GAMEWEEK 1 BABY!

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Summary for the lazy

- The Gameweek 1 deadline is TODAY at 18:30 BST ⏰- Schmeichel leaves Leicester, opening up two £4m GK options 🧤- Perisic (£5.5m) is "not yet at 100%". Doherty (£5.0m) also a doubt 🤕- Jesus (£8.0m) becomes the most owned FPL player...of all time 📈- The bookies back Haaland (£11.5m) over Kane (£11.5m) (but it's close) ⚖️- join our FPL league. Code: psmj1r and join link 🤝- Read on for last season's 18th ranked manager's Gameweek 1 team...without Jesus 👀

Pre-season round-up

FPL Focal, one of those Youtuber types, put together a tasty graphic of the top performing pre-season players. It's really useful, and sums up everything you need to know better than we ever could.

There are some notable inclusions here. Miguel Almiron (£5.0m) used his 270 minutes incredibly productively, despite being - according to at least one Twitter user - shite. Over to you, Simon.

Rodrigo (£6.0m), Podence (£5.5m) and Trossard (£6.5m) all caught our eye too. If you're an FPL hipster who likes to subvert the popular trends, you could do a lot worse than those three.

The Frail Rail

You've heard of the bargain bucket, but have you heard of the frail rail? Well, you have now. This is where we'll update you on the latest high-profile (by which we mean "FPL-relevant") injuries.For a full list of Premier League injuries, visit premierinjuries.com. The guys over there are proper boots-on-the-ground, actually-watch-the-press-conferences types.Ivan Perisic (£5.5m) and Matt Doherty (£5.0m)Yeah, I'm afraid it could be time to go back to the drawing board folks. Here's what Charlie Eccleshare, the Spurs correspondent for a little-known site called the Athletic, had to say:

Anthony Martial (£7.0m)

Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£8.0m), Takehiro Tomiyasu (£4.5m), Kieran Tierney (£5.0m) and Harvey Barnes (£7.0m) are also recent inductees to the frail rail. But you probably weren't eyeing any of them up anyway, let's be honest.

No, that's not the opening line of the latest Star Wars trailer, it's what happened when the aforementioned FPL Focal invited hundreds of FPL experts (including, somewhat bizarrely, yours truly) to participate in an experiment.What happens when you build a composite team from a group of managers who have had over 300 top 10k finishes between them?This happens (you might find it easier to zoom in a little on the team):

Need a bargain? We keep an eye on the budget gems that'll make your mini-league rivals think "does he have an in with a kit man?".These are the folks we listed last week. They'll probably all play, and some even looked half decent in pre-season. All are being coveted by Dickinson's watchful eye:

Andreas Pereira (MID, £4.5m)Neco Williams (DEF, £4.0m)Leon Bailey (MID, £5.0m)Nathan Patterson (DEF, £4.0m)Josh Dasilva (MID, £4.5m)Some new additions have since been added:The Two DanniesIt's our new favourite double-act. Schmeichel's departure, whilst a shame for Leicester fans, is an absolute blessing for FPL managers. It means Leicester are reduced to just two goalkeepers, Danny Ward and Daniel Iversen. Both are priced £4.0m.There's ambiguity over who will start in Gameweek 1, but including both of them - assuming you're happy to forego owning two outfield Leicester players - is becoming an increasingly popular strategy.

On which of the two will start, here's our take:Iversen has played the majority of pre-season games due to an injury to Ward, but Ward did, apparently, compete in a behind-closed-doors game on Tuesday.The most popular narrative is that Ward is first choice provided he's fit, with Iversen ready to assume duties should Ward need more time. If we had to pick one, we'd pick Dan.

Just kidding. Ward is the safer option for us.

Bookies' odds

After Gameweek 1 we'll be sharing all of the need-to-know stats with you. Stuff like xG (expected goals), transfers in and out and loads more. It's all good stuff.But until there are actually stats to share, the bookies are usually a pretty reliable indicator of how things are going to play out.

Remember Karwan? He's the guy that finished 18th in the entire world last season. Well, here's his Gameweek 1 team. Exclusively for you lot.

Secret Email recipients actually got this on Wednesday, though the eagle-eyed will notice some changes. He also explained some of his more intriguing decisions, like why he was going without Jesus.This could change between now and the Gameweek 1 deadline, but I'd imagine that's the case for all of our teams.If you've got any questions for him about his team, you better go and follow him on Twitter and ask.

Here are three reasons why you'd enjoy the Secret Email:1) you get insight before anyone else gets it. We send it on Wednesdays.2) we go into more depth. Karwan provided a whole analysis on why he went for his less-obvious decisions (like foregoing Jesus), which was shared in the Secret Email.3) it's totally free. You just need to get 3 people signed up to FPLTips.com.Fact: your mates are at their most likely to click on your unique sharing link today. If you've enjoyed this email, please consider doing us a solid and share your link below. That's how you get the really good stuff.⚡️ by SparkLoop

Barring any high-profile injury in Gameweek 1, the most popular transfer ahead of Gameweek 2 amongst the top managers will almost certainly be Kane OUT, Haaland IN.That's because plenty of them are already telegraphing it. They want Kane vs Southampton in Gameweek 1, then Haaland vs Bournemouth in Gameweek 2.The greedy bastards.

We get it, but we'd advise against it for two reasons:1) Price changes. If Haaland increases in price and Kane remains the same or decreases, you could be priced out of the move.2) Everything else. If literally anything else happens to your team that needs dealing with, you might find yourself taking a points hit ahead of Gameweek 2. Which isn't a good look.