Rob Reid with his FPL gameweek 2 player picks

Contributors, Fantasy Premier League

Here’s Rob Reid with his FPL gameweek 2 player picks to help you decide on transfers for your team. Rob has finished 3 of the last 5 seasons in the top 0.5% of FPL managers

Rob Reid with his FPL gameweek 2 player picks





Geek note: If you join our Patreon site you will get access to an FPL contributor tracker team which combines the contributors individual teams each week to show their favourite players, transfers and captains. It will always be completed on a Friday/Saturday in a normal gameweek. There will also be a spreadsheet of each managers teams, transfers and captains so you can drill down further.

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Hi everyone and welcome to Player Picks!

After the success of the previous 2 seasons, Player Picks is back again for 2019-2020 with a fairly similar format. I’ve decided to pare back the stats from previous weeks picks so that they will just include an average for the season – hopefully this should make the article a little bit simpler. Otherwise I’ll be sticking to the same format of a Banker, Ace and Joker as I’ve followed in previous years.

As a reminder, the Banker is predominantly a fixture-based pick where I follow them for 4 weeks and average the score over that period. The Ace is a 1 week pick who I think will do well and would make an appealing Captain choice. The Joker is a differential pick with less than 10% ownership who I think might do well that week. For reference, the overall 2018-19 picks averaged as follows: Banker 5.22, Ace 6.11, Joker 4.92. Hopefully (with some help as you’ll see below) we can beat that this season. I’ll start to look at the 2019-20 averages from GW4.

This season I’m also going to add a ‘Key Fixture’ analysis to Player Picks. This is where I’ll pick one fixture for the gameweek in question which I think FPL managers should consider covering in their squad. I’ll look at previous meetings, bookies odds and form in this – it might be a fixture where we already have a Player Pick, it might not! There will still also be Twitter polls where the FFG Twitter Community have an opportunity to select players, but also new for this season is a contribution from the FFG Slack Channel where Patreon users will have chance to directly contribute to the weekly picks through the Player Picks forum. So without further ado, let’s get on with this weeks Picks!



GW2 Picks

Banker – Marcus Rashford (MAN) £8.6m – wol/PAL/sou/LEI

A 4-0 thumping of Chelsea was a fine opening to the season for the Red Devils, with them posting notice that perhaps they have rediscovered the form they showed directly after Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s appointment. At the forefront of this was England striker Marcus Rashford, with 2 goals and full set of bonus points putting him firmly back on our FPL radars after his form stuttered at the end of the 18-19 campaign. His second goal was a tidy finish, but his first goal was arguably more key as it appears he now also has penalty duties. With his stock rising quickly it may be that his price is closer to £9m come GW3, but with a decent run of fixtures until Arsenal visit Old Trafford in GW7 I suspect he’ll offer good value. We’ll be watching his form in the tricky GW2 away trip to Wolves with interest!

Ace – Pierre Emerick Aubameyang (ARS) £11m – BUR

Of the premium players, Aubameyang certainly has the pick of this week’s fixtures compared with rival premium assets what with Manchester City facing Spurs and Liverpool visiting St Mary’s on the back of a tiring midweek journey to Istanbul. The Gunners’ star netted the winner in GW1 against Newcastle and has a great record against this week’s opponents Burnley, with 6 goals and assists across 3 appearances in the Premier League. At £11m he is expensive and you will have to make compromises elsewhere to work him into your squad. But if you already have him, I think he’s a great captaincy option for this week, with nearly 28% of FPL managers hoping he’ll produce the goods.

Joker (chosen by the FFG Slack Community) Teemu Pukki (NOR) £6.5m – NEW

A big thank you to the Slack forum this week for their suggestions for the Joker pick and I’ve gone for the 2018-19 FFG Contributor’s League Champion Yaniv Salomon’s selection of Teemu Pukki. The Finnish striker was the star of Norwich’s victorious Championship campaign last season and seems to have picked up where he left off last season on the goal front. Norwich were battered defensively in the first-half at Anfield last Friday, but they did show promise going forward and they won’t be playing the European Champions every week. I fancy they’ll do ok against teams outside the top 6, especially at Carrow Road which has traditionally been a difficult place for teams to visit. The Canaries face a far more profligate side in Newcastle this week and will be hoping that cracks have appeared in The Magpies defence following the departure of Rafa Benitez in the summer. Pukki will certainly fancy his chances of adding to his Premier League tally.

