⏰ Gameweek 18’s deadline is Friday, 26th December, 18:30 GMT ⏰

🤕 Alexander Isak has undergone surgery and will be out “for several months”.

🤦‍♂️ Bruno Fernandes is injured. His recovery is “going to take a while”, according to Amorim, but media reports are suggesting he could be in contention for Gameweek 22.

⛔️ There will be two blank fixtures in Gameweek 31, due to the EFL Cup semi-finals.

🚑 Chris Richards needed stitches after a foot injury against Arsenal in the EFL Cup. “Hopefully in the New Year he’s back” - Glasner.

🔵 Cole Palmer is “ready to play 90 minutes” - Maresca.

🎄 It’s the LazyFPL Christmas special.

Alright?

It’s Christmas Day. If you’re celebrating it, we hope yours has a high xMerry and an even higher xCheer. If you’re not, the same sentiments apply, because we’re cool like that.

But whilst ‘tis indeed the season for spreading strong underlying joy, don’t believe what Paul Young says: There’s every reason to be afraid. That’s mainly because, between now and January 3rd, we’ve got three deadlines to navigate.

It’s time to make your apologies and excuse yourself from the charades for a few minutes (just shout The Godfather and walk out - it’ll probably be the right answer).

Your Great Aunt Lazy is on the phone, and she wants to talk incessantly about Gameweek 18.

If we’ve got the tech right (never a guarantee), you were invited to our LazyFPL Premium free trial this morning.

7 days of LazyFPL Premium for free. This is not a drill.

The thing is, we’re not even attaching any strings. You get The Professor’s extra emails and access to our WhatsApp communities for a whole week, and if it’s not for you, you can cancel at the end without paying a penny. Easy.

Remember, the doors to this trial close at midnight (GMT) tonight. Find out why over 99% of our premium members would recommend it 👇

Remember all of that talk about a potential Double Gameweek earlier in the season?

Well, the game that might’ve forced that Double (but, disappointingly, didn’t) happened on Tuesday.

➡️ Arsenal 1-1 Crystal Palace (Arsenal won on pens)
⚽️ Goals - Maxence Lacroix (OG), Marc Guéhi
🦮 FPL Assists - Jefferson Lerma

The big news here was Chris Richards’ forced withdrawal. Glasner said that “Hopefully in the New Year he’s back”, so whilst this won’t be a long-term injury, he’s unlikely to feature in Gameweek 18.

Arteta took this League Cup quarter-final fixture as a chance to rotate some key members of the squad, including Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka and David Raya.

Jurrien Timber and Riccardo Calafiori were among the first team picks who played 90.

There is one other big implication of this game - but we won’t feel its impact until March. We’ll explain…

Lazy summary: Blank Gameweek 31 will see two fixtures blank, because Crystal Palace lost.

Gameweek 31 clashes with the EFL Cup final. As such, it’ll be a Blank Gameweek.

As was always likely, there will be two fixtures postponed that gameweek. The exact fixtures will depend on the outcomes of the semi-finals, but two of the following teams will miss Blank Gameweek 31:

This might well be worth keeping your second Free Hit for. Depending on the state of things, it’s likely you’ll have significant investment in at least three of those teams, making a Free Hit the obvious choice to navigate it without too much pain.

Our advice: Don’t spaff your second Free Hit early just because you have a new one. It’ll be a lot more useful than your first one for avoiding scenarios exactly like Blank Gameweek 31.

Lazy summary: Bruno Fernandes needs to be replaced. Rayan Cherki and Matheus Cunha are the best replacements.

Bruno Fernandes is due to miss several gameweeks. Most reports suggest he’ll be out for a month, and he’s nearly 10% of your budget, so if you own him, you need to be shopping for a replacement.

He’s by far the most transferred-out player this week, and the most popular replacement is Aston Villa’s Morgan Rogers. That’s presumably because everybody already owns Phil Foden, who almost certainly would’ve been the most popular replacement.

Let’s discuss Rogers and some other options.

Morgan Rogers - £7.2m

Last week, we discussed why Harry Wilson probably won’t continue scoring worldies in every single game.

Equally, it’s unlikely that Mr. Rogers will continue to overperform at his current rate. Indeed, his seven goals this season have come from just 2.8xG.

This is a red flag when we’re judging the merits of an FPL acquisition. Excellent though Rogers may be, he is significantly punching above the weight of his data.

