⏰ Gameweek 9’s deadline is Saturday, 31st October, 11:00 GMT.

🌏 Note: the UK clocks have changed from BST to GMT. Worth noting if you’re in a different time zone.

🤕 Pedro is out for “a few weeks”, says Alonso, but he hasn’t given a specific timeframe.

🤦 Calafiori missed the midweek EFL Cup fixture due to an as-yet-unknown issue. Some sources say he’s a doubt for Gameweek 9, but official sources haven’t confirmed it at the time of sending.

🤝 Bruno and Carrick have had some reconciliatory conversations, and Carrick has said that he’ll remain captain of Man United.

🩼 Thomas (Coventry) has a minor calf issue. He is a doubt for Gameweek 9 [Coventry Telegraph].

🎙️ Our free Gameweek 9 preview podcast will be released on all good podcast platforms later today (Friday).

🏆 European football returns next week.

Alright?

Gameweek 8 was tough, but at least we’ve got our costumes sorted for the annual LazyFPL Halloween party. The Professor is going as Groß scoring an own goal.

Our other pundits are coming as Palmer’s red card, Pedro’s thigh and Calafiori sitting on a bench. As with every LazyFPL party, it promises to be incredibly dull.

Meanwhile, Gameweek 9 looks more menacing than a closed shower curtain in a slasher film. Firstly, that’s because you’ve almost certainly got a couple of injuries to deal with. We’ll get to those shortly.

Secondly, every fixture looks evenly matched. The current top four are all facing one another, as are some of the league’s worst teams. It’s a throw-back to miserable PE lessons, where the best kids were siphoned off into an exclusive mini-tournament while the rest of the class languished in musty mediocrity.

Steady your breathing and relax. The spectre of bad FPL variance is hunting us, and it’s infamously drawn to the scent of panicked FPL nerds. Here’s how to evade it.

Chelsea, Bournemouth, and Spurs are teams whose narratives are quickly shifting.

Chelsea have gone from free-scoring fluidity to the lowest xG of any team over the last six gameweeks.

Bournemouth and Spurs are on an opposite trajectory. After a tough start, both are showing signs of life.

Over the last week, The Professor has interviewed experts from each of these three teams on the LazyFPL Premium podcast, delving into their tactics, expected line-ups, and, obviously, the FPL players to target.

Are Chelsea assets worth holding on to? Will Tavernier see reduced minutes in the Premier League now that Kroupi Jr is back? Which three Spurs players should you consider ahead of their great fixture run?

The Premium podcast is just one of many reasons to upgrade to LazyFPL Premium. Give it a try and, if you don’t like it after your first month, we’ll give you a refund.

Summary for the Lazy: Your players survived the EFL Cup, but some played more minutes than you would’ve liked.

Round 4 of the EFL Cup saw 13 Premier League sides in action.

Here were the eyebrow-raising bits:

Summary for the Lazy: The second-most owned player in the game is ruled out. Most managers are selling him, but you may not need to.

Over a million managers have already sold Pedro, which means there’s a decent chance you’ve already done it. If so, congratulations: you can skip to the Calafiori section. Do not pass go, do not collect £200.

If you’re still here, you’ve either decided to keep him, you’re unsure, or you’re an insecure seller in search of some validation. We know you too well.

Listen, some of the world’s best managers, including all of the LazyFPL Premium pundits, have already sold him. If you’re in that boat, you’re in good company (in an FPL sense, at least. Don’t invite these guys to your Halloween party).

But whether you should sell him or not is a much more personal question.

What we know.

1) Pedro is ruled out of Gameweek 9 with a thigh injury. Alonso said this: “He’s going to be out for a few weeks. Let’s see how many; we don’t want to predict that. But he will not be ready for the next games.”

2) There’s a 2-week international break after Gameweek 10. Pedro has not been included in the Brazil squad.

So, Pedro will likely be out until the international break, but we don’t know for certain. He could be out beyond the break, or he could surprise us and feature in Chelsea’s Gameweek 10 fixture against Sunderland - though, with his omission from the Brazil squad, this feels increasingly unlikely.

The case for keeping him.

Maybe you don’t have many free transfers, and your team is otherwise fine. If you’re really lucky, you were having a bit of a benching dilemma anyway. In which case, you might be happy for Pedro to don his big coat and warm your bench for a few gameweeks.

Assuming he’s back after the international break (probably the most likely outcome, based on the info we have so far), it’s only two games, and it means you’ll have him (plus an extra transfer) when he returns.

The case for selling him.

If your team has other issues - like Calafiori’s yellow flag or Cherki’s uncertain minutes - Pedro’s absence pushes you into dubious territory. You’re banking on nearly everyone else in your team featuring, which, if Gameweek 8 taught us anything, is never a Shay Given.

Add a weak bench to the mix and, suddenly, you’re relying on Ipswich’s Darnell Furlong to save your gameweek.

Plus, and stick with us for this one, there’s always the distant prospect of picking a replacement who actually scores a few goals. It’s a ludicrous proposition, but apparently it is possible. If your new signing outscores your would-be bench replacement, the transfer will have been worth it.

Let’s have a look at the best Pedro replacements.

Summary for the Lazy: Evanilson, Jackson, Isak, Barry, Calvert-Lewin.

Btw, these are in no particular order. We like them all. Sorry, but that’s the beauty and the pain of picking a Pedro replacement - there aren’t really many bad picks at the moment.

Evanilson (£6.2m)

With five attacking returns from his last five, Evanilson is in excellent form.

