🚨 GW13: The FPL cheat sheet 🤫

⏰ Gameweek 13’s deadline is Saturday, 29th November, 13:30 GMT ⏰

🙏 Antoine Semenyo will be in the matchday squad this weekend assuming all goes well in training today [Iraola].

🤕 Hugo Ekitike and Leandro Trossard are the two highest-profile injuries from midweek games.

🪑 Next week is our first midweek gameweek, which could mean more player rotation. Make sure you put extra thought into your bench.

👀 Keep reading for the Professor’s Triple Captain.

Alright?

Why is the number 13 considered unlucky?

The traditional answers are all dining-related. In Norse mythology, Loki was the 13th guest at the banquet in Valhalla, which caused a right scene. (Presumably, Erling Haaland - himself a Norse God - saw the whole thing unfold).

In Christian mythology, Judas was the 13th guest at the Last Supper.

The fear of the number 13 is so ubiquitous that it even has a name: Triskaidekaphobia. Didn’t he used to play for Fulham?

But we don’t entertain such fanciful notions at LazyFPL. In FPL lore, bad luck isn’t the reserve of the number 13, or any other number for that matter. The unlucky part is choosing to play it in the first place.

Here’s the ultimate cure to your triskaidekaphobia.

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Tuesday - UCL

Chelsea 3-0 Barcelona

Goals - Liam Delap, Estêvão, Own Goal
Assists - Reece James, Enzo Fernández

Everyone is talking about Estêvão’s goal, but you know what they say in FPL: Every wonderkid has a shitty lining. For Estêvão, it was medical treatment after his 83rd-minute substitution. But he was walking around the pitch afterwards and did a post-match interview, so he’s probably fine.

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Man City 0-2 Leverkusen

Goals - well, this is awkward…
Assists - yup…still awkward.

A heavily rotated Man City side laboured to a home defeat against Leverkusen. Erling Haaland was substituted late on, along with Jérémy Doku, but it was all a bit desperate. Think Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

For all the Free Hitters, it’s worth noting that Haaland, Doku, Phil Foden and Nico O'Reilly were all subbed on, but should be well rested for Leeds.

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Marseille 2-1 Newcastle

Goals - Harvey Barnes
Assists - Anthony Gordon [FPL assist]

Newcastle started strongly here, and Barnes now has four goals in his last three starts. Two goals in five minutes from Aubameyang (we don’t miss having to type out his full name) put an end to the Newcastle celebrations, though. Nick Woltemade was subbed on for 18 minutes.

Wednesday

Arsenal 3-1 Bayern Munich

Goals - Jurrien Timber, Noni Madueke, Gabriel Martinelli
Assists - Eberechi Eze, Bukayo Saka, Riccardo Calafiori

Arsenal dominated this game, and continued their trend of being - to use the technical term - really bloody good. It’s another goal conceded since Gabriel’s injury, but conceding 0.78xG against Bayern Munich is hardly a damning indictment of their defence. Leandro Trossard went off with an injury.

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Liverpool 1-4 PSV

Goals - Dominik Szoboszlai
Assists - None (but it was a Cody Gakpo assist in FPL)

Liverpool actually racked up a higher xG than PSV in this game, but got thrashed at Anfield. To make matters worse, Hugo Ekitike was forced off with a back complaint (severity currently unknown). Alisson was not in the squad.

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PSG 5-3 Spurs

Goals - Richarlison, Kolo Muani (2)
Assists - Kolo Muani

Another game in which the losing side racked up a higher xG, Spurs (or “the Spurs” as our spellchecker is trying to insist) showed signs of attacking life in an entertaining game in Paris.

Thursday

Aston Villa 2-1 Young Boys

Goals - Donyell Malen (2)
Assists - Morgan Rogers, Youri Tielemans

Malen started ahead of Ollie Watkins (subbed on at ‘60) and once again proved why he’s a contender for a starting spot in the Premier League. Rogers started but was subbed off in the 60th minute.

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Nottingham Forest 3-0 Malmö FF

Goals - Ryan Yates, Arnaud Kalimuendo-Muinga, Nikola Milenkovic
Assists - Yates would’ve had two in FPL.

Forest have scored three goals in each of their last three games, continuing Sean Dyche’s proud and long-established tradition of managing free-scoring teams. More impressive is that they rested a lot of their key players, including Elliott Anderson (subbed in on ‘65), Igor Jesus (subbed in on ‘66) and Matt Sels.

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Strasbourg 2-1 Crystal Palace

Goals - Tyrick Mitchell
Assists - Jean-Philippe Mateta

A full-strength Palace side lost in France. Ismaila Sarr and Daniel Muñoz played ‘90. Marc Guéhi (‘45) and Mateta (‘60) started but were substituted.

Lazy summary: Every chip has a use case this week.

Welcome back to Chip Watch, where we perve on the chip options to see which one is packing the most heat this week.

Gameweek 13 is unique because, whilst most weeks have a clear favourite, this week is really split.

Triple Captain

Nobody is mocking you for using this on Erling Haaland at home vs Leeds. He also has West Ham in Gameweek 17, but who knows where the land will lie by then?

Bench Boost

There are some nice fixtures to target for those who have Aston Villa, Brighton and Sunderland options on the bench. This is probably the weakest pick, though.

Free Hit

That Chelsea vs Arsenal fixture is causing a headache that even a potent Nurofen can’t salve. It’s also a gilt-edged opportunity to jump on Aston Villa and Brentford players without having to stick with them until Christmas.

