Gameweek 16

View this email in your browser

Summary for the lazy.

- Gameweek 16's deadline is 11:00 GMT, Saturday 12th November ⏰- Haaland, Foden and KdB benched for midweek EFL tie 💺- Mitrovic injured, Wilson a doubt 🤕- Cancelo NOT suspended for GW16, Dalot is 🚫- Southampton appoint former Luton manager Nathan Jones 🤝- Final gameweek before the World Cup 🏆

Hello everyone. How's it going?

Right, you'll get the usual smorgasbord of FPL treats this week, but first, we need to talk about something a little more serious.Nope, it's not the FPL website crash. It's about the World Cup - and the problem it poses for football content creators.

The World Cup Problem.

We'll try to keep this brief.The bottom line: like plenty of others, the three of us (Ross, James and the Professor) feel uncomfortable with the idea of making money off the back of World Cup content, given the human rights issues that have surrounded the tournament.You'll have your own opinions and fair play - no judgement here. But that's ours.As we see it, there are two options:1) Pretend the World Cup isn't happening.2) Cover the World Cup but don't make any money from our emails.For better or worse, we've chosen option 2. What does that mean?- The money made from any Premium subscriptions purchased between today and 18th December will be donated to Amnesty International. £3 for any monthly subscriptions, £2 for any yearly subscriptions. We'll post proof.- We've cancelled all existing newsletter sponsorships if they overlap with the World Cup.- We won't be using any affiliate links throughout the World Cup either.

We'll continue to send three weekly emails out to Premium subscribers and an email every Friday for non-Premium subscribers. If you've ever considered trying FPLTips Premium, getting it this month will mean your payment goes to a good cause. You can always cancel it later on if it's not for you. You can get it here.Okay, back to FPL.

Buy, pie or keep an eye.

Because FPL is a cruel mistress, there are a few key players who have question marks hanging over their Gameweek 16 availability. Let's start with the easiest one:

✅ Joao Cancelo

is available. Despite being transferred out by over 255,000 managers (and counting), Cancelo served his one-match ban during the EFL Cup tie. I'm sure he was gutted to miss out. This is confusing because...

❌

Diogo Dalot

, who also picked up a 1-match suspension in Gameweek 15, is

not

available. That's because five-yellow bans are treated differently to straight-red bans. Someone ought to tell the nearly 50,000 managers that have transferred him IN this week.

✅ It looks like

Erling Haaland

is available. Pep caused early alarm this week when he blasphemously claimed that the Norse God was still "not perfect". But a 90-minute benching in the EFL Cup is as sure a sign as any that he's available for this weekend's early kick-off against Brentford.Prepare for another crash if we get early team news, but unless he's rested, he's your best captain too.❌ Aleksandar Mitrovic, however, looks to be out for Gameweek 16. Whilst we can't find an official source yet, reports emerged on Thursday that he's been ruled out of the World Cup opener, which definitely makes United on Sunday a little too ambitious. He's the most transferred out player since the news broke.

👀 And keep an eye on Callum Wilson, who may well set a record for the longest ever cold this week. Here are Howe's words from earlier today:

(Don't blame us for the atrocious spelling in this tweet).Listen, make sure you have a good bench option waiting to replace Wilson if he doesn't make it. If you've got no other issues to deal with in your side, our favourite replacements are Darwin Nunez, Roberto Firmino and Gabriel Jesus.

It's the long-awaited second episode of the Foden Files, and things are looking a lot rosier for our hero.That's because the loveable rogue

was benched for Man City's midweek tie for the first time in two weeks.

The cherry on top? His arch-nemesis,

Jack Grealish

, played a full 90 on Wednesday. Could this week's most transferred out player start his first Premier League game since Gameweek 11?Find out on Episode 2 of the Foden Files. Saturday at 12:30.(We reckon he'll start, but don't quote us on that).

Right, we've got a sponsor for this email. I know - sell outs and all that - but hear us out, because it might genuinely help you this season.It's called BetterFPL. It's a chrome extension, and first 10 days are free. So if you download it now, you can try it for Gameweek 16 without having to pay.Your team view is currently boring and unhelpful. You can see your players' next fixtures, but that's it. BetterFPL makes it interesting and useful. With it, you can see stuff like predicted points, upcoming fixture difficulty and previous form without having to look 'em up the old fashioned way.

We use it, along with over 25,000 other managers. It's great. Get it here if you want to try it out.

