🚨 GW16: The FPL cheat sheet 🤫

⏰ Gameweek 16’s deadline is Saturday, 13th December, 13:30 GMT ⏰

🎁 You now have five free transfers, courtesy of FPL towers.

🤕 Daniel Muñoz will need surgery and is expected back in mid-January.

🔴 Jurrien Timber (knock) and Declan Rice (illness) will be assessed in today’s training session (Friday). Cristhian Mosquera will be out for “weeks” too.

🤞 Marcos Senesi is still dealing with some issues, but Iraola hopes he will be ready for Gameweek 16.

😩 Alexander Isak (knock) is a maybe for Gameweek 16.

🤦‍♂️ Cody Gakpo is out for “a few weeks”.

🩼 Jean-Philippe Mateta “should be available” for the weekend, but needed a rest midweek due to an issue with his knee.

👀 Keep reading to find out why Erling Haaland might not be the best captain this gameweek.

Alright?

FPL strategy and tactics be damned - we’re all rich now; plump with five free transfers, like a fat medieval lord deciding which suckling pig to eat first.

And as the adage goes, there isn’t an FPL problem that can’t be solved by just throwing free transfers at it and hoping for the best. Right? RIGHT?

Well, wrong actually. Rich in transfers we may be, but if we blow the lot on shiny new things, we’ll end up like those midlife-crisis lottery winners who immediately divorce their wives and find themselves in debt six months later.

Gameweek 16 awaits. Here’s how to ensure you don’t turn into a cautionary tale.

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So whilst it calls itself a live scores app, that’s only really scratching the surface. You can get live stats, live commentary, live FPL points, and yes, live defensive contributions as well.

Using FotMob feels like knowing the whereabouts of a secret bar. You wanna tell your mates - but only the ones who deserve to know.

Well, you’re subscribed to LazyFPL, so you deserve to know. Click the button below and start using it for free.

Tuesday

➡️ Inter 0-1 Liverpool
⚽️ Goals - Dominik Szoboszlai (pen)
🦮 FPL Assists - Florian Wirtz (won the pen)

A Mohamed Salah-less (easier to type than to say) Liverpool put to bed some of the “crisis” accusations on Tuesday night. Szoboszlai scored a penalty, but Salah and Alexander Isak weren’t on the pitch, so don’t get your novelty Christmas pants in a twist about it just yet.

Liverpool keeping a clean sheet (and only 0.4xG conceded) against Inter Milan, but conceding against Sunderland and Leeds, is about as FPL as you can get.

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➡️ Tottenham 3-0 Slavia Prague
⚽️ Goals - Mohammed Kudus (pen), Xavi Simons (pen), OG
🦮 FPL Assists - Cristian Romero (forced OG), Pedro Porro (won a pen)

This game had more pens than a WHSmith, but Spurs showed that they can, in fact, play well in two consecutive games under Thomas Frank.

Simons consolidates a goal in Gameweek 15 by winning (and then scoring) a penalty.

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➡️ Atalanta 2-1 Chelsea
⚽️ Goals - João Pedro
🦮 FPL Assists - Reece James

Chelsea mildly rotated with Josh Acheampong, Benoît Badiashile, and Jamie Gittens all starting. Pedro started upfront and scored.

Cole Palmer was purposefully not part of the squad.

“It’s a way to protect Cole after his injury. He can’t play three games in one week”, said Enzo Maresca.

Wednesday

➡️ Bayer Leverkusen 2-2 Newcastle
⚽️ Goals - Anthony Gordon, Lewis Miley
🦮 FPL Assists - Nick Woltemade (won the pen), Gordon

Newcastle were full-strength here, with none of the players you own afforded any rest. If you have Bruno Guimarães, be grateful that he saved his own goal for a UCL game.

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➡️ Club Brugge 0-3 Arsenal
⚽️ Goals - Noni Madueke (2), Gabriel Martinelli
🦮 FPL Assists - Martin Zubimendi (2), Myles Lewis-Skelly

A rotated Arsenal team saw Christian Nørgaard play centre-back in place of the injured Cristhian Mosquera. Christian for Christhian - either it was an enforced swap, or Arteta is desperately trying to reduce the amount of H’s in his starting XI.

