Gameweek 12 | The stuff you need to know.

🚨 Gameweek 12’s deadline is Saturday 23rd November, 11:00 GMT.

👀 Palmer in full training.

👌 Mbeumo is expected to be available according to Frank.

🧤 Alisson and Trent NOT back in training, according to Slot.

🤕 Saka a doubt for the weekend.

🤷 But most of the yellow flags in your team will probably be fine.

The Prof is using all five of his free transfers. Keep reading to find out who’s in and out.

Alright?

Some of you will have returned from the international break to teams that’re looking not too dissimilar to the front garden of an embassy: covered in flags.

But even if your squad could be the subject of Coldplay’s 2000 hit “Yellow”, there’s no need to panic.

Footballers have a near-miraculous ability to recover from their various ailments immediately after international football. It really is a medical marvel.

The fixtures are about to come thick and fast. We’re on the precipice of seven gameweeks between now and January.

Strap in: it’s going to be a bumpy, clumpy and occasionally humpy ride.

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In terms of FPL-relevant events, the third international break of the season was relatively dull. Which is great for managers.

It was the days leading up to the first international fixtures that were to blame for all the yellow flags.

Nine players withdrew from the England squad, including Trent Alexander-Arnold, Cole Palmer, Phil Foden and Bukayo Saka. Virgil van Dijk also withdrew from the Netherlands squad.

What’s the latest with them?

Alexander-Arnold

Trent was withdrawn with a hamstring issue at half-time in Gameweek 11, apparently at his bequest. The prognosis is a “low-grade” hamstring tear, which typically takes between 2-3 weeks to recover from.

That puts Trent in a grey area. He’s most certainly a doubt for Southampton in Gameweek 12, but he isn’t completely ruled out.

Van Dijk had some minor medical issues (that old chestnut) but should be fine.

Cole Palmer

Palmer’s England withdrawal was particularly odd. The Englishman was a doubt prior to Gameweek 11, played 90 minutes, and then immediately became a doubt again after the game.

Well, he should be fine. He’s participated in normal training, and on Thursday Maresca said, “Some we will test today. But overall, for sure, they’re much better” when asked about Palmer and Levi Colwill.

Bukayo Saka

Forced off in Gameweek 11 after a Marc Cucurella tackle, Saka is, according to the Daily Mail, in a “race against time” to recover for Gameweek 12. There’s no clear indication whether he will win that race.

Phil Foden

Picked up a knock in Gameweek 11, should be fine for Gameweek 12.

Other yellow flags

Some other notable yellow flags ought to be acknowledged here:

Antoine Semenyo - withdrew from the Ghana squad with a patella injury caused by overplaying. Wasn’t pictured in Thursday’s training pics (but plenty weren’t).

Ola Aina - pictured in training, seems fine.

Yoanne Wissa - should be fine based on Frank’s comments.

Dwight McNeil - “had a really good week”. Should make the squad.

We hope you’re sitting down for this: Newcastle players might be good again.

Despite a rocky start, the players we thought ought to have been performing at the start of the season have finally started to deliver. Remember when Alexander Isak was the most-owned player in the entire game?

The Swede is not the focus of this week’s penetrative stats. He could be, but there are other, less obvious root vegetables to examine.

Such as his 4.3% owned colleague, Lewis Hall (£4.4m). The third-best player to be named after a room in your house behind Peter Kitchen and Terry Conservatory (one of those is made up).

Two graphs inspire this pick. The first is this one:

Over the last six gameweeks, only Liverpool and Arsenal have conceded fewer expected goals than Newcastle. An honourary mention must go to Everton here too.

The second graph is this one:

Again, over the past six gameweeks, just one player beats Hall for expected assists: Ipswich’s Leif Davis. Sorry, Leif, but your FPL prospects are ruined by that first graph.

That’s the thing with defenders: it’s not just their attacking output that needs to be considered, but also their ability to not concede goals.

Hall has both attributes at the moment, and he’ll cost you just £4.4m.

There are other things we like about him, though. With the exception of Liverpool at home, Newcastle have a pretty nice fixture run until February 2025.

Hall’s minutes might’ve been threatened at the start of the season, but the 20-year-old has started and played 90 in all of Newcastle’s last six matches. He also made a solid debut for England over the international break. In other words, he’s very much in vogue.

With Trent Alexander-Arnold the most transferred out player this week, many are looking to Liverpool, Man United and Wolves defenders to fill the space.

Few are looking to Newcastle: a team seemingly back to their defensive best with decent fixtures ahead. At £4.4m, Hall is a cheap, reliable and exciting way in.

Summary for the Lazy: Chelsea, Arsenal, Wolves and Brighton stocks go up. Forest, Man City, Spurs and Brentford stocks go down.

Dig out your masquerade mask and drop your keys into the bowl: it’s time to talk about swinging.

