🚨 GW3 - the smart moves to make 🧠

The stuff you should know 🚨

⏰ Gameweek 3’s deadline is Friday 25th August, 18:30 BST.

🔴 Mac Allister’s red card overturned.

🤕 James “out for a few weeks”, Stones confirmed out until September.

🤦 Maddison a doubt for the weekend.

🤝 Mitrovic leaves for Saudi, City get Doku.

⚽️ Odegaard takes a penalty with Saka on the pitch

Keep reading for a stat that confirms Bryan Mbeumo’s place in your midfield.

Alright?

Just like the rotation of the Earth or the inexplicable return of the mullet as a fashionable hairstyle, FPL sentiment follows a cyclical path.

Every season - just before Gameweek 3 - an inevitable question tends to rear its head: “is this the hardest start to a season ever?”.

Spoiler alert: it probably ain’t.

There's a good chance that the last two gameweeks haven’t gone your way. But that’ll happen over the course of a season. Having crap gameweeks is an integral part of the contract you signed when you made the dubious decision to build an FPL team in the first place. Did you even read the small print?

Panic not. If your FPL team was a human, it’d be around four years old. Whether it’s started life well or poorly, it could yet be an axe murderer or the next Prime Minister in due course.

Let’s just hope it’s not the latter.

Here’s everything you need to make smart decisions ahead of Gameweek 3.

The cost of being out of the loop.

William Saliba has scored 11 points more than Gabriel so far this season. The Brazilian’s FPL returns have so far been, to borrow his namesake’s lyrics, out of reach.

The thing is, news of Gabriel’s exclusion emerged around 4 minutes before the Gameweek 1 deadline. It was leaked on a YouTube stream and, within seconds, it was also shared on our Broadcast WhatsApp chat.

We also leaked City’s Gameweek 1 lineup before anyone else too.

If you want up-to-the-minute updates on the need to know FPL news, plus two extra emails every gameweek from the Professor and the option to join a chat WhatsApp group too, you should consider joining LazyFPL premium.

Upgrading takes about as long as making an FPL transfer, but will almost certainly get you more points by the end of the season.

What are the top managers doing?

The best FPL managers in the world will probably make a transfer this week.

But very few of them will be getting rid of a player who:

• has a great fixture in Gameweek 3

• is likely to start in Gameweek 3

• has solid underlying stats so far

Instead their lambs to the slaughter will likely be:

• players who aren’t guaranteed to start

• players who look poor and are putting up poor underlying stats

• players with challenging fixtures ahead

That 50% of this week’s 10 most transferred out players satisfy at least 2/3 of that first set of bullet points should speak volumes. Most managers just tend to be a bit bonkers at the start of the season.

By all means, peer through the bars of their padded cells and gawp. Just make sure you don’t end up joining ‘em in there.

What to do with Man United?

Despite the advice offered by the popular Disney song, we should, in fact, talk about Bruno. And Marcus for that matter.

The pair both feature in the top 10 most transferred OUT players this week after two lacklustre gameweeks.

But here are three reasons why we reckon it’s silly to get rid of them for now:

1. Both are still excellent players.

2. They play Nottingham Forest at home in Gameweek 3.

3. They registered a combined 2.42xGI (expected goal involvement) in their last game.

Just look at how decent their stats have been so far:

What we’re witnessing here might be even rarer than a happy Spurs fan. Seldom do we see players with excellent underlying stats and a great fixture being sold en masse.

It presents a great opportunity for patient (i.e. lazy) managers.

The Gabriel problem.

Gabriel has been subbed on for 1-point cameos in Arsenal’s last two games. This is a player who, prior to Gameweek 1, had started 73 consecutive games for the Gunners. Pep-levels of line-up savagery from his slick-haired protege.

This week Arteta was asked about whether his exclusion had anything to do with Saudi interest. He said:

"Out of the starting XI due to offers? Nothing at all, it was just about games that we were expecting...trust me, Gabriel is gonna play a lot of games".

Right. Cheers Mikel, but I’m not sure we’re ready to do a trust fall just yet.

This feels like a safe space, so I’ll be honest with you: I’m a Gabriel owner. I’m keeping him for Gameweek 3 simply because he scored in both of his fixtures against Fulham last season and he’s a good pick if he starts.

But a bigger question underpins this conversation: if he isn’t the starting 11 stalwart he once was, should we start looking for more reliable options?