Bukayo Saka featured for 20 minutes at the end, and Jurrien Timber*, Leandro Trossard and Declan Rice were out of the squad.

Madueke’s first goal and Martinelli’s goal were both stunning. Eberechi Eze was an unused substitute.

*Timber owners might feel reassured that he was pictured in the training session prior to their UCL game, which suggests his absence was a precaution.

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➡️ Real Madrid 1-2 Man City
⚽️ Goals - Nico O'Reilly, Erling Haaland (pen),
🦮 FPL Assists - Joško Gvardiol

This week’s most transferred-in player, Phil Foden, played 70 minutes, as did Erling Haaland and Rayan Cherki. City were full-strength, but could swap out nine of Wednesday’s players at the weekend and still look full-strength.

Thursday

➡️ FC Utrecht 1-2 Nottingham Forest
⚽️ Goals - Arnaud Kalimuendo-Muinga, Igor Jesus
🦮 FPL Assists - Callum Hudson-Odoi, Dan Ndoye

Some of Nottingham Forest’s key players (like Elliot Anderson, Morgan Gibbs-White and Nikola Milenković) were used as substitutes in Nottingham Forest’s win.

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➡️ Basel 1-2 Aston Villa
⚽️ Goals - Evann Guessand, Youri Tielemans
🦮 FPL Assists - Emi Buendía

Similar to Nottingham Forest, Villa took the opportunity to rest key players, and still clinched a 1-2 win on the road. Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins made 25-minute cameos, Matty Cash was substituted at half-time.

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➡️ Shelbourne 0-3 Crystal Palace
⚽️ Goals - Christantus Uche, Eddie Nketiah, Yeremy Pino
🦮 FPL Assists - Daichi Kamada, Eddie Nketiah, Christantus Uche

Jean-Philippe Mateta and Daniel Muñoz were the most notable (but expected) absentees from this straightforward win for Glasner’s men. Tyrick Mitchell and Dean Henderson were both given a rest.

Lazy summary: You know football well enough to know who’s decent, but here’s some strategic guidance.

There are a lot of transfers being made this week because we have five of them, but if you take nothing else away from this section, take this: Just because you have free transfers, it doesn’t mean you have to use them.

Still, high-profile injuries and suspensions are forcing hands. The fact that our in-house experts are all making multiple transfers speaks volumes: Most managers have at least one headache that can only be remedied by the medicinal benefits of a free transfer.

Here are some players currently flagged (at the time of writing):

Yellow flagged

Declan Rice (Illness)
Alexander Isak (Knock)
Jean-Philippe Mateta (Knee - should be fine)
Jurrien Timber (Knock)
Marcos Senesi (Thigh)

Red flagged

Riccardo Calafiori (Suspension)
Daniel Muñoz (Knee)
Cody Gakpo (Knock)
Cristhian Mosquera (Ankle)

‘Tis the season for squad rotation, which means FPL managers can’t really afford to carry deadweight in their teams for longer than a gameweek. If you own the likes of Muñoz or Gakpo, now is the time to get rid of them.

You probably know enough about football to decide who is good and who is crap at the moment. But here’s who we like, in case you’re after some inspiration:

The defenders we like

Nico O’Reilly, Jurrien Timber and Joachim Andersen are all good options.

If you’re on a budget, the Lazy way is to find a man with a van. Jan Paul van Hecke, Micky van de Ven and Sepp van den Berg are all decent, cheap picks.

You’ll be tempted by Marc Guéhi, but his attacking returns probably won’t sustain at their current levels, and Muñoz’s absence might impact Crystal Palace’s defensive rigidity.

The midfielders we like

Aside from the extraordinarily popular Phil Foden, we also like Bruno Fernandes, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka. Obviously.

The temptresses in this category include Bruno Guimarães and Morgan Rogers, who sing to managers like mermaids, trying to lure us into throwing them a free transfer. But both are significantly overperforming their underlying stats, so we’d advise caution.

The forwards we like

Igor Thiago and Erling Haaland are smart, ridicule-proof picks for the foreseeable.

The third striker spot is trickier. Jean-Philippe Mateta is often substituted early and his stats have dropped off. Nick Woltemade rarely contributes explosive returns and isn’t on penalties. Danny Welbeck has blanked in four of his last five games.

