Gameweek 4

View this email in your browser

Summary for the lazy.

- Last gameweek was bad for the template. That isn't always a bad thing 👀- Expect plenty of Wildcards, points hits and other silly decisions this week 🤦‍♂️- Rodrigo (£6.3m) genuinely looks like a good option (we'll explain why) 📈- Newcastle make record signing to get forward Alexander Isak 💰Read on to learn why 

Text "Wildcard" to 541.

Listen, you're going to find out eventually so we'll just tell you now. Plenty of your mini-league rivals are going to Wildcard this week. We'd recommend you resist the urge, which, we should warn, will only intensify as the deadline looms nearer.Three gameweeks is too small a sample-size to be making season-changing decisions. Last season Liverpool went through a six-gameweek stretch in which they only kept one clean sheet, but their defence did alright in the end.Meanwhile, Everton won 7 points from their first 3 games, and we all know how that turned out.

Here's a meme we made to illustrate this point, which we're confident you'll agree could definitely make waves on the NFT market.

Opportunity #1: some of the best players in the history of the game are being transferred out on mass. Keep them and maximise their gains when they inevitably return to form.Opportunity #2: by sitting back and chillaxing (that's what the kids say, right?), you're actually giving yourself the opportunity to gather more data ahead of big decisions like playing a Wildcard. If other managers would rather have less data and insight prior to playing theirs, that's up to them.You'll probably end up beating them in the end.

Rodrigoat.

Being able to distinguish between a promising differential and a poisonous decoy could one day save your life.

Let's go over the rules for spotting a great differential. We call it the MUFF guide.M - are they owned by a Minority of managers?U - do they have good Underlying stats?F - do they have decent Form to back up the stats?F - do they have good Fixtures?Over the course of a season, only a handful of players will ever reach MUFF status. When a player does, they should be seriously considered.Enter Leeds' Rodrigo (£6.3m). A classic MUFF if ever there was one.✅ 22% owned✅ incredible underlying stats✅ highest scoring player in the game✅ Brighton, Everton, Brentford, Forest, Man United and Villa in his next sixWe're not saying "buy, buy, buy!". He's a few woeful Leeds performances away from fading into the obscurity from whence he came. Shocking as it is, there used to be a time when Leeds were prone to woeful performances now and again.But if you need a midfielder priced at £6.3m or under, he is categorically the best.

Ever ran a football club?

Believe it or not, we’ve got a sponsor for this newsletter. We’re well chuffed: not only because it helps to cover Mailchimp’s ever-increasing bills, but because

it’s a game we actually play and enjoy ourselves

.

It’s called

CLUB

. Like those little orangey chocolate bars you used to get in your packed lunch box, but even better.

CLUB allows you to do what every single one of us has always dreamt of: to build and run your own football club.

We’re excited about CLUB because: 

1) It

really is

like running a football club. You have to sign real players from 5 European leagues (who score fantasy points), hire backroom staff, get kit sponsors and climb the football pyramid. You even get fans. 

2) You can

customise everything

. Your stadium, your club’s badge, your kit. Every club looks different, just like in real life. 

3) CLUB is about building a dynasty over multiple seasons, not just one.

4) Oh, and it's

entirely free to play

.

The bad news: CLUB is closed right now, and tens of thousands of football fans are queuing to try it out. It's a virtual queue that stretches for virtual miles, with virtual tents camped outside the virtual front doors.

The good news: CLUB have told us they'll let our subscribers (that's you) skip the queue and access their "Season Zero" test, which kicks off in a few weeks. Put it in your diary.

In the meantime, feel free to find

. You can also help shape the game and chat to the CLUB team

in their discord

. Oh, and you can

for updates, if that's your thing.

Perisic is on heat.

We found Perisic's heatmap and average position from Gameweek 3 to be quite remarkable.

Look, it's one game. But it might be a sign of things to come, and we thought you should know about it.

The best captain.

The majority of managers will be captaining Mohamed Salah at home to Bournemouth this week, which makes him the best captain. Remember: boring wins leagues.I had the pleasure of watching Bournemouth compete against Norwich in a 2-2 EFL Cup thriller on Tuesday and, if Norwich can score two past them, Liverpool can probably manage it too.Jesus and Haaland are this week's beautiful mermaids* luring us towards choppy waters. Both are obviously great options, but the risk of avoiding Salah when he'll be the most popular pick feels needless this early in the season. He has great opponents, is on penalties and has three attacking returns already this season.*unbelievably, I couldn't find an image of Haaland as a mermaid on Google images, so I turned to AI to produce an image for me. This monstrosity was the result:

Suffice to say, AI-generated art still has some way to go.

These are the key stats you need to know this week. The "x marks the spot" section is the sum of the last three gameweeks combined.

This is what his team looked like after Gameweek 3:

As per usual, we also gave GOAT the power to do anything - and we mean enn-nee-thing - to our team. He decided to roll a transfer.This is how we're looking:

By the way, the tool we're using here is Fantasy Football Hub's My Team. It's the most powerful FPL tool we've ever used, and the most handy.If you want to use it (and loads of other tools, like OPTA stats and a fixture ticker), the Hub are currently doing 30% off a membership (but they won't be for long).Full transparency: if you use the button below to join, we also get a bit of money too. About enough for a pint 🍻

As GOAT has already mentioned, next week we have midweek fixtures too, which means three gameweeks across nine days.It's highly unlikely that our favourite FPL assets will play 270 minutes across these three games. Sorry, but that's how it is. If you're making transfers, try to focus on consistent starters who aren't prone to injury.

Okay, that's your lot.There'll be plenty of press conferences today, so keep an eye on those. Our Discord has a channel dedicated to keeping you up to date with the various, ominous managerial statements about who is and who isn't starting. Join it here.Good luck for Gameweek 4. We'll see you on Monday evening ahead of Gameweek 5.The (slightly hungover) FPL Tips team.

__

p.s. if you enjoy these emails, please consider nominating us for a Football Content Award. We want to win it because "award-winning newsletter" sounds loads better than "newsletter". 

Just click this link, find the fantasy football section and type "FPLTips.com" into the Editorial field, like in the image below. Then click "vote now" to submit your vote. It only takes about three seconds.Bonus: if you want, you can let us know you've voted by replying to this email and sending us a screenshot of your team. We'll reply with a "cheers mate" and a quick review of your team.