Rob Reid with his FPL gameweek 12 player picks

Contributors, Fantasy Premier League

Here’s Rob Reid with his FPL gameweek 12 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 12 player picks

You can follow Rob on twitter here.




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 a bit later in the season when there is more data.

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!




FPL gameweek 12 player picks

Banker (as selected by the FFG Slack Community) – Raul Jimenez (WOL) 7.2m – AVL/bou/SHU/WHU

A big thank you to David and FFG Contributor’s League leader Costas who have selected this week’s Banker Pick. David particularly likes Jimenez’s upcoming fixtures with 3 relatively easy home fixtures out of the next 4 and I would certainly agree with him in that regards. I also really like Mexican striker’s recent form – 2 goals and 2 assists in the last 4 games which included away visits to Man City and Arsenal. The Wolves front-man certainly showed his pedigree last season and he’s another one of these mid-priced forwards who are so handy for freeing up funds elsewhere, a shrewd investment I reckon!

Ace – Jamie Vardy (LEI) 9.4m – ARS

Our Banker pick from 2 weeks ago has certainly lived up to his billing and is also this week’s Ace pick in a week where there is likely to be a big split in the Captain choices. He’s in great form and is up against a defence who conceded 25 shots at home last weekend and are have developed a reputation for being somewhat flakey on the road. His ownership is also increasing fast – he accrued over 700k Transfers In last week and is at about 250k this week taking him to 26% ownership so get him while he’s hot.

Joker – Christian Pulisic (CHE) 7.3m – CRY

The only player with more Transfers In than Jamie Vardy this week is American international Pulisic with FPL managers loving the recent good form that saw him bag a hat-trick in GW10 followed by a well taken goal last week. I’d still consider him a bit of an unknown in terms of the longevity of these returns, but one thing that looks secure is his gametime, especially with Mason Mount likely to miss out with an injury this week. Whether it’s worth paying 7.3m with there being cheaper options like Hudson-Odoi available is perhaps open to debate, but 8.6% of FPL managers clearly like his prospects and I think he’s a good shout for an attacking return again this week.

Key Fixture Pick – Liverpool v Man City (Sunday 430pm)

Bookies Odds:
Win: Liverpool 13/8; Man City 8/5; Draw 5/2
Clean Sheet: Both sides 3/1
Selected Anytime Goalscorer Odds: Mo Salah 6/5; Sadio Mane 6/4; Roberto Firmino 9/4; Sergio Aguero 6/5; Raheem Sterling 6/4

It would be very wrong of me not to pick out the titanic clash between The Premier League’s current top 2 teams, even if it might be a match that doesn’t obviously lead to any massive FPL returns. Liverpool are the only unbeaten side in the league after 11 matches despite not necessarily showing the form of last season while City are hanging on to their coattails despite injuries starting to take their toll through the core of their squad.

Recent meetings between these sides have produced some very mixed results. City hold the most recent advantage – they won this year’s Community Shield on penalties, defeated The Reds 2-1 in The New Year (the last time they were beaten in the league) and held them 0-0 at Anfield in October last year. Prior to this, Liverpool had won the previous 3 meetings: 2 wins in The Champions League Quarter-finals and a 4-3 victory at Anfield; with City winning the Ethiad meeting that season 5-0 after the controversial first-half sending-off of Sadio Mane. The head-to-head between the 2 managers through their career is just as unpredictable. 7 wins and 2 draws a piece (if you count the Community Shield shoot-out victory as a City win.) Yep, this one could go either way!

Both sides have proved quite frustrating for FPL managers so far this season. ‘Big at the Back’ was a popular early season idea with Liverpool defenders Robertson, Alexander-Arnold and Van Dijk common features between teams. With only 9 goals conceded, they have the 3rd best defence in the league but they’ve only kept 2 clean sheets, hardly the defensive FPL returns of a premium defence. Their full-backs have delivered 1 goal/3 assists and 1 goal/4 assists respectively, but it’s open to debate how good a value for money they are when there are more budget-friendly options at different clubs performing as well from a total points perspective.

Similar frustration has surrounded FPL favourite Mo Salah of late as well – 5 goals and 3 assists is a decent start to the season but at 12.3m, managers will be looking for far more and will be worried about him looking a bit more peripheral in the last few matches. One player who hasn’t disappointed though is Sadio Mane. His 6 goals and 4 assists have also come with 4 double digit returns, though he is also starting to look pricey having risen 0.5m since GW6 to 12m. It should be noted though that Liverpool do have a very kind run of fixtures before their GW18 blank, so I certainly think it’s worth holding Liverpool assets (both offensive and defensive) at the moment if you own them.

For City, although their injuries may be a hindrance to their form you’d think they may also be a blessing in terms of them giving our friend Pep less of an option to rotate. But then this is Pep we’re talking about. This week’s latest casualties look to be David Silva and Ederson, with the latter flagging up more concerns about fielding a City defender this week. Likely stand-in keeper Bravo has never looked a convincing shot stopper and his antics at the San Siro this week certainly haven’t done him any favours. However, with 10 goals conceded they do have the 4th strongest EPL defence and they also have 5 clean sheets so far. I’d certainly be playing Benjamin Mendy if I owned him as I suspect it won’t be long before he’s bagging attacking returns. As for the others though, well it’s still a bit of a lottery who would start – not an ideal week to buy a City defender in I’d say!

Up front there’s the usual suspects of Aguero, Sterling and De Bruyne – it would be a brave manager who decides to jettison any of these this week as we all know that they are pretty much fixture proof. The likely injured David Silva is another matter though. His stats are good (an average xG of 0.61 across the 4 games he started from GW6-10) but he’ll likely miss out this week and I would worry about him being rested for City’s more favourable GW14 and 15 if he’s just come back from injury. There’s then a Manchester derby in GW16 followed by games against Arsenal and Leicester – a tough run. This could be a good week to sell.

From a prediction point of view, I bounced back from my GW10 aggregate disaster with a correct score in GW11! I’m going for a 2-1 win for City this week though (like Guardiola’s selection policy) it really is a bit of a lottery!

That’s all from me for this week on Player Picks folks – best of luck!

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