The answer is an easy “yes”, and you don’t get many of those in FPL. A guaranteed starting berth is key, particularly as the season wears on. We’d suggest you grab the bag for life and start browsing the aisles.

William Saliba (which conveniently auto-corrects to “William saliva” at every opportunity) is an easy alternative if you have the spare cash.

Is Bryan Mbeumo the real deal then?

Yeah, actually.

There was some doubt over how Brentford would function without their talismanic Toney at the helm, but the early signs look promising.

Our collective perception of Bryan Mbeumo’s FPL credentials has been flattered by two penalties in two games: a statistical oddity that won’t last for a whole season.

Still, he’s been solid regardless.

Unbelievably, in the Frenchman’s seven games without Toney since the start of last season, he’s scored eight goals and averaged over 10 FPL points per game. That’s Premium-level performance.

At £6.7m and with Palace and Bournemouth coming up, there isn’t a huge amount to lose. It’s that combo-meal of tasty fixtures and delicious form that make him the best of the mid-priced midfielders ahead of Gameweek 3.

Mbeumo? Mmm, bueno.

Penalties, penalised.

Gameweek 2 was an intriguing week for penalties. 

Mohamed Salah missed his third penalty in five for Liverpool.

Martin Odegaard took Arsenal’s penalty despite the fact that Bukayo Saka was still on the pitch.

And Douglas Luiz seems to have taken over spot-kick responsibilities from Ollie Watkins at Villa.

Penalties are important. Owners have a right to be a little concerned.

We hate to break it to you, but we don’t have Jurgen Klopp on WhatsApp, so we can’t tell you whether Salah’s missed penalty in Gameweek 2 will be his last.

Likewise, it’s unclear whether Odegaard will be Arsenal’s new first-pick or not. Arteta, AKA “Mr Trustworthy”, said he had “no clue” about the switch prior to the game, which suggests Saka might still be the default.

At times like this we refer you back to standard FPL management protocol: observe, monitor, and act when we have more concrete information.

Some important chunklets.

There have been several awkwardly-sized dollops of news this week. Too small to justify a dedicated section, but too large to ignore either.

We’re filing them in the “important chunklets” cabinet. Here they are:

💙 Man City have reached an agreement for Jeremy Doku, a pacey 21-year-old winger from Rennes who is tipped to be a pretty big deal. He’s unlikely to threaten Foden or Alvarez for the time-being.

🤕 Whilst James Maddison’s injury isn’t as serious as first feared, the midfielder is a doubt for Bournemouth this weekend. He was not pictured in Thursday’s training session.

🤝 Aleksandar Mitrovic is the latest Premier League player to be tempted away to Saudi. He’ll join Al Hilal; the guys who just signed Ruben Neves and, more recently, Neymar.

🚫 Alexis Mac Allister’s Gameweek 2 red card has been rescinded. Unfortunately his lost FPL points have not been reinstated and the referee in charge is yet to apologise to his owners. Shocking, really.

💔 Reece James has picked up a hamstring injury that is likely to see him out until at least Gameweek 5.

The best captain for Gameweek 3

It’s Erling Haaland away at Sheffield United.

He’ll likely be the most-captained player in fantasy premier league history.

Don’t overthink it.

(btw, TheManc.com described these Haaland paintings as “hilarious but nightmarish”. We think they’re excellent. Check out RoryPaints on Instagram for more - he’s providing a custom piece for the winner of our free mini-league this season.)

The Professor’s Team

The Professor has reluctantly swapped Kai Havertz for Bryan Mbeumo after a run of bad performances from the German.

Captain = Erling Haaland

[The Professor uses Fantasy Football Hub’s MyTeam, which has given his Gameweek 3 side a pretty hefty rating using its powerful points prediction model. Reckon you can do better? Get your FPL team rated for free here.]

The key stats

We’re not sharing expected stats until Gameweek 4. Instead, here are the bookies’ odds and the most transferred in/out players this week.

Other stuff we found interesting

• Phil Foden created 7 chances in Gameweek 2 🤯

• Julio Enciso has allegedly suffered a knee injury, potentially opening the door back up for Joao Pedro.

• Gabriel Jesus is back in training.

• Lucas Digne picked up three assists and Ollie Watkins scored a hat-trick in their European Conference League clash on Wednesday.

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Same time next Thursday? It’s a date. We’ll bring the food, you bring the lube.

Stay lazy,

The LazyFPL team.