Key Fixture Pick – Aston Villa vs Bournemouth (Saturday 3pm)

Odds:

Win – Aston Villa 13/10; Bournemouth 2/1; Draw 5/2

Clean Sheet – Aston Villa 9/4; Bournemouth 3/1

Selected Anytime Goalscorer Picks – Callum Wilson 6/4; Wesley 7/5; Josh King 9/4; Ryan Fraser 7/2; John McGinn 11/2

After Manchester City’s stars filled their FPL boots in last week’s key fixture pick, I’ve gone for what I think will be another high-scoring affair with plenty of FPL options on show. Both teams failed to win on the opening weekend and will be keen to get their season kick-started with 3 points in GW2. Villa emerged from GW1 with more plaudits and their gutsy display against Spurs was only foiled by a late show from Sir Harold of Kane. The Cherries on the other hand will have been disappointed by a stuttering display at home to Sheffield United and were denied 3 points by an 88th minute strike by the ‘Sharp’ end of The Blades.

Bournemouth’s strike duo of Wilson and King are the highest owned attacking assets in this fixture and will need to be more lively than in their opening salvo if they are to avoid being sold in droves for the daunting trip to The Ethiad. On the other hand, Villa striker Wesley showed promise last weekend and is an intriguing option moving forward at just £6m, with good fixtures and only 1.1% ownership. In midfield, it’s the battle of the Scots. Ryan Fraser was very quiet last weekend but did bag 7 goals and 14 assists last season. Fellow countryman John McGinn was more impressive last week looking lively and producing a good finish for Villa’s goal – he posted a similar goal/assist record last season to Fraser, albeit in the division below.

Defensively the bookies odds suggest that there won’t be a clean sheet in this one and the stats back this up. Aston Villa conceded the most shots in the box last week – 17 compared with the next highest of 11. And Bournemouth ranked second for big chances conceded against Sheffield United last week at 4, with only West Ham conceding more against Manchester City. There are some defensive players on our FPL radars though. £4.5m goalkeeper Tom Heaton showed last weekend why he was previously such a popular FPL asset at Burnley – he looks like he’ll pick up a bundle of save points for The Villains this season. For the visitors, it was Chris Mepham who picked up the plaudits last Saturday with a goal and 2 bonus points, but we’re probably all keeping a keen eye on £4.0m full-back Diego Rico to see if he can keep his place in the team. We all love a cheap playing defender don’t we!

In terms of predictions, there is little past data to suggest any trends. The teams met 3 times in the 2015-16 season with one win apiece in the league and Villa coming out on top in the FA Cup. Both sides are completely different beasts compared to 4 seasons ago though so this bears little relevance in my opinion. What we do know is that neither team had a great defensive record last season, so I’d be expecting some goals in this – I’m going to go for a 2-2 draw as my guess!

That’s all from me this week folks – good luck!

Geek note: If you join our Patreon site you will get access to an FPL contributor tracker team which combines the contributors individual teams each week to show their favourite players, transfers and captains. It will always be completed on a Friday/Saturday in a normal gameweek. There will also be a spreadsheet of each managers teams, transfers and captains so you can drill down further.

You also get:

Joe’s interactive transfer planner and points projection tool

Weekly podcasts with myself and the contributors

FFGeek private leagues

Access to the FFGeek Slack channel for discussion with the contributors and members

$2 and $3 tiers per calendar month. No commitment beyond 1 month

Other posts

See our  bandwagons and sinking ships article,  fixture ease article  10 top FPL managers article,  gameweek 1 review article and the early FFGeek team thoughts article.

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