🚀 GW9 - make the smart moves 🧠

🚨 The stuff you should know 🚨

⏰ Gameweek 9’s deadline is 11:00 BST on Saturday 21st October.

🌍 A relatively uneventful international break.

🤕 Andy Robertson possibly out for 10 weeks.

❌ Erling Haaland currently the fifth-most transferred out player this week.

Did you have a good International Break? Click “reply” to this email and tell us how you passed the time.

Alright?

Apologies for the radio silence over the break.

Truth be told, last Sunday I returned to the UK after six months of traveling, and thought seeing my friends and family again might be a more valuable use of my time than writing about Evan Ferguson’s performance against Gibraltar.

Huge mistake. Suffice to say, it won’t happen again.

Hope you had an enjoyable hiatus pretending to be a regular person, but now it’s time to crawl back to the sewers from whence you came. There’s no place quite like home.

Let’s talk Gameweek 9.

What happened during the International Break?

Fortunately for FPL managers - particularly those who Wildcarded prior to the International Break - we’ve been spoilt with another rather uneventful interval.

Reddit user u/qwerty1519 has compiled a list of every player owned by more than 10% and how many minutes they played over the international break.

Legend.

The South Americans

It’s worth noting that the last batch of South American international fixtures took place in the early hours of Wednesday morning, UK time.

It doesn’t give ‘em long to acclimatise to England’s inclement weather, and Darwin Nunez in particular could be a doubt for Liverpool’s early kick-off. He was complaining about cramp in Uruguay’s 2-0 win against Brazil.

Luckily it’s only the Merseyside Derby.

Diogo Jota is back from suspension and Cody Gakpo, though injured last time we checked, took part in training and is not ruled out either.

An update on Bukayo Saka

After three consecutive early substitutions, Bukayo Saka finally succumbed to Arteta’s relentless flagellation and earned himself a match on the sidelines - his first in 87 uninterrupted Premier League starts.

He was omitted from Arsenal’s win against Man City and the England squad, but his injury isn’t thought to be serious. In Friday morning’s press conference, Arteta said he’ll make a late decision, but that the player “wants to play”. In other news, the Pope is Catholic.

What Robertson’s injury means.

Being the empathetic bunch that we are, the first question for FPL managers when a player gets injured isn’t usually “how is the player doing?” but rather “what does it mean for my team?”.

So whilst Andy Robertson allegedly* maps out a 10-week recovery plan for his shoulder injury, 10 million managers can be found massaging their loins in unison at the prospect of a new budget full-back to take his place.

Yes, Konstantinos Tsimikas is back on the menu.

At £4.4m, he’s not the bargain-bucket enabler of the 22/23 glory days, but Liverpool’s fixtures - and the fact it’s Liverpool - make him worthy of consideration at that price.

For a player who looks like your FIFA-obsessed nephew, Tsimikas is remarkably effective when he starts for Liverpool.

In his Gameweek 9 preview, the Professor also expressed his intrigue. Importantly, he quashed the notion that Joe Gomez might start in his place with a graphic created by @FPL_Runpharm.

Would we rush him in? Perhaps not. He has a penchant for yellow cards and Liverpool’s defence aren’t exactly operating at their robust best.

But he’s an interesting consideration for those with the luxury of having nothing more urgent to deal with, particularly over the next four fixtures.

*at the time of writing, the club have not released an official statement on Robertson’s status, but several media outlets are reporting 10 weeks.

Here he is pictured on his way back from Greggs: an ominous sign if ever there was one. Plus his arm is in a sling.

The logic behind “no Haaland”.

Opting to go without the most prolific FPL points scorer in the league has sort of become a badge of honour for a small (but noteworthy) minority of managers.

It’s a similar mindset to going vegan. Human history has demonstrated that one cannot simply omit meat from their diet and not broadcast their decision to everyone they know.

Similarly, it appears impossible to remove Erling Haaland from your FPL team without first announcing it to anyone who will listen.

Why is this happening?

Haaland has scored 55 points this season. After 8 gameweeks, he is being outscored only by Ollie Watkins (59) and Mohamed Salah (59).

So things aren’t exactly going terribly for him. In fact, if we set aside his freakish Premier League record and pretend he’s a normal footballer for a moment, he’s actually doing pretty well.

In our view, the anti-Haaland movement has nothing to do with his form (or lack-of).

Instead, it’s a response to the failure of this season’s template to deliver as it usually does. The manifestation of a growing sense that managers ought to “play their own way” and abandon the tedium of picking popular players.

In other words, it’s a mid-life crisis in FPL form, born out of an existential dread that the game we all know and love ain’t that fun anymore.

Getting rid of Haaland in FPL is like getting a nipple piercing, or changing your name by deed poll to something like Kelvis or Brax. It feels exhilarating at the time, but once the novelty has worn off, you have fewer FPL points, your nipple is constantly sore and people now call you Kelvis.

The best captain for Gameweek 9.

Yeah, it’s Erling. He’s the bookies’ favourite to score and he plays a defensively poor Brighton at the Etihad.

Mohamed Salah will be the second-most popular captain at home to Everton. It’s an early kick-off which immediately makes it less palatable, and Everton’s defensive stats are weirdly good too.

In fact, their expected goals conceded (xGC) is the sixth-best in the league this season.

Son Heung-min’s MNF clash against Fulham at home is spicy enough for a mention here, but feels like a needless gamble. He played in two games over the International Break and might not get a full ‘90.

Don’t overthink it. Weeks like this are why you still own the Norse God.

The key stats.

Here are the most important numbers going into Gameweek 9.

The Professor’s team.

No transfers for the Professor this week. He’s feeling aggravatingly smug about his new team and its prospects.

Captain = Erling Haaland.

Fantasy Football Hub’s MyTeam gives the Prof’s team a very decent 97% rating and a predicted points of 69 (behave). Want to find out what it makes of your team? Click here to try it for free.

Other stuff we found interesting.

• FPLDummyTom has reported that Mark Flekken should be back in contention this week after a bout of appendicitis.

• This excellent xG created/conceded chart. Look at Newcastle. Unfortunately we can’t find the source, so if anyone knows, please reply and we’ll credit them next week.

  

• Reece James has suffered a setback according to a source at The Evening Standard. “Major doubt” for Arsenal.

You’re all set.

Rudely, Gameweek 10 starts next Friday evening, which means we’ll be back at 18:30 BST next Thursday. Evening sesh. Can’t wait.

Until then, stay lazy.

The LazyFPL team