Gameweek 13 | Lucky number 13...

Everything you need to know ahead of Gameweek 13.

November 28, 2024

The Stuff You Should Know

🚨 Gameweek 13’s deadline is FRIDAY 29th November, 18:30 GMT.

👀 Steve Cooper sacked, Ruud van Nistelrooy set to be appointed at Leicester.

👌 Trent fit and available for Gameweek 13.

🧤 Vicario out “for months” for Spurs - Forster will replace him.

🤕 Kovacic out for a month.

Keep reading to find out if The Professor is finally binning Erling Haaland.

Alright?

Quick one today - Gameweek 13 is a Friday starter. A twisted Friday starter. They always sneak up.

But don’t worry though - there’s barely anything to talk about. Man City are terrible, Wolves are world-beaters, and Everton are one of the most defensively robust teams in the league.

Business as usual, then.

Let’s talk about Gameweek 13.

Gameweek 13’s fixtures.

If you miss the early deadline all your pints will be flat in 2025.

Our Black Friday offer.

Jokes, we don’t have one.

When we say we’ve tried to make LazyFPL Premium worth every penny, we mean it. Which means any discount would be nonsensical.

Luckily, it’s only £5pm - or £50 per year if you wanna get 12 months for the price of 10.

Do we finally sell Haaland?

Summary for the Lazy: Selling Haaland doesn’t appear to be the optimal move, but City as a whole are struggling from a stats perspective.

As FPL managers, our convictions are regularly tested.

If we believe Player A is a good pick, we should be prepared to tolerate occasional disappointment for the promised return of eventual points. Those who can’t tolerate disappointment - i.e. those who sell players after a blank or two - generally don’t succeed in this game.

Occasionally, the scale of that disappointment challenges our initial beliefs. Such has been the case with Erling Haaland, whose recent underperformances have tested even the most resolute owners.

There is always an opportunity cost in FPL. Every £1m spent on Haaland is £1m less to spend on other players - many of whom are returning regularly and emphatically. When captaincy is factored in, the points swing has been punishing.

But in these situations, it’s important to revisit the conditions under which our initial beliefs were formulated. Have they changed significantly enough to invalidate our previously held convictions?

Haaland’s stats

At the heart of the conundrum for Haaland owners is the fact that his underlying numbers have remained as Haaland-esque as ever.

Haaland has outperformed Salah for underlying stats over the last 6 games.

He’s scoring on international duty.

He’s scoring in the Champions League.

He just isn’t scoring in the Premier League.

In his last five games in all competitions, Haaland has one assist and seven goals. But only one of those is an FPL return.

Haaland’s team

The Professor did an impressive deep dive into Man City’s woes in the last premium newsletter. To crudely summarise it, the takeaway was that Man City’s vulnerabilities are reflected in their stats (The Professor introduces “expected shot value against” - a rare but enlightening metric).

What we’re seeing in Man City’s dip is not a freakish symptom of variance, but vulnerable performances that mirror the amount of high-quality chances they’re conceding. Indeed, since Rodri’s injury, no team has conceded as many big chances.

Disappointing results compound, too. Momentum is lost, confidence is knocked, and suddenly a team that seemed immortal two months ago now looks at risk of total capitulation.

There are some positives for Man City. Aside from Guardiola’s contract extension, Kevin De Bruyne is on the precipice of returning to the starting XI - can his return do to Man City what Martin Odegaard’s return did to Arsenal a few weeks ago?

So when does the conviction that Haaland will come good in the end become blind obstinacy?

Well, so long as he continues to blank, those who have already sold will continue to eye-roll at those citing his underlying stats as a reason to hold.

But a different consideration now rears its head: with an additional 600,000 managers( at the time of writing) getting rid of Haaland ahead of Gameweek 13, he’s quickly becoming a differential amongst active managers.

If he continues to get regular, high-quality chances, he could yet make up some of the ground that has been lost by keeping him thus far.

Perhaps it’s sunk cost fallacy at its worst, or maybe it’s an over-emphasis on underlying stats, but the fundamental question here is: “Will Haaland score enough points over the next week 6-8 gameweeks to justify a £15m outlay?”.

For many of the best managers, the answer to that question is still “Yes”.

Penetrative Stats.

Summary for the Lazy: Mitoma could yet be the value midfielder of the season.

If we look at the top 10 midfielders for expected goal involvements (xGI) this season, one name stands out as a bit of an anomaly. See if you can spot it:

Nine of these players have either been heavily owned or heavily discussed in FPL circles this season.

The 6% owned Kaoru Mitoma has not.

The second-cheapest of the bunch, Mitoma’s cameo in the top 10 is all the more notable when you consider the opponents he’s had to face. Arsenal, Nottingham Forest, Chelsea, Spurs, Liverpool, Man City, Man United, Newcastle…even the mighty Wolves (the in-form version, mind), Bournemouth and Everton.

Looking at the games played so far, one could argue that their only great attacking fixture was a home game against Ipswich - which, of course, was the only game in which they’ve failed to score.

Mitoma has five returns so far - a bang-on reflection of his underlying stats. But his fixtures are about to turn significantly:

Racking up 16 returns in just 2,311 minutes a few seasons ago, Mitoma has the required pedigree to be worth every penny of his diminutive £6.4m price tag, and he also boasts a consistent history of over-performing his underlying stats.

His one benching this season came immediately after an international break - otherwise he’s played at least 85 minutes every game.

FPL is going through a midfield-heavy phase at the moment. Budget forwards are performing excellently and premium midfielders are worth their weight in gold.

Mitoma isn’t going to perform like Mohamed Salah anytime soon. But he’s a stalwart in an exciting, attacking team that’s currently fifth in the Premier League, with decent underlying numbers, great fixtures and a convincing CV.

The best captain for Gameweek 13.

Summary for the Lazy: It’s Salah.

Even an in-form Erling Haaland would struggle against this current Liverpool, and even an out-of-form Mohamed Salah ought to be considered against this current Man City.

As it happens, Salah isn’t out-of-form. He’s very much in it, innit.

His history in this fixture is impressive, particularly at Anfield. He’s scored five goals for Liverpool in seven home Premier League fixtures against Man City. The Man City he’ll face on Sunday will be the worst iteration yet.

A reminder: over the last three gameweeks, no team has conceded more expected goals than Man City. And no team has conceded more big chances than Man City since Rodri’s injury.

Cole Palmer deserves some acknowledgement. He’ll host an Aston Villa side that has worn the fatigue of midweek UCL fixtures on its sleeve, and he has an edge over Salah as far as the bookies are concerned.

But Man City’s poor defensive stats, combined with their recent form, are exactly the sort of criteria we’d use against any other team - it should hold for Man City too.

Salah gets it for us…but not for all of us.

After lots of deliberation (really, a lot), The Professor is…saving a transfer.

Here is on Thursday afternoon:

Yeah, we call him The Prof in WhatsApp too. Whatever.

But he’s decided to keep him for another week.

Annoyingly - given my impassioned speech about Salah being the best captain - he’s giving the armband to Cole Palmer for the reasons already cited.

In his words “I might still go for Salah, but it’s on Palmer for now.”

You can find out what he goes for by signing up to LazyFPL Premium.