🚨 GW23: The FPL cheat sheet 🧠

⏰ Gameweek 23’s deadline is Saturday, 24th January, 11:00 GMT ⏰

🤝 Man City complete the signing of Marc Guéhi.

🤦‍♂️ Bruno Guimarães was withdrawn at half-time in Wednesday’s UCL game with an ankle injury. “We are going to give him every chance for this weekend” - Howe.

🍒 Marcus Tavernier is out “some time”.

👋 Jean-Philippe Mateta has handed in a transfer request to Crystal Palace.

👌 Cole Palmer is expected to be fit for this weekend.

👀 Keep reading to see if Erling Haaland still deserves the armband.

Alright?

There are stats, and then there are stats.

This one is a proper, meaty stat: No Premier League team has won both of their last two games.

Phwoar. That’ll need some thorough mastication before you ingest it.

The Premier League feels particularly unpredictable and competitive this season, but this stat - sorry, this stat - crystallises that feeling more than perhaps any other we’ve seen so far.

No team is consistent enough right now to string together two consecutive wins. So how can FPL managers be expected to string together consecutive green arrows?

All of which is to say, maybe it’s fine to be crap at FPL if we’re crap on a macro level. It’s not our fault, it’s society, man.

Anyway, here’s how to control the micro stuff ahead of Gameweek 23.

The Transfer Flow is a free, daily football newsletter started by the Founder of Statsbomb. We subscribe; you should too.

Not only does it aggregate transfer news (important reading, particularly at this time of year), it also offers regular, statistical deep dives into both players and teams.

For example, on Tuesday, they dropped a huge study on whether £400m of transfer window spending had actually improved Man City. Just a random Tuesday. It had graphs and everything.

It’s free, and it takes about three seconds to subscribe. Be weird not to 👇

European football is back.

Here’s what happened.

Tuesday

FK Bodø/Glimt 3-1 Man City

⚽️ Goals: Rayan Cherki
🦮 (FPL) Assists: Nico O’Reilly

A “tired” Erling Haaland started and played 90 minutes on Tuesday. Phil Foden (who was the only player substituted off) and Rayan Cherki were also given starts. Antoine Semenyo is not registered for the Champions League yet, so missed out.

Another disappointing result for Man City, who appear to be in the midst of their inevitable mid-season slump.

Spurs 2-0 Dortmund

⚽️ Goals: Christian Romero, Dominic Solanke
🦮 (FPL) Assists: Wilson Odobert (2)

Thomas Frank needed a win, and Dortmund duly obliged by playing most of the game with 10 men. Two goals in a row for Romero and a goal for Solanke in his first start this season.

Inter 1-3 Arsenal

⚽️ Goals: Gabriel Jesus (2), Viktor Gyökeres
🦮 (FPL) Assists: Bukayo Saka, Jurriën Timber, Leandro Trossard

Arsenal win in Europe, and the world keeps spinning. Saka started and played 90 minutes, which won’t fill his owners with confidence about his starting berth against Man United this weekend.

Wednesday

Chelsea 1-0 Pafos FC

⚽️ Goals: Moisés Caicedo
🦮 (FPL) Assists:

The big news was the injury to Filip Jörgensen, Chelsea’s second-but-sometimes-first-choice goalkeeper.

Cole Palmer’s omission from the squad was precautionary after he felt some tightness in his thigh. Rosenior is hopeful he’ll be available for Gameweek 23.

Otherwise, Chelsea laboured to a 1-0 win against a stubborn Pafos FC. It was, we suppose, a performance that invoked a certain pathos. We’ll see ourselves out.

Marseille 0-3 Liverpool

⚽️ Goals: Dominik Szoboszlai, Cody Gakpo, Own Goal
🦮 (FPL) Assists: Ryan Gravenberch (2), Jeremie Frimpong

A potentially confidence-restoring win for Liverpool. Mohamed Salah started in his first game since AFCON, and Hugo Ekitike and Florian Wirtz were both withdrawn after 79 minutes.

Newcastle 3-0 PSV Eindhoven

⚽️ Goals: Yoane Wissa, Anthony Gordon, Harvey Barnes
🦮 (FPL) Assists: Wissa, Joelinton

A great win for Newcastle, but overshadowed by the injury to Bruno Guimarães, who was withdrawn at half-time. Howe has said there’s some swelling around his ankle, but the club haven’t determined the severity of the injury yet. “We are going to give him every chance for this weekend”.

Wissa played well again.

Thursday

Fenerbahçe 0-1 Aston Villa

⚽️ Goals: Jadon Sancho
🦮 (FPL) Assists: Matty Cash

A close-to-full-strength Aston Villa side continued their good European form.

Braga 1-0 Nottingham Forest

A second-string Forest registered 1.74xG here, including a missed penalty. To top off a great evening for them, the subbed-on Elliot Anderson was sent off in the closing minutes. The holy trinity of a red card, own goal and missed penalty in one fell swoop.

Lazy summary: Haaland’s form has obviously dipped, and so have his stats. But he remains the best captain this week.

Managers are angry at Erling Haaland. The sheer audacity of not scoring consistent goals is borderline cancellable.

Obviously, it’s frustrating when your captain blanks, but so far, that disappointment has been soothed by the fact that it’s shared amongst nearly every active manager in the game. It’s like we’ve all entered into a pact - if one of us has to suffer, so should we all.

The shared trauma might be about to change, though. As a BBC article published on Thursday put it, “the robot is malfunctioning and in need of a rest”.

14 points from his last five games is obviously poor for the Norse God’s lofty standards (and his lofty price-tag), and managers are losing patience. Is this a blip? Or a sign of a changing of the captaincy guard? Let’s explore.

