🚨 R16: The World Cup Fantasy cheat sheet.

⏰ The Round of 16 deadline is Saturday 4th July, 18:00 BST.

4️⃣ You can now select a maximum of 4 players per country, and make 4 free transfers.

💰 Spurs sign West Ham’s Mateus Fernandes for £85m. Additionally, an agreement has been reached between Spurs and Sandro Tonali for a total deal of £100m (David Ornstein).

✍️ Chelsea sign attacking right-back Marco Palestra from Atalanta for €55m.

🤝 Oliver Glasner is expected to be appointed manager at Nottingham Forest (multiple sources).

🕊️ Brighton sign Pascal Struijk from Leeds. They’ve also agreed a deal for Spurs’ centre-back Luka Vuskovic for £50m, according to The Athletic.

🔵 Everton sign Championship Player of the Season Hayden Hackney. The Professor describes the central midfielder as a “unicorn ball progressor” in the latest LazyFPL Premium podcast.

Alright?

We ran a survey in the last newsletter, and the majority of you want us to continue with our World Cup Fantasy coverage. Just like a doting performer, and very much unlike a UK politician, we’re going to listen to the people.

But there’ll still be some FPL in this one. The machinations of domestic football continue to hum away in the backrooms of this World Cup, and they’ve been humming particularly loudly since we last spoke.

So, you’re getting the best of both. Like a loaf of Hovis, but with even more crust.

As the World Cup progresses and the bracket gets smaller, the number of attractive fixture runs shrinks too. Funny, that.

We're now at the stage where only a handful of teams have favourable routes through multiple rounds. In a cruel twist of fate for everyone else, it’s Argentina and France that are the standout examples.

Outside of those two, there aren't many great fixture runs left. As such, it’s time to focus less on fixtures and more on picking players from the teams you think will progress. Remember, every player in your team that progresses is one less headache you have to deal with in the next round.

Long-Term Targets.

🇦🇷 Argentina vs Egypt → Switzerland/Colombia

🇫🇷 France vs Paraguay → Canada/Morocco

Argentina and France are the two standout teams to target, with comfortably the easiest paths to the semi-finals. Having 3-4 players from each feels sensible.

🇪🇸 Spain vs Portugal → Belgium/USA

Portugal are no gimme, but if you back Spain to progress against their Iberian rivals, it's probably worth adding to your Spanish contingent. A victory against Ronaldo and his supporting cast would set up a more manageable quarter-final against Belgium or the USA.

Short-Term Targets.

For the “live in the moment” types among you, there are some teams who have relatively kind fixtures in the Round of 16. We say “relatively” because all of these opponents still pose a challenge.

🇧🇷 Brazil vs Norway

🇲🇦 Morocco vs Canada

🇧🇪 Belgium vs USA

🇨🇴 Colombia vs Switzerland

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England vs Mexico

Unless there are some upsets, none of these teams can expect particularly favourable quarter-final fixtures.

This is a good time to trust your gut. We sort of hate saying that, because it’s not the sort of advice we’d dish out in the FPL season (as we always say, your gut is for absorbing nutrients, not bad ideas).

Still, it applies here. Lock in picks from Argentina and France, then fill the gaps with players you back to progress.

Transfers aren’t socks: there’s no one-size-fits-all answer this week. Shockingly, we don’t know who’s in your team and how much you have to spend.

So, we’ve pulled together this transfer helper. It tries to cover all bases, like a hyperactive kid playing rounders.

Players highlighted in yellow are those who could qualify for the Scouting Bonus by the deadline.

Goalkeepers

Defenders

Midfielders

Forwards

Funny old chip, this one. Mostly because it sounds like a washing detergent.

The idea is simple enough: your goalkeepers, defenders and midfielders keep their clean sheet points even if they concede one goal.

In practice, though, it's hard to get that excited about it. The problem is that the Clean Sheet Shield doesn't really create points; it just prevents you from losing them.

If all your defenders keep clean sheets, the chip hasn't really helped. Managers without the chip get those same clean sheet points anyway.

Likewise, if your defenders concede two or more goals, the chip does nothing.

