The Gameweek 3 Cheat Sheet.

The Stuff You Should Know

🚨 Gameweek 3’s deadline is Saturday 31st August, 11:00 BST.

🤝 Nketiah joins Crystal Palace, Liverpool complete Chiesa signing.

🧤 Ramsdale joins Southampton, Kepa moves to Bournemouth, Neto to Arsenal, Johnstone to Wolves.

🤦‍♂️ Solanke remains a doubt for Gameweek 3 (Paul O Keefe).

👀 Arsenal’s Merino priced at £6.0m MID, Brighton’s Kadioglu a £4.5m DEF.

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Keep reading to find out whether you need to buy Noni Madueke.

Alright?

FPL rarely follows the script, and yet after Gameweek 2, the two most expensive players (Salah and the Norse God) are also the two highest scoring players. It’s following the script more rigidly than Ron Burgundy at the moment.

Ironically, this season starting as expected is probably the most unexpected thing about it so far.

But whilst the premiums are dutifully justifying their price-tags, the players dictating the current conversation are those freakish anomalies that always emerge in the early stages of a football season.

Forget the Oasis reunion: it’s all about Gameweek 3. Here’s how to ensure you’re not looking back at it in anger.

Gameweek 3’s fixtures.

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Is Noni Madueke essential now?

Summary for the Lazy: No, but he’s not terrible either.

Every year we have this. A player who nobody has really considered scores a hat-trick and suddenly everyone wants him.

Last year it was Brighton’s Evan Ferguson, who scored a hat-trick in Gameweek 4 against Newcastle.

This year it’s Noni Madueke.

Tattoo these words onto the inside of your eyelids: no player is essential.

But the ability to tell the difference between a genuine opportunity and an unlikely anomaly is important, so let’s briefly touch on it.

We look at three factors:

1) Stats. Madueke’s three goals last weekend came from just 0.54xG, a huge overperformance. He does typically overperform his xStats though.

2) History. He has a steady rate of attacking returns (5G and 3A from 13 starts last season) but he’s hardly prolific.

3) Price. He’s £6.5m. A really reasonable price.

If you’re expecting a hat-trick every week, you’re going to be bitterly disappointed.

But if you can manage your expectations accordingly, Madueke isn’t a bad pick. He is, after all, a £6.5m attacking midfielder who is probably nailed (for the time being) at a club with plenty of attacking threat. Chelsea also have some decent fixtures on the horizon (CRY, bou, whu, BHA, NFO).

In short: he appears to be the Christopher Nkunku we all wanted, but never actually got.

Crystal Palace will be an intriguing watch. If you’re going to bring him in, remember: a Madueke is for (at least) five gameweeks, not just for Crystmas.

Speaking of Nkunku…

Summary for the Lazy: it might be time to get rid.

We usually don’t advocate for the removal of a healthy player this early in the season, but Nkunku’s 7-minute cameo in Gameweek 2 after an early substitution in Gameweek 1 is an ominous start for the once-popular pick. He also played 90 mins on Thursday night.

Nkunku clearly isn’t a bad player, and he admitted that he wasn’t 100% fit in preseason. Perhaps, with Chelsea’s embarrassment of attacking options, Maresca has deemed it sensible not to risk him with 90-minutes twice a week.

The fact that Chelsea scored six in his absence will only consolidate fears that he’s not going to start in Gameweek 3.

There’s another consideration here too: the likes of Mitoma, Smith Rowe, Semenyo and, now, Madueke are all at a similar or cheaper price point, and all appear to be nailed on for their respective teams. Keeping the minutes-threatened Nkunku comes at an opportunity cost.

As The Professor said in his monstrous Gameweek 2 review, “if I owned him, I’d remove him.”.

Good players who haven’t scored many points yet.

Here’s a list of players that we think are playing well but haven’t scored any significant FPL points yet.

Very few managers are looking to buy these players, but everybody should be considering them just as seriously as the players who have been fortunate enough to convert their chances.

Ollie Watkins - should’ve scored two against Arsenal. Incredible fixtures ahead (lei, EVE, WOL, ips, MUN, ful).

Eberichi Eze - the most transferred out midfielder this week, but he has more shots than any other player. Points are coming.

Bruno Fernandes - remarkable underlying stats (only Erling Haaland has a higher expected goal involvement so far) but only five points to show for it.

Morgan Rogers - 4 points, but looks incredibly good for his price (£5.1m).