João Pedro (remember him?) has improved in recent weeks and might soon be back on the menu, like meat in Lord of the Rings. He’s all the more interesting now that Cole Palmer is returning and Liam Delap is out for four weeks.

As we mentioned last week, the LazyFPL boffins like Raúl Jiménez as a short-term punt too.

Lazy summary: We’re picking Bukayo Saka, but there are (at least) four very good options.

Choosing a captain this week is the toughest it’s been since August. Here’s a breakdown of the four most popular candidates:

Erling Haaland (away vs Crystal Palace)

Ugh, this guy again. The Norse God has scored six goals in four Premier League games against Crystal Palace. Never rule him out from adding to that tally, but Crystal Palace have the fourth-best defence in the league this season.

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Bruno Fernandes (home vs Bournemouth)

He scored 18 points against Wolves last gameweek. He’s on penalties (and actually managed to score one vs Wolves). He also regularly contributes defensive returns and assists.

There’s a reason Bruno has more bonus points than any other midfielder: he’s verging on talismanic for Man United, and is probably that bloke’s only chance of ever getting a haircut. Bournemouth are no pushovers, mind you.

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Bukayo Saka (home vs Wolves)

In Wolves, Saka has arguably the best fixture of the season, and his numbers have been very good lately, too. Only Fernandes has better expected goal contributions than Saka amongst midfielders over the last six gameweeks (and Saka has played fewer minutes in that time).

There’s a good chance he’s on penalties, and his ability to return defensive contributions is overlooked.

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Igor Thiago (home vs Leeds)

We reckon a lot more managers would be talking about Thiago if he had scored last gameweek. The Brentford man has three double-digit returns from seven home games this season, and is about to play the fourth-worst defence in the league. You do the maths (because we can’t be arsed).

So…who gets the armband?

The LazyFPL brain trust has voted for Saka, primarily because of his fixture, underlying stats, and his ability to pick up extra points through defensive contributions and clean-sheet scraps.

But none of the above are bad options. And you know what? That’s fine. That’s fun.

A “good” captaincy is often determined by luck. Man City might win two penalties. A cross might skim off the arse cheek of Fernandes on its way to its intended recipient, giving him an assist and three bonus points.

Dunno about you, but we’ve missed the nail-biting tension of captaincy dilemmas. Let’s embrace this one, because next week, it’s Haaland again.

Things are happening in the Prof’s team. One transfer has already been made:

Jean-Philippe Mateta > Igor Thiago

And he’s almost certainly going to do Bryan Mbeumo > Bukayo Saka later today. Virgil van Dijk could also face the chop, probably for Sepp van den Berg.

As it happens, all of our resident experts (two of whom are in the top 200 all-time managers) are making big moves this week. Three of them are planning to make at least three free transfers (and not for the obvious players), and one is on his Free Hit.

You can see all of those moves in the Professor’s Gameweek 16 preview newsletter.

One thing the Professor is unequivocal on is his captaincy. Bukayo Saka gets the armband when he comes in - what a debut for the youngster.

Here’s his team before today’s potential transfers:

With more transfers than Schiphol airport taking place this week, it’s a good time to take a peek behind the curtain and join LazyFPL Premium. Meet other lazy readers, enter the exclusive mini-leagues and see what happens to your team when you get access to deep research.

FotMob also has an excellent newsletter called The Assist. It only started this season, but there’s a reason why tens of thousands of subscribers are already enjoying it.

Game previews, beautiful prose, data thrown in - it’s always a great read. Plus, as an FPL manager, it’s bad juju not to subscribe to a newsletter called The Assist. Can’t argue with cold, hard logic.

Thankfully, you can subscribe here in like, three seconds ⬇️

1) Liam Delap will be out for four weeks.

2) Mohamed Salah and Arne Slot will have a “crucial” conversation on Friday.

3) FPL towers have added a new “status update” icon next to some players that tells you about upcoming suspensions, absences and ineligibility. But not injuries.

Right, that’s your lot. We’ll be back in your inbox next Friday (unless you’re lucky enough to be Premium) ahead of Gameweek 17’s Saturday morning deadline.

In the meantime, you’ve got one job:

Stay lazy.

The LazyFPL Team.