The thing we like most about Evanilson is that his fixtures so far have included Chelsea, Brentford, Liverpool and Man City, making his 4.09 expected goal involvements (sixth-best among forwards) all the more impressive. He’ll play Leeds (H), Ipswich (A), Nottingham Forest (H) and Fulham (A) in his next four.

The warning on his label is Bournemouth’s European commitments. With Kroupi Jr back in the team (who can’t compete in Europe until January), his minutes may be threatened.

Jackson (£6.8m)

Jackson is the most-transferred-in player ahead of Gameweek 9 by some margin, following a string of great performances for a resurgent Villa.

The main appeal is his fixtures and form, which, as far as FPL appeal goes, is a pretty compelling combination. Villa face Fulham (H), Man United (A), Sunderland (H), Ipswich (A) and Everton (H) in their next five. Combine that with four goals in his last four Premier League games and, yeah, it’s easy to see why he’s fancied.

His stats are less prolific. He has 2.7 expected goal involvements so far this season - for context, Delap has more from a similar amount of minutes. In other words, Jackson, like a lot of popular forwards, is overperforming.

Full disclosure: The Professor has picked Jackson as his replacement, citing his reliable minutes as one reason. He’s played more than 80 minutes in Villa’s last four Premier League outings. He's clearly not a bad pick. Just don’t expect a brace every gameweek.

Isak (£9.1m)

Despite plenty of rumours to the contrary, it turns out that Isak’s move from Newcastle to Liverpool didn’t render him completely useless at football.

With six goals from eight Premier League games and the fourth-highest expected goal involvements among forwards (4.4), Isak seems to be settling in at Anfield. He may also be on penalties, or at least sharing them with Szoboszlai, who is a doubt for Gameweek 9 at the time of sending.

He’s got Arsenal next, but after that, Crystal Palace, Man United and the Merseyside derby await. The main challenge is his price. A great pick if you’ve got the infinite money cheat, but probably not a viable Pedro replacement for most managers.

Barry (£5.6m)

Yeah, Barry. There. We said it. We like Barry.

Barry has the second-highest expected goal involvements (5.25) of anyone in the game. He has Newcastle (A) and Coventry (H) in his next two. He also just scored and assisted against Newcastle in the EFL Cup, which has surely got to be a good omen.

He costs £5.6m.

If this were any other player, he’d be essential by now. Perhaps he already is, and we just don’t know it yet.

Calvert-Lewin (£6.1m)

Call us old-fashioned, but we still rate Calvert-Lewin. He’s on penalties, and his stats are solid (3.74 expected goal involvements. It ain’t much, but it’s more than Pedro’s).

His next five (Bournemouth (A), Spurs (H), Chelsea (A), Coventry (H), and Man City (A)) are a mixed bag, but his three goals this season came against Brentford, Man United, and Newcastle, so he’s not exactly a flat-track bully.

Some honourable mentions.

Thiago (£7.8m) - Good stats, on pens and some serious FPL pedigree. But he has crap fixtures, and he’s one yellow away from a one-match ban.

Kostoulas (£5.8m) - Seven attacking returns this season is great, but it’s a big overperformance from 2.5xGI. Rarely gets 90 minutes but is definitely first choice.

Summary for the Lazy: He could be, but keep him until we get definitive news.

The last week hasn’t been a barrel of laughs for Calafiori owners. He was benched in Gameweek 8, came on for the obligatory 1-point cameo, and then got himself injured.

Football.London, a dubious source, admittedly, says there’s “genuine concern” in the Arsenal camp that he’ll miss the trip to Liverpool, but Arteta hasn’t clarified how serious the injury is.

One reassuring sign for his owners is that Lewis-Skelly and Hincapié, Calafiori’s most obvious replacements, both started against Fleetwood. Would Arteta risk them both if Calafiori was actually a doubt for Gameweek 9? We don’t know. Football managers (and their fantasy counterparts) are a weird bunch.

What should you do with him?

Remember Ronan Keating’s powerful FPL advice: You play it best when you do nothing at all. Until we hear something definitive, that’s our advice too.

Calafiori is the sort of player you probably want to keep hold of. Remember, Arsenal play Hull at home after Liverpool, so even if he misses Gameweek 9, you’ll definitely want him for that game.

Keep an eye on the press conferences and act accordingly. Unless he has a long-term injury, we’d recommend sticking with him.

Summary for the Lazy: It’s Haaland.

As we alluded to at the start of the newsletter, there are no obvious fixtures to target this week. But that makes a fully rested Haaland at the Etihad the easy choice, even if he plays Brighton.

It’s worth remembering that, whilst Brighton’s attack has been in title-challenging form, their defence is statistically mid-table.

Give the Norse God the armband.

As mentioned earlier, The Professor has already made his Gameweek 9 transfer. Jackson comes in for the injured Pedro.

Making an early transfer is highly unusual for The Prof. For him, this is the equivalent of doing a skydive. It’s dangerous and thrilling in equal measure.

The big question now is whether he makes more transfers. He has two free transfers and some cash to burn. Here’s his team as it stands:

Bournemouth assets are on the menu, with Silva, Tavernier and a 2% owned differential all catching his eye. But with free transfers feeling particularly valuable at the moment, sticking with what he’s got could be the play.

Right, endure Halloween. Gameweek 10 starts on Friday evening, so we’ll be back in your inbox on Thursday.

Stay lazy,

The LazyFPL Team.