Gameweek 9 | Everything you need to know.

The Stuff You Should Know

🚨 Gameweek 9’s deadline is Friday 25th October, 18:30 BST.

🤕 Saka is “unlikely” for GW9 according to Arteta but some sources claim otherwise. Late decision to be made.

🤦‍♂️ “Too early” to make a call on Welbeck’s availability for GW9.

👀 Grealish ruled out for 7-10 days, Doku out for “longer”.

🙁 Calafiori forced off on Tuesday and will undergo a scan.

🙃 Son missing from training and was a “bit sore” after GW8. Rested for Thursday and will be monitored.

🟥 Saliba to miss Liverpool as he serves a one-match suspension.

Stick around for a brand new section.

Alright?

It’s been a while since we hung out in these parts on a Thursday night.

Definitely a different atmosphere around here; a “pause-your-music-and-keep-your-wits-about-you” sort of vibe. Still, there’s strength in numbers, and as of last week there’s more lazy managers than there are people who live in Harrogate. We’ll be fine.

Thanks to the ~2,500 of you who responded to last week’s poll.

As promised, your answers have an impact on how we’ll do things going forward. Aside from “you’re already perfect” (oh, please), the most popular responses were “more differentials” and “more data”.

So we’ve created a new section called “Penetrative Stats” that we hope will remedy both of these requests simultaneously. More about that shortly.

Find a cool, dark place and tell your loved ones you’re busy tonight: it’s time for the Gameweek 9 briefing.

Gameweek 9’s fixtures.

Subscribe to LazyNFL for free.

We have a sister newsletter called LazyNFL.

It’s like LazyFPL but for Fantasy NFL instead. If you play Fantasy NFL you need it in your life.

You can subscribe for free with one click if you want ⬇️

Arsenal’s woes.

Summary for the Lazy: Arsenal aren’t as good without Saliba, Saka’s status remains ambiguous but managers are selling regardless.

Arsenal have been a nail in the arse of many an FPL manager ever since the majority of us Wildcarded their players in. They’re one more poor performance away from being called Arsenail from now on.

Depending on the source you read, Bukayo Saka is either ruled out of Gameweek 9 or likely to play. The most recent relatively reliable update from SamC_reports is that he should be okay to face Liverpool, but Arteta said he was “unlikely” the day before.

Regardless, his availability isn’t the only question mark looming over him.

A tough run of fixtures (LIV, new, che, NFO) combined with some tempting options elsewhere (Cole Palmer, to name but one) means managers are getting rid en masse.

Only his suspended colleague, William Saliba, has more sellers at the time of writing. On researching this, I accidentally Googled “Arsenal without Saliva” and was disappointed to find these stats, rather than a bunch of dry mouthed Premier League players:

“I can’t be bothered to zoom in on that”:

• Arsenal have played 11 games without Saliba and 73 with him.

• Arsenal’s win % without Saliba is just 45.5% (vs 74%)

• Arsenal concede an average of 1.6 goals per game without Saliba (vs 0.8)

None of this bodes well for Arsenal given the fixtures that await them, and the implications on FPL managers are two-fold:

1) Other Arsenal players - particularly those responsible for preventing goals - could suffer.

2) Liverpool assets might not struggle with this weekend’s fixture as much as we might’ve imagined a week ago.

It’s worth noting that Saliba only has a one-match ban here. In our view, it would be wasteful to use a transfer on him when a benching would suffice.

Penetrative Stats - the NEW section.

Summary for the Lazy: Raul Jimenez is decent.

As many of you will know, we don’t advocate for buying or captaining differentials at this stage of the season. Picking differentials this early (and yes, it’s still early) is neither Lazy nor optimal.

But many of you don’t mind playing sub-optimally if it means:

• having fun.

• getting one over on a rival - even if just for a gameweek.

• giving yourself an outside chance of winning the whole thing.

So we’re going to indulge your thirst. To reiterate: we don’t recommend acting on these picks if you want the highest possible rank by the end of the season. This is for managers who would prefer to take risks in the knowledge that they probably won’t pay off.

You’ve been warned.

What is Penetrative Stats?

The idea of Penetrative Stats is to do a deep dive on a differential pick based on an interesting stat (or set of stats) we’ve unearthed during our research. This could mean:

• a player who has remarkable underlying stats who is being ignored.

• a player who has a particularly consistent history against their upcoming opponents.

• a player who is on an anomalously impressive run of form at a certain stadium.

• a player who is excelling due to a subtle strategic or positional shift.

The curious case of Raul Jimenez.

Perhaps it’s fitting that the first ever Penetrative Stats focuses its gaze on an FPL legend, Raul Jimenez.