If you've paid even the smallest iota of attention over the last few weeks (we won't blame you if you haven't), you'll know that now is a good time to flirt with a differential.The best thing? The World Cup Wildcard means it's a one-gameweek stand. No strings attached, no need to exchange numbers and stay in touch. Heck, you don't even have to make them breakfast if you don't want.If you're thinking of celebrating your last gameweek of freedom by inviting some strange back to your team, consider the following floozies:Ivan PerisicRyan Sessegnon's recent injury means Ivan Perisic is likely to play against Leeds on Saturday. He's playing out-of-position. Not in a "left-back masquerading as a left-winger" kinda way. We mean proper out-of-position. A left-back masquerading as a forward. Accordingly, his recent stats are freakish.

Do me a favour and take a second to absorb this. Over the past three gameweeks, no player has had a higher expected goal involvement per 90 than Perisic. Look at some of the players he's above. If he gets 90 against Leeds, he's highly likely to do some damage.

Trent Alexander-Arnold

I'm aware that Trent is less fashionable than a normal haircut these days, but there was a time - not so long ago, in fact - when the Englishman was in every FPL team worth its salt.That alone shouldn't be enough to persuade you, but perhaps this will be:

Trent has better expected goal/assist stats than Trippier over the last five games. Only the aforementioned Perisic can best him for recent expected goal involvement amongst defenders. The impressive stats are back: now he just needs the FPL points.Southampton have conceded an attacking return to a full-back in four of the last five games in which they've conceded a goal. Is there a vulnerability to be exploited? If so, Trent has the underlying fundamentals and the track-record to do it.

Dejan KulusevskiAnother Spurs man, Kulusevski returned from injury in Gameweek 15 and almost immediately notched an assist.Listen, his underlying stats aren't wild and his goals/assists have hardly been game-changing this season, but Kulusevski is a game-changer nonetheless. The last time he played was in Spurs' 6-2 demolition of Leicester: since then, they've scored just nine goals in seven Premier League games.With Son out and Moura failing to make an impact when he's been picked, Spurs have a Need for Swede.

Sunday Best

Shall I tell you what's miserable? Looking forward to a day of football on the telly, only to realise that you don't actually have any FPL players involved.With Brighton vs Villa and Fulham vs Man United on this Sunday, that's a realistic prospect for plenty of managers. What a way to see in the World Cup break.Call me a loser, but I mostly play FPL to make watching football more fun (which doesn't usually work out, but still). I'm seriously considering a punt on a player involved in these fixtures purely so that it gives me some investment in Sunday's games. Trossard, Rashford and, for the hipsters, Brighton's Kaoru Mitoma are all on my watchlist.

All the important numbers ahead of Gameweek 16.

Expert analysis.

This week's FPL expert is @FPLHarry, an FPL content creator with 40k subscribers on Youtube and 69k (behave) followers on Twitter. He's currently in the top 10k worldwide, which means we need to listen to the stuff he says.

Gameweek 16 is the week of the one week punt: a chance to take a gamble on an explosive asset you don’t have to hold or even think about beyond Sunday.Teams such as Liverpool, Tottenham and Manchester City are top priority if you are not already fully loaded on them due to good home fixtures on paper. A lot of people will be looking at potential -4s this week as well.I would personally be cautious of this as they'll only have one week to pay off, which rarely happens.If it involves bringing in a significantly better asset (like adding Haaland back into your team again) then it’s worth considering, but more sideways -4s (like selling Wilson, for example) are not for me.

With the reigns of our team in his hands, Harry decided to sell Mitrovic and bring in Gabriel Jesus. Nice.Here's how we're looking ahead of Gameweek 16, with the BetterFPL extension bolted on too:

There is no King of fixture rearrangements: that's far too specific a field to support an aristocracy. But if there was, it would undoubtedly be Ben Crellin.He reckons we might be treated to a Double Gameweek in the New Year. In short, due to their EFL Cup exits, Arsenal and Chelsea (along with Everton and Fulham) might have doubles in either Gameweek 19 or 21. You'll need to zoom in for this one...

Here's the accompanying tweet:

We will, of course, keep you updated when we know more.

Confused about how the World Cup will impact your FPL team? Here's an article that includes everything you need to know, straight from the horses' mouth.

We'll be back next week with our World Cup Official Fantasy game preview.Cheers,The FPLTips team.

p.s. the FPL Cup has returned. You can view your opponent for the first round right now, by clicking on the "Cups" tab of your FPL dashboard and finding the "Overall" cup.