Even over the past six gameweeks, where Rogers has registered six goals and one assist, he has just 2.2xGI (expected goal involvements). He’s not even in the top 15 amongst midfielders for that metric.

With Chelsea and Arsenal next, the signs point towards a trap.

Lazy rating: 4 calling birds 🐦🐦🐦🐦

Matheus Cunha - £8.0m

Cunha has registered three attacking returns in his last three games, and has registered over 1.0xGI in each of those games. Unlike Rogers, the Man United man is underperforming this season, and his next four fixtures (NEW, WOL, lee, bur) are pretty bloody good.

The mark against Cunha’s name is that Man United, without Fernandes and Bryan Mbeumo, might not be a team capable of giving Cunha the opportunities he’s been enjoying in recent games.

But if Cunha at Wolves taught us anything, it’s that he’s used to occupying a talismanic role if needed.

Lazy rating: 6 geese a-laying 🪿🪿🪿🪿🪿🪿

Rayan Cherki - £6.6m

A cheaper option than the other two, Rayan Cherki’s minutes are as assured as a Man City midfielder’s can be, particularly with injuries to Oscar Bobb and Jérémy Doku.

Plus, he’s just really good.

He’s started the last three Premier League games and, since then, only four midfielders have a higher expected goal involvement than him (Matheus Cunha, Bruno Fernandes, Anthony Gordon, Bryan Mbeumo).

The main issue with Cherki is that you can only have three Man City players, but if you have a spare slot, you could do far worse. See, FPL is easy, innit.

Lazy rating: 6.5 geese a-laying 🪿🪿🪿🪿🪿🪿🐣

Anthony Gordon - £7.3m

Bit of a differential, this, but if you spend as much time digging around in the midfielder undergrowth as we just have, you’re going to come out with a chunk of Gordon stuck to the bottom of your shoe, whether you like it or not.

By pretty much every measure, Gordon is titillating. His fixtures - mun, bur, CRY, LEE, wol - are decent, and his underlying stats are Foden-level. He’s also on penalties.

His stats are particularly impressive because he’s only played 227 minutes across the last six games. Indeed, Gordon has only played 90 minutes once all season, and it was in Gameweek 1.

But that’s also his biggest issue. We like nailed-on starters - particularly at this time of the year. Approach with caution, but he’s interesting if he can get more minutes under his belt.

Lazy rating: 5 goals rings 💍💍💍💍💍

Budget options

Some of you will need a much cheaper replacement to make upgrades elsewhere. Perhaps you want Hugo Ekitike, for example.

Here are some decent options at various price points: Yankuba Minteh (£6.1m), Kaoru Mitoma (£6.1m), Harry Wilson (£5.8m), Yéremy Pino (£5.8m), Elliot Anderson (£5.3m), Enzo Le Fée (£4.9m) and, if you’re after a proper bargain bucket pick, Freddie Potts (£4.4m).

Lazy summary: It’s Haaland.

Hugo Ekitike (at home vs Wolves) and Bukayo Saka (at home vs Brighton) are the sorts of names you look at after a few too many sherries and think, “Why shouldn’t I?”

We know because we’ve already done it ourselves.

Hopefully, these words will cut through: Owning them is enough. You don’t need to captain them, too.

Erling Haaland is still the best captain. Don’t overthink (or overdrink) it.

The Professor has already made two big moves this week.

Igor Thiago > Hugo Ekitike
Bruno Fernandes > Matheus Cunha

As he said in a recent WhatsApp post, “Nothing will kill your rank in FPL faster than being stubborn.”

And as such, he’s brought Cunha back in to fix the mistake of transferring him out.

Here’s his team:

Other moves will probably be made. Remember, you can read his Gameweek 18 preview by joining the LazyFPL Premium free trial. You’ll also see any additional moves he makes (along with our other resident boffins) in the WhatsApp chats.

1) Pep Guardiola will conduct a weigh-in on Christmas Day. Any players who have gained too much weight will not travel. Erling Haaland passed his weigh-in.

Just think, your Christmas might not be going to plan, but at least it’s not this:

2) Maxime Estève faces a late fitness test for Gameweek 18, but it isn’t a big injury.

May all your Christmasses be

We’re back during the Christmas Gooch ahead of Gameweek 19. See you Monday evening.

Stay lazy.

The LazyFPL Team.