Jimenez is everything we might want from a differential: he carries great form, plays for an underrated team and has the sort of FPL pedigree that makes others in his price bracket look like prepubescent youths.

He also has eve, BRE, cry and WOL in his next four - a decent enough run.

It’s intriguing, then, that he’s still only owned by just 8% of managers. Danny Welbeck - an apt comparison given his price and form - is owned by over 20% of managers.

As you can see, Jimenez’s stats since he started regularly are better in literally every department compared to Welbeck’s.

But even more ridiculously, only Cole Palmer has a better expected goal involvement (xG + xA) than Jimenez over that same time period. We could’ve picked nearly any player to compare him to, and he’d still come out on top.

A reminder: he’s 8% owned.

Is Jimenez on penalties?

Those with a good enough memory will remember that Jimenez was a bit of a penalty merchant back in the day.

He took (and scored) a penalty in Gameweek 6, and then had to apologise because Andreas Pereira had been given penalty duties for Fulham.

As expected Pereira took the latest of Fulham’s penalties last gameweek and…missed. It was dreadful, too.

So now there’s some ambiguity about who will take the next one. That’s all good news for Jimenez and his owners. If he’s back on penalties, it adds even more value to his already decent price-tag.

So what have we learned?

Well, Jimenez:

• is cheap

• has incredible underlying stats

• players for a decent team

• has returned in every single start this season

• has decent fixtures

• could be on penalties

• is owned by very few managers

Opportunities like that don’t come around too often.

Man City’s injuries (and what it means for Foden).

Summary for the Lazy: Injuries to other Man City attackers means Foden is more likely to start against Southampton. He’s cheap and a differential atm.

Jack Grealish and Jeremy Doku have been ruled out for the time being.

Grealish is expected to be absent for 7-10 days, and Pep has only said that Doku will be out for “longer” - so anywhere between 10 days and forever.

This coincides with the return of Phil Foden, who played 90 minutes on Wednesday night in Man City’s 5-0 win over Sparta Prague. It took him just 4 minutes to score.

Some managers are excited by these developments.

Lest we forget that Foden scored 19 goals and registered eight assists last season. He also started this campaign at £9.5m, but is currently just £9.2m due to price drops.

There’s a decent chance that at some point in the season, you’re gunna want him in your team.

For all of Man City’s depth, Pep’s hand is being somewhat forced by these additional absences, and we’d be unsurprised if Foden gets a start this weekend.

If he notches a few returns at home to Southampton, don’t expect him to be 6.7% owned for long.

The best captain for Gameweek 9.

Summary for the Lazy: It’s Haaland. The Triple Captain isn’t a terrible idea either, but we’re waiting for a double.

Yeah, look, we know he’s blanked in the last three fixtures but whatever. If you own Erling Haaland, you captain him at home to Southampton.

Then there’s this:

Some managers are contemplating the Triple Captain on Haaland this week.

We don’t hate it. Southampton are a rare mix of defensively weak but also strategically stubborn. As Russell Martin said in his press conference: "We are going with a gameplan to try and win the game, not to avoid too much damage."

The elephant in the room is the Double Gameweeks. Whilst FPL themselves have played down the size and frequency of doubles this season (owing to domestic cup schedule changes), Man City (and other top teams) are highly likely to have a Double Gameweek at some point between now and Gameweek 38.

We’d rather hold out for a double. More minutes = more opportunities for points. It’s as simple as that.

But if you are reconciled with using it in a single gameweek, the fixture pairings don’t get much better than this.

Very unusually for The Professor, he’s made an early transfer this week.

Bukayo Saka OUT, Cole Palmer IN.

He’s also contemplating removing Gabriel, but nothing is set in stone. You’ll need to sign-up to LazyFPL Premium if you want confirmation on this move prior to the Gameweek 9 deadline.

Erling Haaland gets the armband. But not the triple armband.

The key stats.

Get some Sleep(er).

We reckon Friday night’s fixture is going to be a boring draw. If you disagree, you’re probably a decent candidate for playing Sleeper.

Predict results and win prizes with LazyFPL and Sleeper. It’s totally free and takes about a minute to sign-up.

Other stuff we found interesting.

• 1134 people transferred in Kudus after his goal but before he got sent off.

• With 6 goals, Gvardiol is the top scoring Premier League defender in 2024.

• It’s likely Jota will miss Gameweek 9.

• Reece James’ minutes will be monitored upon his return.

Normal early kick-off service resumes next week, so we’ll see you next Friday morning. Looking forward to it already.

Stay lazy,

The LazyFPL Team.