sheeran is his favourite band.

2) Kai Havertz (EVE, AVL/LIV, wol, BHA). Kai Havertz scored a lovely goal last gameweek and Chelsea might - just might - be back in form. Hipster rating: owns a vinyl player but doesn't have a huge collection.

3) Alexander Isak (nfo, MUN/whu, unlikely doubles in GW30/31). Isak is gathering steam after returning to Newcastle's starting line-up. Hipster rating: owns a St Pauli shirt.

4) Joao Felix (EVE, AVL/LIV, wol, BHA). Felix is the artisanal version of Havertz. Hard to justify the extra £0.1m for him. Hipster rating: calls his shoes "moccasins".

Special shoutouts to Dominic Solanke and Kelechi Iheanacho who are so hipster they actually broke our scale. Nonetheless, there's an argument for both.

Look, there's a reason why Watkins is the most popular pick. He has six goals from his last seven games and is as nailed as it gets. Unless you're desperate for a differential (and you shouldn't be), there ain't much logic that justifies deviating from him.

Lazy summary: Watkins.

The best captain for Blank Gameweek 28

The most popular options are Harry Kane (sou) and Bukayo Saka (CRY), but there are an unusually high number of tempting differentials that could outscore them. 

Kane will be more popular than Saka. He is the safe option. Since under new management, Southampton's xGC (expected goals conceded) has actually been worse, and Kane has quietly worked his way to the second-highest xG and the highest number of shots of anyone in the game this season.

In his 12 games since the World Cup, he has returned in 8 of them.

Southampton have only conceded 1 goal in their last 4 games, but that's incredibly flattering. Their xGC is over 6x that, at 6.4.

That Saka is playing CRY almost feels like a prophecy for how managers who captain him could be spending their Sunday evenings. Palace, despite a poor run of results, have only conceded three goals in their last four games, which includes matches against Man City, Brighton and Liverpool. 

It appears that, in lieu of scoring goals themselves, they've resolved to just prevent the opponent from scoring goals at all costs. Dyche-ball.

This doesn't make Saka a poor option (Guaita could still be out, after all), but Kane's talismanic status at Spurs gives him the edge for us.

Watkins, Toney, Martinelli and Chilwell will also pick up suitors. 

The key stats

The Professor's team

Our resident expert, the Professor, has decided on his transfers and, in news that will surprise none of you, it's fairly standard stuff.

Overall rank: 44,986 

Free transfers: 2 - Planned transfer: Haaland -> Watkins (roll other FT) Captaincy: still unsure but on Saka (personally I reckon he'll end up on Harry because he's a sucker for a template pick)

Oh, btw, the Prof is using the BetterFPL chrome extension here. Fortunately we've been given a promo code exclusively for Lazy readers: try it for free for a month using the code [FPLTIPS].

Other tidbits

• Gabriel Jesus returned to the pitch for the first time since the World Cup. Over 20k managers have transferred him in.

• There's an international break next week. Here's the England squad:

• Ivan Toney picked up another yellow last gameweek. If he gets one more (and it could happen in the first of his Double Gameweek 29 fixtures) he'll be banned for two games.

• Solly March was eventually awarded the Jack Harrison OG on Saturday after Brighton appealed. In news that rocked the FPL world, his 2-point tally was not amended. Specsavers weighed in when March scored again on Wednesday:

Lazy conclusions

❌ This week is a Blank Gameweek. Six teams will blank.

👋 Loads of managers are getting rid of Erling Haaland.

🤝 Ollie Watkins is the most popular replacement.

🧢 Harry Kane will be the most popular captain for BGW28.

💰 Keep an eye on your team value, even if it's super boring.

 It's the dreaded international break next week, but we'll "touch base" (🤢) with an update on the key stuff in the middle of it.

Stay lazy,The LazyFPL team.