International Break: What's happened so far?

🔴 Alexander Isak (£10.4m) joins Liverpool and features from the bench in Sweden’s second international game.

👋 Nuno Espírito Santo is sacked from Nottingham Forest, replaced by Ange Postecoglou.

🧤 Gianluigi Donnarumma (£5.5m) joins Man City. Ederson leaves for Fenerbahce.

⚽️ Yoanne Wissa (£7.5m) joins Newcastle, Spurs sign PSG’s Kolo Muani (FWD, £7.0m) on loan.

🔄 Harvey Elliott (£5.4m) and Jadon Sancho (£5.9m) join Aston Villa on loan.

🤝 Elsewhere, Ben Chilwell and Nicolas Jackson leave Chelsea, Reiss Nelson (£4.9m) joins Brentford on loan from Arsenal, and Oleksandr Zinchenko (£4.9m) is loaned to Nottingham Forest.

🤕 Ismaïla Sarr, William Saliba and Liam Delap are among those set to miss Gameweek 4 through injury.

Alright?

It feels weird emailing you during an international break, unannounced and out of the blue. Like we’ve walked into your bedroom without knocking or something.

We can only hope that we haven’t caught you in a compromising position, because we promised we’d be back during the international break if the transfer window gave us enough to talk about, and, well, it did.

So, throw some clothes on, open the curtains and smooth out the tuft in your hair. It’s a rare bonus instalment of lazy, and that can only mean there’s stuff worth getting up for.

After peacefully protesting against his imprisonment at the world’s richest football club, footballer-rights activist Alexander Isak has finally been allowed to join Liverpool for the small fee of £125m plus add-ons. Fellow Swede Greta Thunberg would surely be proud.

But what does it mean for FPL managers?

Should you buy him?

Lazy summary: Not yet.

Isak’s move has earned him a near-immediate entry into the most transferred-in FPL players ahead of Gameweek 4.

The dominant mood amongst top managers is that Isak obviously has the makings of an excellent pick, but that Gameweek 4 will probably come a bit too soon for him. He hasn’t played much football recently, so many expect him not to start against Burnley.

Instead, the prudent move appears to be - as it so often is - to wait and see. Keep an eye on the press conferences, and don’t destroy your team to bring him in yet.

What does it mean for other Liverpool players?

Lazy summary: Gakpo and Ekitike are most at risk.

Isak’s arrival presents a nice problem for Arne Slot and a tricky one for managers who own other Liverpool attackers. Liverpool’s embarrassment of riches means something (i.e. someone) will have to give.

Florian Wirtz, Cody Gakpo, Mohamed Salah, Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak must now fit into four attacking spots, assuming Slot continues with the 4-2-3-1 he’s been using so far this season.

Whilst Ekitike is the like-for-like replacement, he has plenty of experience playing down the left wing: a role currently occupied by Gakpo. These two are definitely the most at risk, which is mad, because they’ve both had incredible starts to the season.

Will Salah keep penalties?

Lazy summary: It looks like it.

Both the Premier League’s official website and numerous fan forums (which are hardly a bastion of reliability, but still) insist that Salah remains on penalties despite Isak’s arrival. We can’t find a source for these claims, but when has fan speculation ever been wrong?

Plus, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Salah’s role at Liverpool is almost dynastic at this point.

Lazy summary: Give it time.

Such was the volume of eyebrow-raising transfers on deadline day that assessing the FPL implications of each of them is an impossible task. Well, not impossible, but undesirable and probably pointless, particularly if you’re lazy.

Unlike the smell of cow shit when you’re driving past a farm, the principles that we use to judge the FPL viability of new transfers don’t suddenly disappear the moment the window closes.

Some will almost certainly come good. Harvey Elliott at £4.9m might soon be a steal. Spurs’ Kolo Muani scored in 50% of the games he played for Juventus last season. Yoanne Wissa is the sort of striker that you feel could easily rack up 20 goals in a season.

But we just don’t know. We’d tell you if we did, promise. But we don’t. The best thing we can do is to resist the new, shiny opportunities that lure us into dangerous waters like shinpad-wearing kelpies and make a decision once we have more of the good stuff (information, of course).

An international break without injuries is like a political party conference without someone making a massive arse out of themselves. It just doesn’t happen.

There are a few high-profile ones you probably already know about, but we’ll jot them down here anyway.

Ismaïla Sarr | ~4 weeks

Sarr has suffered a Grade 2 hamstring tear, which, according to Google, takes 4-8 weeks to recover from. The most popular replacement is Jack Grealish.

William Saliba | Up to a month

Saliba has an ankle injury. Riccardo Calafiori and Trevoh Chalobah are popular alternatives.

Liam Delap | ~8 weeks

Liam Delap is expected to return to training in November due to the hamstring injury he picked up against Fulham. The biggest FPL implication of this is that João Pedro now appears to be nailed as Chelsea’s starting striker, with Marc Guiu being recalled from Sunderland to offer backup.

The ambiguous bunch

There’s also a number of really big players - including Alexander Isak - that are a doubt for Gameweek 4 but could also play. Bukayo Saka and Cole Palmer may also make post-break returns, with Palmer being pictured in the background of Enzo Fernández's Instagram post lacing his boots at Chelsea training.

Matheus Cunha’s injury, meanwhile, is not as bad as first feared. He’s been pictured on an exercise bike over the break and could be in contention for Gameweek 4.

Does Declan Rice’s goal against Andorra change your FPL plans? Probably not. Still, there are some things that the international break has taught us. They’re bullet-pointed below:

The soap opera that is Nottingham Forest continues to supply us with talking points, but even the Nuno cynics (of which there were very few) were shocked by this one. Nuno Espírito Santo has been fired, replaced by Ange Postecoglou. This ought to be fun.

FPL-wise, the current narrative is that it probably devalues Forest’s defence and makes their attackers more appealing, but time will tell whether this turns out to be true.

The pick of the bunch isn’t Chris Wood, but rather their £6.1m midfielder, Dan Ndoye. He has a goal and an assist in his last two Premier League games, and impressed for Switzerland during the international break, too.

Right, we’ll be back in a few days ahead of Gameweek 4. Aside from the usual drivel, we’ll be covering stuff like chip usage, all the key stats and a tricky captaincy call. Try not to pass out from all the excitement, and remember,

Stay lazy.

The LazyFPL Team.