The sweet spot is teams conceding exactly once. That's when the chip turns a blank into a return and gives you points that non-chip managers don't receive. The challenge is predicting which teams will concede exactly one goal.

That's why opinions are split. Some managers are trying to identify teams most likely to concede exactly once. Others are ignoring that entirely and simply backing the defenders they'd want anyway.

Our view is fairly straightforward: don't overthink it.

Argentina and France have strong clean sheet odds this round. Morocco are also backed by the bookies. Build the defence you'd naturally want, activate the chip, and if a couple of those teams concede exactly once, happy days.

Every round, we get half as many captaincy rotations as the week before.

This week, we have a depressingly low maximum of just eight rotations. Yes, that means you only get eight attempts to land on a haul.

Woe is us.

Soon, we’ll reach the final, where there’ll be no rotations available. But luckily, there’s a chip for that.

Until then, our goal remains the same: continue chasing that elusive 15+ point captaincy haul. Here are our preferred captaincy picks from each Round of 16 fixture:

Hakimi vs CAN
Mbappé vs PAR
Vinícius Júnior vs NOR
Kane vs MEX
Oyarzabal vs POR
Trossard vs USA
Messi vs Egypt
Díaz vs Switzerland

It’s been a busy week for the transfer market - the busiest yet by some margin.

From an FPL perspective, it’s less exciting: Most of the big moves so far have been centre-backs and defensive midfielders. But those still affect team performance, so it’d be remiss of us not to give them some digital column inches here.

Spurs’ spending spree continues.

Spurs have continued to splash the cash this summer. After buying Jean Paul van Hecke for £52m, and picking up Andy Robertson and Marcos Senesi on free transfers, they’ve just spent a casual £85m on West Ham’s Mateus Fernandes.

There’s also a strong rumour they’ll part with £92.5m + £7.5m in add-ons for Sandro Tonali.

Imagine spending a combined £185m for midfielders that don’t score that many FPL points. Bizarre.

We’ll pay homage to Spurs’ strengthened squad and what it could mean for their 26/27 FPL prospects nearer to Gameweek 1.

Glasner to Nottingham Forest.

It looks certain that Oliver Glasner of Crystal Palace fame will end up managing Nottingham Forest. Which, no offence to Forest fans, feels like a bit of a downgrade.

When it comes to managerial positions, Nottingham Forest are like a poor man’s Chelsea, or a rich man’s UK Prime Minister. They cycled through four managers last season, and that turbulence is mostly attributed to the whims of their controversial owner, Evangelos Marinakis.

It remains to be seen whether Oliver Glasner can steady the ship, but without Eliot Anderson, he’ll have his work cut out.

Marco Palestra: A sign of things to come at Chelsea?

Chelsea’s first big signing of the summer, 21-year-old attacking wing-back Palestra, is being read as a sign that Xabi Alonso is planning to prioritise a wing-back formation next season.

FPL managers will be hoping it’s true. Chelsea’s wing-backs are a fine vintage: some of you will remember the exploits of FPL icons like Marcus Alonso and Ben Chilwell, and whilst the modern-day equivalents haven’t quite hit those heights, players like Reece James, Malo Gusto and Marc Cucurella have all enjoyed phases of impressive FPL returns.

We’re conservative when it comes to buying new arrivals to the Premier League, so we probably won’t be recommending Palestra for your Gameweek 1 squad. But he’s certainly one to watch.

Brighton are also investing.

Brighton are attacking the transfer window with intent by buying a few defenders. Having sold Jean Paul van Hecke to Spurs, The Athletic have reported that a deal has been reached to buy Spurs’ centre-back, Luka Vuskovic, for about the same amount.

We’re no experts, but they probably could’ve saved themselves some admin and just traded them, like real-life football stickers.

They’ve also signed defender Pascal Struijk from Leeds. He hit defensive contributions on 13 occasions last season, so there’s that.

Right, the World Cup quarter-finals start on Thursday in the UK, so we’ll be in your inbox at some point before that. Probably Wednesday, knowing us.

If you’re one of those putting in the night shift to see England get beaten by Mexico, good luck. It’s a hard life, isn’t it?

Stay lazy,

The LazyFPL Team.