You won’t find fixture swings discussed amongst regular, muggle-born football fans. They are to FPL nerds what lunar cycles are to astrology-loving hippies: hugely influential but not exactly marked on the calendar.

Simply put, a fixture swing is when a team - or a number of teams - moves into a particularly good or bad run of fixtures. Gameweek 12 is a big one. There are a few teams at the centre of this orgy:

Chelsea - their next 11 fixtures are perhaps the best possible fixtures a team can have in the Premier League:

Arsenal - they’ve had to weather a storm, but also have some great fixtures on the horizon.

Wolves - their next six fixtures are comprised of ful, BOU, eve, whu, IPS, lei.

Brighton - similar to Wolves, they have a nice seven-fixture run of bou, SOU, ful, lei, CRY, whu and BRE.

But it’s not all money shots and caviar. Some teams are at the arse-end of this swinging party. Nottingham Forest, Man City, Spurs and Brentford (from Gameweek 14) have a pretty tough run on the horizon.

How will all this swinging impact the top managers? Let’s take a look…

Summary for the Lazy: GW12 represents a shift from Brentford, Spurs, Forest towards Chelsea, Newcastle, Brighton.

Plenty of top FPL managers have saved up transfers precisely for this week, including our very own Professor and James Cooper.

A looming question remains over Erling Haaland, but with two goals in his last three games and a hat-trick over the international break, it’s not unreasonable to deduce that the Norse God has returned to his normal habits.

In any case, the momentum is undoubtedly flowing away from premium defenders and forwards and towards premium midfielders - i.e. Mohamed Salah and Cole Palmer. Plenty of top managers who don’t already own these two are engineering their transfers to free up the necessary funds.

Expect to see increased investment in teams on the precipice of a great fixture run: particularly Chelsea. We’re also forecasting decreased interest in the likes of Bryan Mbeumo, Chris Wood and highly owned Spurs players like Dominic Solanke and Brennan Johnson.

Some remarkably patient managers have saved their Wildcard for this week too. Their teams will likely look something like this:

This one was built by friend-of-the-newsletter @BradMayorFPL, and it’s probably the most representative we’ve seen in terms of where the trends are going:

Summary for the Lazy: Salah is the best captain, but Haaland and Palmer shouldn’t be discounted. All three are good options.

Mohamed Salah (away at Southampton) and Cole Palmer (away at Leicester) are both excellent picks for the armband in Gameweek 12.

As is Erling Haaland at home to Spurs.

A case could be made for any one of these three, but in the spirit of trying to be helpful, here’s a brief analysis based on an arbitrary points system I’ve just invented.

Strength of opposition

Salah - 3
Palmer - 2
Haaland - 1

Southampton have the worst xGA (expected goals allowed) per game at home in the league. At 12.16 xGA across 5 home games, Salah literally couldn’t have a better opponent on the road. Leicester’s is 9.89 - not great either. Spurs’ away xGA is up there with the best in the league at just 6.16.

Underlying stats

Haaland - 3
Salah - 2
Palmer - 1.8

No shocks here. Interestingly, over the last six games, these three comprise the top three for xGI (expected goal involvements):

Actual recent performances

Salah - 3
Palmer - 2.5
Haaland - 1

Salah edges out Palmer by a single goal involvement here. He has seven to Palmer’s six over the last six games. Haaland, meanwhile, has 2.

Bookies’ odds

Haaland - 3
Salah - 2
Palmer - 1

Despite his wastefulness in front of goal, the bookies still fancy Haaland to score in Gameweek 12 above anyone else.

Total points:

Salah - 10
Haaland - 8
Palmer - 7.3

Right, so based on this incredibly spurious system, Salah tops it. There are a myriad of other factors that weren’t considered here:

- Palmer and Salah are midfielders, and score more points per goal.
- They also have a higher propensity for assists than Haaland.
- Haaland’s ownership is higher, which means a haul from him is a bigger hit to your rank if you don’t captain him.

As Salah’s ownership continues to rise amongst active managers, he steals it this week away at Southampton for us.

The Prof has used five free transfers this week. Welcome to the mini-Wildcard, a new phenomenon birthed from the placenta of FPL HQ’s 24/25 rule changes.

Here are the moves:

Pedro Porro → Lewis Hall

Trent Alexander-Arnold → Noussair Mazraoui

Bryan Mbeumo → Mohamed Salah

Dominic Solake → Nicolas Jackson

Chris Wood → Joao Pedro

Salah gets the armband.

As always, if you want to read his reasoning behind these moves, the email is right here (but you’ll need to be a member of LazyFPL Premium to read it).

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Next gameweek starts with a Friday evening kick-off, so we’ll see you on Thursday. Have a sumptuous Gameweek 12.

Stay lazy,

The LazyFPL Team.