Gameweek 20 | Start of the 2nd half.

The Stuff You Should Know

🚨 Gameweek 20’s deadline is Saturday 4th January, 11:00 GMT.

❄️ There is a tiny but acknowledgement-worthy chance that snow will impact the football schedule this weekend. Pick a good vice-captain and bench.

🟨 The yellow card suspension threshold is now at 10. Rogers and Timber still banned for reaching five last gameweek though.

😍 We all have a new Wildcard.

Keep reading to learn why the fixture ticker is lying to you.

Alright?

We’d wish you a Happy New Year, but you’re an FPL manager. New Year for you means a sickness-ridden Arsenal losing their clean sheet, needless yellow card suspensions and the realisation that you’ve only got half a season left to turn things around.

Though I don’t play for Arsenal, I’m also a bit ill. If you were my employer, I’d have probably rung you this morning, put on my croakiest voice and told you I’m not coming in until Monday.

But alas, in the 2 years and 9 months since we sent our first email, we’ve never missed one. Unlike the player you bought in this week, we’re not stopping this run of form anytime soon.

Please accept this crumpled, snot-ridden excuse for a newsletter in lieu of something more hearty (and please reply with your best remedies for a common cold).

Gameweek 20’s fixtures.

That bloke who won the second chance league.

Quick story: last year we ran an ad around mid-late December that banged on about LazyFPL Premium.

One of our readers saw it, clicked it, spent a few seconds entering some details and ended up winning FPL’s second-chance league.

We won’t lie: that probably won’t happen to you. But we’re confident you’ll score more points and have more fun whilst you’re at it. You’ll definitely meet some other FPL managers, get ad-free LazyFPL and receive two extra emails per week from The Professor. All for less than a pint per month.

Maybe - just maybe - 2025 is the year you become that person in your mini-league that everyone else hates.

Penetrative Stats.

Summary for the Lazy: Martinelli without Saka could thrive.

Some injuries are significant enough that teams change because of them.

Rodri at Man City is one such example. To a lesser extent, so is Bukayo Saka at Arsenal.

But whilst his absence is bad news for Arsenal fans, it provides an opportunity for the savvy FPL manager. That opportunity might come in the shape of Gabriel Martinelli.

What we know so far

Saka was injured about ~2.7 games ago. Since his substitution in Gameweek 17, Martinelli has scored two goals and played every minute. In the 16 games prior to Saka’s injury, he had only played a full match once (in Gameweek 1) and scored a total of three goals.

Something appears to be happening to Martinelli’s role now that Saka’s threat has been lost.

The stats

It’s a small sample size, but the stats reinforce this growing narrative:

Since Saka’s injury, Martinelli is third for expected goal involvements (xGI) amongst midfielders.

We can’t stress enough how unlike him this is. The Brazilian was nowhere near these heights before the last three gameweeks.

The fixtures

We don’t know how long Saka will be out, but it’s likely he won’t be back before late February. If we ignore the fact that, somehow, Spurs and Man City are still considered tough opponents (more on this later), Martinelli’s next seven fixtures are all winnable for Arsenal.

Look, nobody’s pretending that Martinelli ought to be nailed in your team for the rest of the season. But it was only a few campaigns ago that the moustachioed 23-year-old notched 15 goals and nine assists in just 2,789 minutes of game time.

Whilst Saka recovers, Martinelli might just be the one to fill his talismanic boots. At just £7.2m, you could do a lot worse.

The weather.

Summary for the Lazy: We can’t really do anything but think about our vice-captain and bench order.

Bing Crosby has a lot to answer for. When he sang “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas”, he neglected to acknowledge the impact that might have on the football schedule.

Well, here we are, Bing. Hope you’re happy, Bing.

It’s Friday 3rd January and there’s a chance of snow in England over the weekend.

Amateur meteorologists might be tempted to try and predict potential fixture cancellations, but the truth is that the weather in England is almost as unpredictable as Cole Palmer’s hat-tricks.

The best (and only) thing we can do as FPL managers is ensure we do the following:

1) Pick a vice-captain who plays in a different part of the country to your captain. For example, if the Liverpool game is snowed off, there’s a decent chance Manchester games could be impacted too. But games happening in London might still go ahead.

2) Ensure you put thought into your bench order. You ought to be doing this every week anyway, but just in case you’re the sort to rest on your laurels, pick your bench order carefully.

Three notable learnings from the first half of the season.

Summary for the Lazy: Silly fixture difficulties, Salah could regress, defenders are allergic to bonus points.

Half a season is a good chunk of data from which to derive some observations, but like all FPL advice, these ought to be taken with a sodium-heavy pinch of salt.

Still, the following can be used in pubs, offices and kitchens to sound in the know when discussing your FPL season so far.

1) Spurs and Man City are not top defensive sides.

Obvious innit, but worth pointing out because plenty of fixture tickers haven’t cottoned on to this fact yet. Their actual goals conceded and expected goals conceded are firmly mid-to-lower table. Here’s the proof:

2) Salah is significantly over-performing.

Mohamed Salah is over-performing both his xG (expected goals) and his xA (expected assists).

Indeed, he has 13 assists from just 4.12 xA, which is quite a remarkable gulf. Compare his output to Erling Haaland - who has a massive 15 attacking returns fewer despite relatively similar xStats - and it becomes clear just how anomalous the Egyptian’s form is.

History tells us he’ll regress at some point, but Salah (like plenty of Egyptians) has a penchant for rewriting history, so we’ll see.

3) The bonus points system doesn’t favour defenders.

Unlike previous years, the bonus points system really favours Salah, but defenders struggle.

Of the top 20 players for bonus points so far, only two are defenders.

Incidentally, only six are midfielders too. Considering the top three scoring players in the game are all midfielders, it’s surprising that 12 forwards make the top 20 for bonus points.

There isn’t a huge amount to be done with this data. It might’ve been more useful if, for example, there was still a captaincy dilemma between Salah and Haaland, but alas, there isn’t at the moment. Perhaps if you’re having a debate about 3-4-3 vs 3-5-2 this could be used as ammunition.

New month, new prize.

We’re giving out a new prize this month as part of our Sleeper tournament. If you haven’t joined yet, now’s a great time because you’ll be on a level pegging with everyone else.

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The best captain for Gameweek 20.

Summary for the Lazy: It’s Mohamed Salah.

Yeah, not too much to say here. Mohamed Salah plays Man United who, in case you’re not aware, aren’t that great.

There’s a case for Erling Haaland if you still own him. He’ll play West Ham at home, but it’s hard to see past the record-breaking Salah at the moment.

The Professor is making two transfers.

Timber > Munoz.

Jota > Gordon or Eze.

In the latest LazyFPL Premium newsletter he makes a case for both Gordon and Eze, and will make a decision nearer to the deadline.

Salah gets the armband.

Here’s his team prior to any transfers (he hasn’t made ‘em yet):

If you want to know what he ends up doing, subscribe to LazyFPL Premium and get updated via WhatsApp.

The key stats.

Other stuff we found interesting.

• Joe Gomez out “for weeks”, Ibrahima Konate due back in training today (Friday).

• This graphic from OfficialFPL of the most transferred in players and how they scored that week.

Okay, Gameweek 21’s deadline is on Tuesday 14th January. It’s sort of a break, but only of about 8 days. We’ll be back on the evening of Monday 13th.

Stay lazy,

The LazyFPL Team.