Haaland’s stats

Haaland is fifth for expected goal involvements (xGI) over the past six gameweeks, with 3.81. In the last five gameweeks (i.e. when this dry spell began), he has 2.7xGI, which puts him 9th in the underlying stats charts.

One return doesn’t do his stats justice, but he’s getting fewer high-quality chances than he’s used to. 2.7xGI over five gameweeks is low for Haaland, who has sat atop the underlying stats tables for so long that his arse cheeks are probably bruised.

Man City’s form

Haaland is not a player who can thrive regardless of what’s happening around him. He is not a “grab it by the horns” sort of player - he’d rather avoid the horns altogether. If anything, he’s a matador.

So when Man City are poor, Haaland is usually poor, too.

It’s hard to predict when, or indeed if, Man City will return to their winning ways, but six games in their next 19 days will not help their prospects. For now, Haaland cuts an isolated figure on the pitch.

Other options

The biggest reason to keep the armband on Haaland - aside from the fact that he could reasonably score a hat-trick in any given gameweek - is that there aren’t any obvious alternatives at the moment.

Bruno Fernandes might emerge as a reliable pick, but the usual suspects - Mohamed Salah, Cole Palmer, Bukayo Saka - are about as viable as Maxime Estève.

Our take

Wolves are not the pushovers they once were, but Haaland is the obvious captain this week. His performance will likely dictate whether his owners stick with him in future gameweeks.

If he does blank, there’s a bigger question to be answered: Should managers own him at all?

Lazy summary: Chips in the second half of the season are best used in conjunction with double and blank gameweeks. But you’ll need to do some forward planning.

It’s time to give you a preliminary idea of what to do with your chips for the second half of the season.

Whilst the first half of the season gave us the chance to have a bit of fun with our chips, the second half of the season forces us to be more considerate with how we deploy them. That’s because of double and blank gameweeks.

Let’s start by looking at the possible doubles and blanks:

(Fixture permutations are lethal for lazy managers. Complex, messy, and in need of actual research. So, we’re going to keep this as simple and tidy as possible, lest you break out in hives or something. You’ll just have to trust us.)

Possible Doubles/Blanks

Double Gameweek 26 - Arsenal and Wolves could have a double if Arsenal: Finish in the top 8 of the Champions League (check) and reach the Carabao Cup final (they’re 3-2 up after the first leg). Arsenal would play Brentford (A) and Wolves (A), Wolves would have Nottingham Forest (A) and Arsenal (H).

Blank Gameweek 31 - The finalists of the Carabao Cup will have their Gameweek 31 fixtures postponed. That’s two of Man City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Newcastle, and we’ll know by the Gameweek 25 deadline.

Double Gameweek 33 - The blanks from Gameweek 31 and (spoiler alert) Gameweek 34 will probably be squeezed in here. It’s likely to be the season's biggest double gameweek.

Blank Gameweek 34 - FA Cup semi-finals will selfishly clash with Gameweek 34.

Double Gameweek 36 - Another vacancy here for rescheduled fixtures. If Gameweek 33 isn’t the chosen one, Gameweek 36 probably will be.

Blank Gameweek 37 - FA Cup final. Finalists might blank.

So…when do you play your chips?

Remember, we can only use one chip per gameweek. The Free Hit, the Triple Captain and the Bench Boost should be used to capitalise or navigate the doubles and blanks, and the Wildcard usually pairs nicely with the latter.

Free Hit - Use it in a blank gameweek. 31 or 34, depending on which one is the bigger inconvenience.

Triple Captain - Use it in a double gameweek. 26 on an Arsenal player looks ripe.

Bench Boost - Another one to use in a double. Probably 33.

Wildcard - If you still have it, use this in Gameweek 32 to prepare for a Bench Boost.

See? FPL is easy.

We’ll keep you updated week by week as the mists of fixture ambiguity begin to clear.

Lazy summary: It’s Erling Haaland.

Many will see Man City’s game against Wolves as the last-chance saloon for Haaland, which is understandable, if perhaps a little short-sighted.

Wolves aren’t the team they used to be. Over the last six gameweeks, they have the third-lowest xGA (expected goals allowed), and are averaging just one actual goal conceded per game. They’ve also played Man United, Liverpool and Brentford in that time.

Pair that with Man City’s struggles in front of goal (no team has scored fewer than Pep’s men over the last four gameweeks), and this might not be the hat-trick-in-waiting that it would’ve been in the first half of the season.

Be that as it may, it’s hard to see an obvious captaincy opportunity elsewhere.

Arsenal host a Man United side that appears to be enjoying the benefits of a new manager bounce, Liverpool travel to the always-tricky Bournemouth, and away visits to Crystal Palace and Newcastle for Chelsea and Aston Villa (respectively) don’t scream “captaincy potential” either.

Haaland scored two goals in the reverse fixture, and the stage is set for the Norse God to pour some holy water on his dry spell.

If he doesn’t, big questions will have to be asked.

The Professor is likely going to be making a move, but nothing has been confirmed at the time of sending.

He’s eyeing Phil Foden > Bruno Fernandes.

Erling Haaland gets the armband, like an amateur swimmer.

As always, LazyFPL Premium members will get updated on Prof’s moves as they happen via the WhatsApp Broadcast Channel.

1) James Garner registered 29 defensive contributions in Gameweek 22: A season record.

2) Man City have six important games in the next 19 days.

3) Forward Lorenzo Lucca has joined Nottingham Forest on loan from Napoli.

There’s no early kick-off next week, so we’ll be in your inbox a few hours later, ahead of Gameweek 24.

Stay lazy.

The LazyFPL Team.