Gameweek 18 | Christmas Extravaganza

The Stuff You Should Know

🚨 Gameweek 18’s deadline is Saturday 26th December, 11:00 GMT.

🤕 Saka out for “many weeks”. Initial reports suggest two months, some suggest longer.

🤝 Ivan Juric appointed by Southampton. He’s promised “death metal” football.

🗓 Everton vs Liverpool reschedule is “less likely” to happen in GW24 now. Double Gameweek 25 is “as likely as DGW24” (Ben Crellin).

🔄 Remember, there’ll be plenty of rotation over the next few gameweeks. Make sure you put some thought into your bench order.

Keep reading to discover which 3.3% owned player The Professor is treating himself to this Christmas.

Alright?

When we started LazyFPL, we envisioned managers reading it in those rare, quiet moments we get to ourselves. That’s why our logo features someone sat on the toilet.

Whether you’re celebrating, commiserating or completely ignoring Christmas this year, we hope you find a few quiet minutes to skim this today.

“What are you doing in there?” people will ask, banging on the bathroom door. Better to tell them you’re suffering from violent diarrhoea or sending a port-induced text to your ex than the reality: that you’re rigorously preparing for Gameweek 18.

From everyone at LazyFPL, we wish you a very Merry Christmas we wish you a very fruitful Gameweek 18.

Flekken, Hall, Kerkez and Boly,
Salah-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.

Gameweek 18’s fixtures.

Free LazyFPL Premium (Christmas only).

If you can see this section, it means we’re giving you free LazyFPL Premium this Christmas.

You’ll get 7 days of premium, complete with The Professor’s extra emails and access to our WhatsApp groups (The Broadcast channel and a chat group).

This gift will expire TODAY at midnight (GMT) and will last through Gameweeks 18 and 19 (expiring on New Year’s Day).

We’ll give you a shout before it expires too so you won’t be caught out.

Penetrative Stats.

Summary for the Lazy: Villa and Brentford are much worse away from home.

Here’s some deep research: teams are ordinarily better at home than they are away.

Thanks, we’re here all week.

But whilst this ground is well-trodden, two teams stick out more than your uncle’s inappropriate card on the mantlepiece: Aston Villa and Brentford.

The difference between these teams home vs away is more stark than Ned. In fact, it’s almost like there are 22 teams in the Premier League this season. Aston Villa (A) and Brentford (A) are amongst the very worst.

The defensive data

Based on a cursory glance at the Expected Goals Allowed (xGA) chart this season, Brentford and Aston Villa hover around the middle.

But that doesn’t tell the full story.

At Villa Park, Aston Villa have the second-best xGA in the entire league. Only Arsenal at the Emirates better them.

Away from home, they have the fifth-worst xGA.

Brentford’s defensive disparity is less dramatic, but they still have the third-worst xGA on the road: despite an extra game, even Southampton do better than The Bees.

The attacking data

Brentford’s attacking potency at home is well-documented, but we didn’t realise quite how underwhelming they are away from the Gtech.

Shockingly, no other team has a lower xG (expected goals) than Brentford when they travel. Brentford go from the third-best attacking team to the very worst, and all because they have to get on a bus.

Aston Villa move from the second-highest expected goals at home to the ninth-highest away. Not terrible, but notable nonetheless.

The summary

Right, so Aston Villa have one of the best attacks and defences at home. But away from home, they’re a thoroughly mid-table attacking side and one of the worst defensive outfits.

Brentford, meanwhile, are great at home but have statistically the least potent attack and the third-worst defence in the league when they’re away.

This observation we dug up says it all: if the Premier League was only based on away games, Brentford would be rock bottom. If it was based only on home games, they’d be top.

This is worth remembering when we weigh up the difficulty of their fixtures.

The reality is that Brentford are yet to score more than 1 goal on the road this campaign, and that’s not because they’ve been unlucky. Meanwhile, Aston Villa have conceded the same number of goals as Ipswich away from home this season.

If you’re deliberating the merits of your Brighton and Newcastle players, this gameweek is not the week to bench them.

The best Saka replacements.

Summary for the Lazy: Palmer or Salah if you don’t own them: Sarr, Bruno, Bowen and Szoboszlai are notable differentials.

If you don’t own Cole Palmer and Mohamed Salah, this question is already answered for you.

For those who do, wipe your Saka-tears away with the ~£10.5m payload he’s left you in his injury will. Just like a trust-fund kid, you’re set for life.

There isn’t an “obvious” pick here, so we like to look at the stats in situations like this. Sure, there are the vibes-based picks (like could Gabriel Martinelli benefit from Saka’s absence? Might Leandro Trossard come into his own?) but these rest on something we don’t have yet: hard evidence.

So what does the data say?

Four names pop up (aside from Palmer and Salah) when you study that all-important expected goal involvement (xGI) table: Bruno Fernandes, Ismaila Sarr, Dominik Szoboszlai and Jarrod Bowen.

We covered Sarr last week and that performance against Arsenal did nothing to dampen our enthusiasm. He remains one of the best-performing midfielders in the game at the moment.

Fernandes is on penalties and has reasonable fixtures. He’s returned in five of Man United’s last eight games, which is pretty remarkable given that he’s still less than 15% owned.

Szoboszlai could be a red herring. If we exclude his Gameweek 17 fixture, he drops out of the zone-of-notability. But it’s unfair to exclude exceptional performances, because they demonstrate a capability to perform exceptionally.

We like Bowen. He’s already been penetrated by our penetrative stats section before. His fixtures after Southampton are tough though:

If we had to rank them, we’d go for:

1) Ismaila Sarr
2) Bruno Fernandes
3) Dominik Szoboszlai
4) Jarrod Bowen

It’s almost like we ordered our discussion points for a reason, innit.

Btw, the last premium email did a deep-dive on loads of different options: you can read it if you join.

The best captain for Gameweek 18.

Summary for the Lazy: It’s Mohamed Salah.

Let’s defer to the advice of the World’s Number 1 chess player back in 2021.

It’s Christmas, but let’s not get fancy.

Win free LazyFPL Premium.

We give away a huge prize every month over at Sleeper. In return, all we ask is that you spend about ~45 seconds a gameweek picking which teams you think will win/draw.

This month we’re giving out 10 annual memberships to LazyFPL Premium, worth £50 each. Signing up is free and easy. Just click the button or scan the code:

The Professor enjoyed another green arrow last week, meaning he now sits at a decent 419k.

This week he’s making perhaps his most controversial transfer of the season. He’s bringing in the 3.3% owned minutes-risk that is Diogo Jota.

Weirdo.

Brennan Johnson departs.

Mohamed Salah gets the armband.

If you want to learn why he’s done this, you know the drill by now. The LazyFPL Premium lounge awaits.

The key stats.

Other stuff we found interesting.

• Mohamed Salah accumulated more xG against Spurs (2.15) than Haaland has in his last six games.

• He’s also the first Premier League player ever to hit double figures for assists and goals before Christmas. s served his suspension in the League Cup.

• …and he has more FPL points than the top-scoring defender and the top-scoring forward combined.

• Indeed, he’s averaging 11.1 points per game this season.

• Meanwhile, here are Spurs’ defensive stats in December:
  

  

Okay, I’ve had a few beers and Christmas means it’s time to get gushy and weird.

So yeah, cheers for reading. Merry Christmas if that’s your thing. See you on Saturday at 13:00 GMT.

Stay lazy,

The LazyFPL Team.