Gameweek 13

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Summary for the lazy.

- Gameweek 13's deadline is 11:00 BST, Saturday 22nd October ⏰- All 20 teams back in action 🎉- This is likely to be a popular Wildcard week 👀- Aston Villa sack Gerrard 🚫- Gameweek 12 was mostly horrible: a goalkeeper was the top performer 🙄Looking for a 7% owned forward with some of the best stats in the league? Stay to find out who we're referring to.

Hello. Us again.We have some news: our Mailchimp bill was already unaffordable, but now it's ludicrous. Check it:

There are two ways we can deal with this:1) Stop doing the newsletter.2) Introduce a paid-version of the newsletter.We've picked option 2, and worked really hard to make it good value.The Premium version of the FPLTips.com newsletter will be launched next week. For the price of a cup of coffee each month, you'll get:- two extra FPLTips emails per gameweek- access to a members-only FPL WhatsApp and Discord groupIntrigued? Hit "reply" and type "I'm interested." We'll add you to a VIP guest-list that gets it cheaper than anyone else. You'll be supporting the newsletter but, more importantly, you'll get extra content that'll genuinely make you a better manager.

Note: the pre-deadline emails (like this one) will remain free, and will always be free.Right, let's talk Gameweek 13.

The great rearrangement.

It's no surprise that six of the top seven most-transferred in players this week are City and Arsenal assets.Now that Blank Gameweek 12 is behind us, managers are green-lit to target prospects from the pair of high-flying clubs, and plenty of them are using their Wildcards to do it.But what does a good Wildcard team actually look like?We asked the Professor to build ours. The identity of the Professor remains a mystery, but since he started playing FPL, he's never outside of the top 100k. He is, quite simply, one of the best managers in the world.(He'll also be contributing to a lot of our extra Premium content).

From the Professor:With the World Cup looming, the opportunities to use your Wildcard are running short. Was holding it for this long the optimal play after all? No. The optimal play was probably to Wildcard when I did back in Gameweek 8.But this might just be the second best time to Wildcard so far this season.And while there are small gains to be made across your squad, the biggest reason why the Wildcard could be so valuable right now is the shift towards Liverpool assets and the fact they are currently differentials – which, if you'll excuse the pun, is simply wild.Salah: 33.2% ownedAlexander-Arnold: 19.8% ownedDarwin Nunez: 6.3% ownedWithout my Wildcard I’m left scrambling: using free transfers to move in Salah and Nunez, while also desperately wanting Foden and Almiron, knowing full well I can’t even dream of buying Trent without taking multiple hits.See you next week gameweek when I reference Trent’s assist + clean sheet haul and finally admit that using my Wildcard in Gameweek 8 wasn’t, in fact, optimal after all.

Targeting the fixtures.

In the old days of FPL punditry there used to be an infallible mantra bandied about: form over fixtures. Managers would tattoo it on their forearms and shave it into their heads.The idea was that a player's form was a more reliable indication of his points-scoring potential, rather than the teams he was due to play.Well, forget about it.Just like the perplexing resurgence of the mullet, FPL trends are cyclical, and right now it's trendy to target a player's fixtures.Our mate FPL Focal made a nice graphic that tells you which teams have the best fixtures between now and the World Cup.

It can only mean one thing: time to triple-up on Everton players.

(Please don't actually do this.)

Darwin's evolution.

Liverpool's Darwin Nunez is garnering a small but notable FPL fanbase. The flames were stoked by this graphic that a little known content-creator called "Sky Sports" recently published:

Ignoring the fact that nobody - not even Sky - actually knows what a "Fast break" is, these numbers make for pretty compelling reading.He's only played a combined 75 minutes across the last two fixtures, but with Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota injured, the forward is likely to benefit from more involvement going forward.Liverpool play Nottingham Forest in Saturday's early kick-off, and despite the Uruguayan being subbed off surprisingly early in Gameweek 12, Klopp has already confirmed that it was purely precautionary.

Sellah or Salah?

Whilst buying a Salah should be for life, not just for Blank Gameweeks, it's easy to see why so many Salah owners are deliberating whether to flog him now or stick with him for a bit longer.There are various factors at play here. If you're on your Wildcard, or need to get rid of Salah in order to bring back Haaland, your decision is definitely easier.If, however, you'll need to burn a free transfer (or, even worse, take a hit) to remove the Egyptian, we'd recommend waiting until after Gameweek 13.Why? Because Liverpool play Nottingham Forest. If you've stuck with Salah for this long, or disrupted your team's structure to bring him in for Gameweek 12, you owe it to yourself to get something out of him before you part ways.This is still the same bloke who scored four goals last week, after all, and no midfielder has a higher xG (expected goals) over the last two matches.

The best captain.

It's a dubious choice of pyjamas, but not a dubious choice of captain.

The key stats.

Here are all the important stats ahead of Gameweek 13:

As for the odds, our table hasn't updated because of the rapid turnaround. So we had to go out and find them manually, like peasants. These are taken from checkthechance.com.Chance of scoring a goal:

Chance of keeping a clean sheet:

Expert analysis.

This week's FPL expert is Jamie Pigott, who literally won FPL last season. So yeah, he's qualified to dish out tips.

If you let go of any of your Man City or Arsenal players in preparation for the Blank Gameweek 12, it's time to bring them back.Gameweek 12, full of lacklustre fixtures, bone-dry benches and more clean sheets than actual matches (!) reminded me of how I miss having good players from good teams.Arsenal and Man City are the best teams and have great fixtures from now until the world cup. You probably already have a couple, but it's time to build back up to five or six for this final push.

Remember we get unlimited transfers after the World Cup. It’s now time to think very short-term. Focus your decisions on the next four weeks. You may find that now is a good time to consider a fun, riskier punt, as you won’t be stuck with the player long-term. A few I like are Darwin, Firmino and Eze.I’ve also got my eyes on Kulusevski’s injury status. If he’s back in the fold, he may be the spark that can ignite this uninspired Spurs team.Best of luck all. Futbol. Is. Life.

As always, we gave Jamie the keys to our FPL team this week. He's decided to move out Trossard and Kane for Darwin and Foden. Big moves!Here's how we look ahead of Gameweek 13:

Looking ahead.

Just so you know, there won't be any player price changes during the World Cup. People keep asking.So don't worry about getting priced-out of your transfer targets.

Remember, if you want to get more FPLTips emails (and access to members-only WhatsApp and Discord groups), reply with "I'm interested" to be added to our guest-list. Nobody else will ever get our Premium package for cheaper.Good luck for Gameweek 13,The FPL Tips team.

Well, would you like that - time just flies when you're wincing your way through the first third of the season.

In truth, your rank still doesn't really matter too much, but it definitely matters more than it did immediately after Gameweek 1. With that in mind, the current joint-leaders of our league, Heng Thai Peng and Sietse van Dam, deserve an honourary mention.Congrats on the good start, lads. Not you just need to keep it up for another 26 gameweeks.