⏰ Gameweek 5’s deadline is Friday, 18th September, 18:30 BST.

📆 There’s a 3-week international break after this weekend. Brace yourself.

🔵 João Pedro, the most-owned player in the game, has withdrawn from the Brazil squad for this upcoming international break due to injury. Alonso: “We will wait until tomorrow to make the final decision.”

🏆 The EFL Cup and Europa League happened during the week. We’ll talk you through the important bits.

🎧 Listen to the latest free LazyFPL podcast here on Spotify, or search “LazyFPL” on whatever podcast platform you use.

Alright?

Gameweek 5 sits on the precipice of a three-week international break. For FPL managers, it’s the final town before a long stretch of barren and destitute desert. Road signs pepper the dusty verge: No FPL points for 3 weeks after this gameweek.

Despair all you like, but don’t let it stop you from filling up on as many points as you can this weekend. You’re gonna need enough to last you, after all.

Here’s how to head into the international break with a full tank.

Three weeks of no FPL might just be the perfect time to start playing CLUB.

CLUB is like FPL, Ultimate Team and Football Manager combined, but you also own a team, so you get to pretend you’re Ryan Reynolds too. Crucially, player scouting means there’s always something to do.

Start playing and use the international break to build your CLUB.

We know what you might be thinking: “But Lazy, isn’t it too late to join now? Have I been left behind?”

Here are two compelling reasons why it isn’t too late:

1) CLUB puts you in head-to-heads with owners who have joined at the same time.

2) It’s a multi-season game. Snap out of your FPL mentality: You’ll still own this team next season, and the season after that. You’re not picking players for a gameweek: You own a CLUB for life.

CLUB is totally free. We play it, as do hundreds of other Lazy readers. Click the button to join our league ⬇️

Summary for the Lazy: Not much. He missed training on Tuesday and has since withdrawn from the Brazil squad. There’s no need to panic.

The Pedro alarm bells started ringing on Tuesday when Sky Sports, who had been invited to observe a bit of Chelsea’s training session, reported that Pedro (and James, but that’s less important for FPL managers) was missing from the session.

As the pandemonium amongst FPL’s diehards reached a crescendo, The Standard then reported that both players are expected to be fit for Gameweek 5. Phew.

Then, on Wednesday, it was officially announced that Pedro had withdrawn from the Brazil national team for their upcoming international fixtures. The pandemonium picked up where it left off.

Today (Thursday), Alonso had his press conference. He couldn’t have been less helpful if he’d tried. He said:

So, we don’t know what’s going on with Pedro. His withdrawal from the national team could be precautionary, or it could signal something more serious.

So, what should you do?

We'll let you in on a little secret. Get nice and close - this is the sort of FPL advice that ought to be whispered.

None of this really matters.

Unless we get confirmation between now and the deadline that Pedro is definitely out, you’re gunna have to start him, just in case he does play. Clearly you’re not transferring him out, so really, it’s business as usual. Nothing material has changed since last gameweek.

Our advice: Keep Pedro in your starting XI, make sure you’re deliberate with your bench, and enjoy the chaos.

Summary for the Lazy: EFL Cup squads were largely second-string, with Bournemouth (Europa League), Crystal Palace (Europa League) and Man City (EFL Cup) yet to play at the time of sending.

We’re not talking you through every midweek result this week. There are loads, and most of them are unimportant for your FPL team. If you don’t like it, you can speak to our manager. But fair warning: She’s a fantasy manager, which means she doesn’t actually exist.

But we do want to flag the important stuff.

Summary for the Lazy: The managers Wildcarding this week are probably doing it to get to Haaland. Scroll a bit for a decent draft.

Some very good managers are playing their first Wildcard this week, including The Professor, one of our resident gurus. What gives? Wasn’t there a pact we all signed that meant we were saving them until the international break?

If we were to summarise the reasoning for a Gameweek 5 Wildcard, rather than a pre-Gameweek 6 international break Wildcard, it would be thus:

Haaland is pretty good.

Yes, that’s right, news just in - the best striker in the league is still a good FPL asset.

Managers who started without Haaland in Gameweek 1 really want him at home vs Sunderland. They probably used their Free Hit in Gameweek 3 for his game against Coventry, but now, Free Hitless and Haalandless, they need a way to get him in.

And unless they’re getting a generous donation from a Crypto billionaire, they probably don’t have the spare funds to buy the Norse God with free transfers alone. A whole re-jig is needed.

Ergo, the Wildcard.

Here’s an example of a passable Wildcard team:

Summary for the Lazy: Arsenal, Everton, Man City, Chelsea, Fulham, Forest.

The mind of a good FPL manager is a fascinating, dangerous and oft perverted place to hang out. We happen to spend a lot of time there, which means we know their innermost thoughts: from their FPL plans to their true feelings about sesame seeds on burger buns. To keep this newsletter on topic, we’ll focus on the former.

Arsenal

Good managers want more Arsenal players. In fact, they’re pained that they can only have three.

At the start of the season, there was some mooted discussion about whether Saliba’s absence might mean a decline in Arsenal’s defensive dominance. But as the stats table further down this newsletter shows, this has proven to be emphatically wrong.

Arsenal already have the best defence in the league, in terms of actual (1) and expected (2.72) goals conceded. A triple-up of Konsa, Calafiori and Raya gets more tempting by the day.

Everton

Everton have Ipswich and Hull in their next two games, which automatically thrusts them onto the radar of every good manager.

The players getting extra attention are the £5.6m Barry - who has the second-highest xG (expected goals) so far (2.98) - and Garner - who was a popular preseason pick before his injury, primarily for his propensity to rack up defensive contributions.