Alejandro Garnacho - if he starts getting more time on the pitch he’ll be a huge threat. A combined 1.39 expected goals from just 54 minutes.

Alexander Isak - one assist and a blank is probably about right, but he gets a mention here because he’s the most transferred out player this week and, well, he probably shouldn’t be. Have patience in the lad.

Five of these six players are currently in the top 10 most transferred out (the exception being Rogers).

A quick summary of the midweek games.

Football happened during the week. Here are some notable points:

Chelsea lost their Conference League qualifier on Thursday night but progressed on aggregate. Madueke started and played 62 minutes. Nkunku played the full 90 and scored another penalty.

A decent Newcastle team struggled to a 1-1 draw with Nottingham Forest in the EFL Cup. Isak played 90 and had one touch in the opposition’s box. Gordon was subbed on at ‘61. Hall also played the whole game.

West Ham fielded a good team in a hard fought 1-0 win over Bournemouth. Bowen started, played 90 and scored. Fabianski got Man of the Match. Kudus played 16 mins and got the assist.

Crystal Palace thumped Norwich 4-0 on Tuesday. Eze scored and assisted, Mateta bagged two goals and an assist. Both played 90 minutes.

Leicester, Fulham, Ipswich, Brentford, Wolves, Everton and Brighton also played but all fielded weakened sides.

Should you Wildcard?

Summary for the Lazy: you might need to, but proceed with caution.

Dunno mate. Should you?

Our job here isn’t to prescribe particular moves or tactics. Unless you’re one of those people who sends us unsolicited screenshots of your team, we can’t know what your priorities are.

Take Nkunku. Sure, we can tell you that it might be time to get rid, but what if you’ve got Barco, Quansah and Hall to deal with first? There are no universal truths in FPL.

It’s the same for the Wildcard. If you’re staring at your team thinking “I’m going to struggle to field enough players here”, then you’re in the exact position that a Wildcard is supposed to bail you out of.

Here’s the stuff you ought to keep in mind before pulling the trigger:

• The Wildcard is a medium/long play. Don’t pick three Bournemouth attackers just because they have Everton in Gameweek 3. You’ll need another Wildcard by Gameweek 6.
  

• Recency bias is real. Wildcarders are loading up on Chelsea and Brighton and ignoring perfectly promising players like Eze and Fernandes.
  

• Necessity over preference. Some managers Wildcard out a perfectly healthy squad just because they own a few players that haven’t scored yet. You’re a lot less likely to suffer from post-Wildcard-regret if you focus on removing players who are unlikely or unable to start football matches.

Don’t forget there’s an international break coming up too. That could yet change the narrative for plenty of potential picks.

The best captain for Gameweek 3.

Summary for the Lazy: it’s Haaland.

Whilst Cole Palmer, Bukayo Saka and Mohamed Salah should always be considered, Erling Haaland away at West Ham is our captain this week.

He’s just too good to overlook and, if you’ve spent £15m on him, this is a fixture you captain him for.

A quick note: we get at least one complaint per email about not including enough differentials in this section.

FPL’s dirty little secret is that whenever unscrupulous pundits wax lyrical about differential captains, all they’re really doing is choosing the top scorers from whichever teams are playing Ipswich, Everton or Leicester. It’s not creative or insightful and, crucially, these tipsters don’t have the cajones to actually captain these differentials themselves.

Captaining differentials might win you the occasional battle but it’s virtually guaranteed to lose you the war.

Pick the obvious captains at this stage. That’s the Lazy way.

75 points in Gameweek 2 means the Professor is ranked at 1.4m.

But only losers care about their rank at this point.

Erling Haaland gets the armband and he’s rolling another transfer.

Remember, The Professor does a deep-dive on his team, and the logic behind benching players like Eze, in his twice-weekly emails. They’re packed full of gold, and you can get them (along with loads of other benefits, like access to our WhatsApp groups) by subscribing to LazyFPL Premium.

The key stats.

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Other stuff we found interesting.

1. Ivan Toney has been ruled out of Gameweek 3 as speculation around his future continues.

2. Liverpool’s aggregate score against Man United is 26-7 over their last 10 games.

3. James Ward-Prowse expected to join Nottingham Forest (Romano).

4. This mad Haaland graphic:

Enjoy Gameweek 3 but remember: August football is lying.

It’s an international break next week (booooo) and we’re going to use it to regroup after a bonkers preseason. Click “reply” and let us know how you’re going to kill the time - the weirder the better.

Stay lazy.

The LazyFPL Team.