📈 GW23: how to get a green arrow ✅

🚨 The stuff you should know 🚨

⏰ Gameweek 23’s deadline is Saturday 3rd February, 11:00 GMT.

👍 Erling Haaland finally plays some minutes.

🚑 Darwin Nunez might be injured. X-ray clear but Klopp “doesn’t know” if he’ll be ready for Gameweek 23.

🔥 Our Premium members knew about Haaland’s benching before nearly anyone else. Join them.

🙃 Look, it’s only been a day since the last gameweek. Not a lot has happened.

Stick around to learn about the time Stuart Pearce cheated to win an FPL mini-league.

Alright?

Gameweeks like this have been rare this season.

Where usually we’ve been a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of injuries, suspensions and other team-destroying news that needs to be covered, this week feels oddly quiet.

That’s partly because it’s only been hours since Gameweek 22 concluded, but we also like to think that the FPL Gods, usually wrathful and petty deities, have resolved to show us some leniency as we prepare for the Double and Blank Gameweeks.

Then again, there are still 24 hours to go until the deadline. More than enough time for it all to go tits up.

Let’s clutch our beads (prayer beads, jewellery beads, anal beads, the choice is yours), recite our mantras and tread piously into Gameweek 23.

Maybe, just maybe, there won’t be any surprises.

Gameweek 23’s fixtures.

Haaland’s health.

Let’s start as we always do: with a discussion about Erling Haaland’s welfare.

A few things have happened since we were last here:

• Haaland played some minutes against Burnley. He racked up a respectable 0.23 expected goals in his 19 minutes of action.

• All of Haaland’s family members have bought him back in, including his Dad, brother, his brother’s girlfriend and his mate called Martin. Seriously, they have a Haaland league.

So the signs are there. In the same way that we can feel when a fight is about to erupt between two Ruddles-filled pissheads outside a Wetherspoons, so too can we feel that Haaland is probably due a start very soon.

Forget about xG and fixture planners: this is purist stuff. It’s about instinct. Guttural fantasy football management.

I for one am trusting my gut this week. Specifically my bowel, which edged out competition from my appendix, my liver and a late surge from my lower intestine to win last season’s inaugural All Offal No Waffle mini-league trophy.

It’s surely time to get him back in.

Who makes way for Haaland?

Bringing in Erling Haaland is easier said than done.

His £14.0m fee isn’t the main issue for most managers, plenty of whom are sitting on a cash reserve owing to Mohamed Salah and Son Heung-min’s absences. Instead, the challenge is deciding who of your perfectly viable forwards becomes the sacrificial lamb.

Most of you will own a three-piece combo meal of the following:

Dominic Solanke
Ollie Watkins
Julian Alvarez
Darwin Nunez
Alexander Isak

Let’s make like Drake and start from the bottom.

Alexander Isak 

A pretty easy swap.

He went off injured last gameweek and “has a chance” of being back for Luton, but even if he recovers in time, he’s injury-prone enough that swapping him out for Haaland is unlikely to punish you in the long-run.

Darwin Nunez

Penalty miss aside, Darwin has stumbled upon some form of late. His possible injury is a spanner in the works, but we shouldn’t forget that Liverpool are still highly likely to have two fixtures in DGW25.

That theory has been strengthened by the fact that Liverpool have blocked any stadium tour bookings for Wednesday 21st February (which would fall in Double Gameweek 25).

This one’s a keeper.

Julian Alvarez

An undeniable talent, but the double-whammy return of the pastiest men to ever kick a ball puts his minutes in doubt. He could justifiably make way.

Ollie Watkins

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think I’ve ever really enjoyed owning Watkins. Your Darwins and your Jacksons are frustrating, but I reflect on my time with them in much the same way that I reflect on my first year at university: very little was achieved and it wasn’t great for my health, but at least I felt alive.

Watkins is the FPL equivalent of Dry January. He is the quiet fist pump you do when you negotiate money off your life insurance. He is a Joe Wicks recipe of remarkably consistent fineness.

Points from his last 8 gameweeks: 1, 2, 9, 2, 2, 8, 1, 7.

Players like Watkins are hard to get rid of. But is keeping him particularly exciting? Not for me.

Dominic Solanke

Keep him. An outside chance he’ll double in Gameweek 27 or 28, and he’s seemingly capable of scoring against anyone at the moment.

In order of the best players to keep, this is how we see it:

1) Dominic Solanke/Darwin Nunez
2) Julian Alvarez
3) Ollie Watkins
4) Alexander Isak

The best captain for Gameweek 23.

If you own him, it’s got to be Erling Haaland away at Brentford.

You didn’t come this far just to vice captain him. Besides, we’ve missed featuring pics from friend-of-the-newsletter RoryPaints. He’s spent the last few months quietly going viral basically every time he posts on Instagram.

Remember, he’ll be painting a custom piece for the winner of our mini-league.

Kevin De Bruyne will also likely pick up plenty of suitors, but for us, it’s the Norse God if you own him.

Captaincy differentials we like:

Anthony Gordon at home to Luton.

Dominic Solanke at home to Nottingham Forest.

The key stats.

Here are the key stats for Gameweek 23. Look at that robust Liverpool defence.

The Professor’s team.

The Prof’s 14th green arrow in 15 gameweeks sets him up nicely for Gameweek 23.

Current rank: 296k.

Current plans: he’s planning to roll a transfer because he’s kept Erling Haaland in his team this whole time.

Captain: Erling Haaland, though he acknowledges there’s a bit of a gamble.

Here’s what his team looks like, courtesy of Fantasy Football Hub’s MyTeam.

Fancy trying MyTeam? Fantasy Football Hub are running a 7-day free trial, with 30% off after that. It’s a beast. Try it here and you’ll be helping us out too.

Other stuff we found interesting.

• Darwin Nunez became the first Premier League player on record to hit the post four times in a singular match last game.

• This video of Stuart Pearce talking about getting an edge in FPL.

• Fulham have signed Armando Broja from Chelsea [via Romano].

• Bednarek scored the worst ever FPL score on this day 3 years ago (-7) [via FPLFocal].

• This excellent Double/Blank Venn Diagram from @FPL_Spaceman.

See you this time next week.

Until then, stay lazy.

The LazyFPL Team.