But buyers beware: after Ipswich and Hull, they have Chelsea and Arsenal. Garner is one of the best DefCon midfielders in the game, so he might be worth starting regardless. But, particularly for the Arsenal game, you’ll likely want to put Barry in the cold storage that is your bench if you own him.

Man City

The Foden and Cherki bandwagons were very short-lived.

After four gameweeks, Foden is averaging 54.25 minutes per game; Cherki is averaging 54.5 minutes per game. He’s also starting their EFL Cup game against Norwich, which isn’t a great sign for managers hoping for 90 minutes at the weekend.

But where there’s misery in FPL, there’s often opportunity. Cue Enzo, who has enjoyed 75 and 81 minutes in his first two games in a Man City shirt. At £.6.9m, he could be the City midfielder we’re looking for. Cue the crap meme.

The other City pick might be Anderson, who has returned DefCon points in half his games so far (and was 1 defensive contribution shy in another).

Despite seemingly being nailed to start, Semenyo is yet to justify his £8.4m price tag, both in terms of his data and his output. He’s not a terrible pick, but his owners will want to start seeing a return on their investment soon.

Chelsea

Pedro is the most-owned player in the game, and, regardless of his yellow flag, he’s likely to keep that status for the time being. JP Morgan’s value might be peaking, but do his colleagues offer value too?

Cooper, one of our LazyFPL Premium pundits, seems to think so. “[Palmer, Pedro and Rogers] could all be priced £1m more, and we’d probably still pay it."

Defensively, Chelsea still look a bit of a mess. But you knew that already. The triple-Chelsea attack is quickly becoming template.

Fulham

Fulham have the mother of all fixture swings after Gameweek 5. They play each of the three promoted teams (Ipswich away, Hull at home, Coventry away, in case you’re wondering) in Gameweeks 6, 7 and 8. King looks good at £5.5m, and their full-backs, Castagne and Robinson, show plenty of attacking intent for £4.5m apiece.

Fulham feel like a team in turmoil, but their 0-0 draw at Anfield in Gameweek 4 may give them some much-needed confidence going into the international break.

Nottingham Forest

As Ross discussed in the latest LazyFPL podcast, Nottingham Forest are starting to click under Glasner. The standout option is Gibbs-White, who, as he did last season, has flown under the radar. Still, he finds himself level on points with more popular picks like Cherki and Palmer.

Muñoz - formerly of Crystal Palace - played his first 90 of the season in Gameweek 4, and managed 0.4 expected goal involvements.

Summary for the Lazy: Top managers can see the value in DefCon, and they’re starting to shape their teams accordingly.

It’s a DefCon world, and we’re just living in it. Here’s a list of all the players who have a 75% hit rate on their DefCon threshold:

Leeds’ Muharemović is getting some attention. He’s still only 4.1% owned, so y’know, he ain’t no Pedro, but if Leeds can finally start adding some clean sheets to their impressive defensive displays, his ownership will surely rocket.

Janelt and Mainoo are also under the radar here. The former only costs £5.0m, and might well be one of the better sub-£5.5m midfielders in the game. The latter has only played 90 minutes once (in Gameweek 4), but if he continues to start and play 90, he’s well worth a look at £5.5m.

How does this impact your team?

Calvert-Lewin is the fifth-highest-scoring forward in the game (stick with us, this is going somewhere).

He has two goals and an assist in four games. Pretty good for a £6.0m forward.

Looking through pretty much every lens, Calvert-Lewin is a solid pick. Cut him, and he surely bleeds value.

But he’s currently being outscored by 17 defenders. Yes, seventeen. The age you were when you first tried Smirnoff Ice. Let that sink in.

Only one of them (Gabriel) had a starting value of more than £6.0m.

What does this mean? How can we, as rational, sensible, lazy FPL managers, countenance this rude disruption to the scheduled programming? There’s only one answer: We must capitalise.

At the moment, there are two types of FPL manager: Those who have recognised how powerful DefCon is and those who haven’t yet.

Remember: A player who hits their DefCon threshold twice gets four points: That’s the same number of points that a forward gets for completing the much more cumbersome task of scoring a goal.

Good managers have already spotted this. It’s as good an argument as any to downgrade the third-striker spot to a £4.5m forward.

Summary for the Lazy: It’s Haaland.

The Norse God gets our vote. Don’t overthink this one - he’s at home against Sunderland, and his haircut doesn’t appear to have hindered his ability to score goals.

Sound the Klaxon: The Professor is playing his Wildcard.

Whenever The Professor plays his Wildcard, we only show his team to our Premium community. Seeing our pundits’ teams and understanding their reasoning is one of the big perks of being a Premium subscriber, and it’s particularly important when they play their chips.

So yeah: Most of the time, you get to see his team. But not on a Wildcard week.

To solve this predicament, and to support LazyFPL, you can upgrade to LazyFPL Premium if you fancy it. It costs £5 a month or £50 a year, and you’ll get every team, every transfer and every explanation from five of the world’s best managers.

You also get extra mini-leagues, the WhatsApp Broadcast group, premium podcasts and loads more.

Three weeks is a long time. It’s the smell of your inbox we’ll miss the most - being squeezed between so many pointless emails yields a very distinct bouquet.

It’s not all doom and gloom. Traditionally, we drop in your inbox halfway through each international break with a little update on any news you ought to know. So you can expect to hear from us in a week or two.

Until then, enjoy Gameweek 5 and remember…

Stay lazy.

The LazyFPL Team.