Wildcard

There’s never a bad week for a Wildcard. It is known.

Cool, but which one is the best?

It depends on your team. Sorry, but imagine if we were like, “yeah, definitely play the Free Hit mate”. Firstly, you might not have a Free Hit. Secondly, your team might already be looking decent this week. Thirdly, what are we, your boss? Do what you want.

For what it’s worth, we conducted a poll of our Premium members, and it revealed the following:

🤑 Free Hit - 14%
♦️ Wildcard - 3%
🧢 Triple Captain - 13%
🪑 Bench Boost - 1%
⚖️ Unsure - 24%
❌ None - 45%

So it’s a Free Hit or Triple Captain kinda week. The Free Hit is marginally the most popular chip, but 69% (behave) of our premium members are either undecided or aren’t playing a chip.

Still, given there are 19 opportunities to play a chip in the first half of the season, and only four chips on offer, the fact that at least 31% of the world’s most legendary managers are playing theirs this week should speak volumes.

Lazy summary: Just scroll to the damn team.

Our team of in-house FPL pundits are a bit like the three witches in Macbeth, only there are more than three of them, and they aren’t nearly as fun to be around.

Still, when it comes to FPL prophecies, they have an annoying habit of being right most of the time.

This writer came to them, pot in hand, in search of a Free Hit draft. After stirring a big vat of what looked like Dr Pepper with some chunks of Edam floating on the surface, they sent me this:

Marcos Senesi, Adrien Truffert and Marc Guiu make the bench, in that order. Erling Haaland gets the armband.

There are some strong FPL meta-narratives (which is arsehole-speak for “themes”) doing the rounds this week. You should know about them.

Aston Villa players.

This week, football fans have finally realised that Aston Villa are fourth in the table, and that revelation has prompted an epidemic of chin-scratching amongst FPL managers. Morgan Rogers, Matty Cash - even Ollie Watkins - are in the conversation, mostly because they play Wolves this weekend.

Our take: Proceed with caution. Villa assets are all great Free Hit options for this week, but no player has more than five goal involvements so far this season (Emi Buendía and Rogers have five each).

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Targeting Liverpool.

You know a team’s form is bad when FPL managers start salivating at the prospect of their players facing them, and Liverpool are circling that unsavoury plughole. They’ve conceded 10 goals in their last three games.

But whilst they’re clearly struggling, we’re not sure they’re ready to be grouped amongst the Norwich Cities of the world just yet. Mostly because of this:

Our take: Liverpool are poor, but they’re probably not as bad as they look. Don’t stockpile West Ham players just yet.

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Is Eberechi Eze worth the hype?

A cursory glance through the underlying stats tables will yield many names, from Wilson Isidor to our old friend Tijjani Reijnders, who clings on like an errant bit of epoxy. But Eze’s name isn’t amongst ‘em.

As Liverpool will tell you, underlying stats aren’t everything. Some players are just good enough that, if they play every week, they’re going to attract FPL points with a gravitational pull. A player of Eze’s quality, nailed on for the best team in the league, is one such example.

Our take: Before Eze’s first-ever career hat-trick, he had a modest three assists and one goal this season. Most good managers are waiting to see if he can build on Gameweek 12’s performance before shoehorning him in.

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Is it time to sell Antoine Semenyo?

Last week, the Professor announced that, even if Semenyo was passed fit, he would still find himself sat atop the dreaded chopping block.

Which you might find surprising. After eight gameweeks, only Bruno Fernandes had a higher expected goal involvement amongst midfielders than the Bournemouth man.

But since then, his expected goal involvement has been less than 1.00, and that includes a penalty. Sunderland (A), Everton (H) and Chelsea (A) is a tough run.

Our take: Free Transfers are always valuable, but we’re getting five in Gameweek 16. If they’re piling up and you don’t have any fires to deal with, Semenyo deserves some scrutiny.

Lazy summary: It’s Haaland.

The Norse God is at home against Leeds and there are no obvious alternatives this week. Don’t get fancy.

Sound the Triple Captain siren: the Prof has activated his.

And we hope you’re sitting down for this, because he’s entrusting Erling Haaland.

As things stand, that’s probably the only action he’s taking this week. Antoine Semenyo survives another week, and the Prof will keep faith in Virgil van Dijk’s fixtures, despite his form.

But you never know. Things change, and press conferences reveal previously hidden truths. Subscribe to LazyFPL Premium and get access to our WhatsApp channels, where you’ll be updated on our pundits’ teams in real time.

You've probably got FPL covered as far as newsletters go. The free Route One newsletter handles everything else football-related.

They send you the essential football news every weekday, so between deadlines, you're still plugged into the injuries, form stats, and stories shaping the season.

We read it, you should too:

1) Erling Haaland could get his 100th Premier League goal this weekend.

2) Marcos Senesi, Daniel Muñoz and Dominik Szoboszlai are amongst the players one yellow away from a suspension. Brentford’s Igor Thiago is two yellows away.

3) Yoanne Wissa trained for the first time at Newcastle this week. Kieran Trippier is out for a month.

Try to contain yourself, but there are midweek games next week, starting on Tuesday evening. As per the terms of our contract, that means we’ll be in your inbox on Monday at 18:00 (GMT).

Stay lazy.

The LazyFPL Team.