🤫 The secrets to mastering DGW22 🤐

Summary for the lazy

⏰ Double Gameweek 22's deadline is 18:30, Friday 3rd February

😍 Man United and Leeds will Double in Gameweek 22

🤦‍♂️ Brighton, Man United, Brentford and Newcastle will blank in Gameweek 25

🎁 Deadline day sees more players added and removed from the game

🔗 Read our previous email for thoughts on United and Leeds players

Stick around for a chip strategy that'll see you through until the end of the season 🤝

This time of the season feels a bit like that bog that the hobbits have to navigate through to get to Mordor.

Managers are stuck knee-deep in a quagmire of double and blank gameweek sludge, trying to wade through with nowt but a couple of chips and a spindly, schizophrenic creature to guide them.

Of course, in this allegory, we are the Golem in your quest. Come now, my precious, and let's take a trip to Mount Doom.

Wanted: decent fantasy football managers

You're a fantasy manager, which means I can confidently deduce a few things about you:

1) you like football, but you like it even more when there's something to win or lose2) you consider yourself relatively knowledgeable about football3) you relish an opportunity to demonstrate your footballing knowledge

If any of those are wrong, you probably won't enjoy Sorare - feel free to move onto the next section. But if you've nodded along to those three things, I'd recommend you give Sorare a try.

You know those football stickers you probably used to collect? Imagine if you could turn them into digital collectibles and use them to earn prizes (like cash or more player cards) in fantasy tournaments. That's Sorare in a nutshell. They've just signed a £120m deal with the Premier League, so now you can collect players that you actually know a bit about too.

The best thing (I didn't realise this until recently) is that you can play for free. There's no need to spend a penny unless you want to.

If you fancy giving it a try, today's sponsor, Sorare Starter is the best place to start (the clue is in their name). You'll get a free card once you've bought your first five, plus access to a great community and loads of resources for beginners.

Some new arrivals

The January transfer window has been and gone. Struggled to keep up with the drama of deadline day? You're not the only one.

Luckily, the Premier League itself has created a list of every new player and how much they'll cost if you want them in your fantasy team.

Some highlights include:

🇪🇸 Pedro Porro (Spurs, defender, £5.0m) - a right-back in a Conte team is always worthy of note.🇦🇷 Enzo Fernandez (Chelsea, midfielder, £5.0m) - probably not an FPL pick but broke the British transfer record, which has got to be worthy of note.🇳🇬 Paul Onuachu (Southampton, forward, £5.5m) - a 6"8 beast of a man who has averaged 0.88 goals per 90 over his last four seasons. As our latest Twitter thread explains...

We tend to take the position that new signings are crap until proven excellent (with perhaps a few, Haaland-shaped exceptions). There are usually just too many variables to trust them as an asset.

It's cynical, but it works.

Jorginho to Arsenal

One transfer that has been particularly fretted over by FPL managers is Jorginho's move to Arsenal.

Yup, it's likely that Saka's brief but fiery romance with Arsenal's penalties will fizzle out with the arrival of Jorginho: the man that no penalty-taking duties can resist.

But that's not the huge problem that some are making it out to be. Arsenal are currently joint-bottom this season for Premier League penalties awarded, with just one penalty to their name (incidentally, Fulham are top with 7).

So if you're a Saka owner, you can rest easy. He probably wasn't due another penalty this season anyway.

Player departures

Transfer deadline day giveth and it taketh away. After the sensational news that Joao Cancelo was due to depart on loan to Bayern Munich, news that Matt Doherty has followed in Kieran Trippier's intrepid footsteps and gone to Atletico quickly followed.

With Cancelo at around ~40% owned at the time of his departure, and Matt Doherty more owned than ever after Spurs' double in Gameweek 20, this means plenty of managers will have a fire to put out before Double Gameweek 22 gets underway. Expect more hits then usual.

Oh, and spare a thought for this manager, who moved Cancelo out for Doherty in the no-man's-land between the news breaking.

The injury room

Oh dear. The injury room is back. You know what that means: there are enough injuries to justify dedicating a section of the newsletter to them. Let's see who we've got in today:

Leeds' Rodrigo is out for two months.

Christian Eriksen is also out until April/May, according to Man United (who are probably quite a reliable source).

John Stones could be out for a period after pulling up with a hamstring injury during the FA Cup tie against Arsenal.

Evan Ferguson's injury isn't as bad as first feared, but the young Brighton forward could still be out for a few weeks.

How to cook your chips

The Professor sent out some solid gold in his Premium email yesterday. He went deep into his chip strategy, and honestly, the whole thing is worth a read.

But for the purposes of this email, I'm going to summarise it thus:

Blank Gameweek 25 - ride itLikely Big Blank Gameweek 28 - it'll probably be a big one, but use free transfers to navigate itLikely Big Double Gameweek 29 - WildcardLikely Big Blank Gameweek 32 - use your Free Hit (better teams will likely blank than in 28)Likely Big Double Gameweek 34 - Bench BoostLikely Big Double Gameweek 37 - Triple Captain if you still have it

As we keep reiterating, this plan hinges on variables which, at the moment, are hard to forecast. Here's Ben Crellin's current spreadsheet up to GW32:

But at the very least, what we can take from this is that you shouldn't even be contemplating a Free Hit in Gameweek 25, despite the news that Brighton, Man United, Brentford and Newcastle will blank. You'll almost certainly have a better use for it later in the season.

Part of the reason why The Professor has never had a bad season is that he's a pro at navigating the blanks and doubles. If you want a front row seat to the latest updates and how those impact his plans, feel free to join premium.

The Key Stats

The Best Captain

Marcus Rashford will be this week's most popular captain amongst active managers. In the spirit of always captaining a player with 180 minutes over a player with 90 minutes, we'd recommend you back him with the armband too.

Should you Triple Captain Rashford this gameweek?

This was the question plaguing my Dad as we sat in the pub earlier this evening. If he's contemplating it, it's likely a few of you are too.

I'll tell you what I told him: who knows?

When success can only be measured over a match or two, every decision you make in FPL is a gamble. Could Rashford continue his ludicrous form into this Double Gameweek? Of course.

Equally, he could adopt the same, peripheral role he's occupied so often in matches gone by and do absolutely nothing.

Personally, I think Haaland is too rare and precious a gift for FPL managers not to Triple Captain at some point this season, and Rashford's recent form shouldn't blind us to that fact. The City man has, after all, already scored two goals more than the tally Son and Salah required to win last season's golden boot.

Rashford is excellent, but he isn't super-human.

The Professor's team

The Professor will be moving OUT Salah and bringing in Fernandes, who will see out his debut for The Prof with the vice-captain's armband on. He's not sure on how he'll use his other free transfer yet, but Premium members will be updated in the WhatsApp group.

Current rank: 73k

As always, The Professor is using BetterFPL, a chrome extension that does what it says on the tin 🔥 try it free for 30 days using the code [FPLTIPS].

Right, we're out. Next gameweek's deadline is a good old fashioned Saturday morning, so we'll be in your inbox on Friday.Until then, good luck for DGW22!

The FPLTips team.