Rob Reid with his FPL gameweek 13 player picks

Contributors, Fantasy Premier League

Here’s Rob Reid with his FPL gameweek 13 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 13 player picks




You can follow Rob on twitter here.

You can also see his team for GW13 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 13 player picks

Banker – Trent Alexander-Arnold LIV (7.2m) – cry/BHA/EVE/bou

A run of nice fixtures, with 3 out of 5 at home means that the Liverpool defence has moved firmly back onto our radars of late despite the fact they have only registered 2 clean sheets in 12 league matches so far this season. The trade-off to the lack of clean sheets is that with the premium priced Liverpool full-backs is you get their attacking potential on top. I kind of think of them more like midfielders who get the added bonus of 4 points for a clean sheet rather than 1. Both full-backs have a goal and 4 assists so far this season, but I’ve opted for the slightly more expensive Alexander-Arnold due to a slight injury concern with Robertson. The only other thing to bear in mind is that you’ll need to prepare for a blank gameweek in GW18, but I think they’ll be good for a steady stream of points until then.

Ace – Alexandre Lacazette ARS (9.3m) – SOU

Unai Emery was guilty of some very bizarre tactics in The Gunners comprehensive GW12 defeat away to Leicester, but it would certainly be a strange turn of events if he doesn’t set up in a more orthodox manner for the visit of struggling Southampton. Lacazette has 2 assists across 3 starts since his return from injury and I’m favouring him for this week’s Ace pick over the more expensive Aubameyang – mainly as I expect it’s less likely that the Frenchman will be shunted out wide. The visitors have been in wretched from of late and will need to improve considerably if they are to pull themselves clear of the relegation zone. Their defensive performances fully suggest that there will be goals for Arsenal in this one and I’d expect Lacazette to profit handsomely.

Joker (chosen on this week’s FFGeek Podcast) – Matt Doherty WOL (6.0m) – bou 

Thanks to Alex, Sergio, Ian and Geek who discussed differential assets on this week’s FFGeek Podcast. I liked all the selections, but my favourite was Geek’s selection of Matt Doherty so he’s this week’s Joker pick. The Irishman comes with a much higher price than last season and arguably a bit more baggage with Wolves having to juggle the Europa League with their EPL commitments, but there’s still no doubt about his quality. He’s got 1 goal and 2 assists so far this season and now has a decent fixture run until 2 tricky matches against City and Liverpool just after Christmas. Opponents Bournemouth currently rank 4th worst in the league for shots conceded per game and are struggling for form of late having won just 1 of the last 6. This is in contrast to the visitors who are unbeaten through this period with 3 wins to boot. As such, I fancy an away win here and 3.2% Doherty could be a nice differential both this week and moving forward.

Key Fixture Pick – Man City v Chelsea (Saturday 530pm)

Bookies Odds:
Win: Man City 2/5; Draw 4/1; Chelsea 5/1
Clean Sheet: Man City 13/8; Chelsea 10/1

Selected Anytime Goalscorer Odds: Sergio Aguero 10/13; Raheem Sterling 11/10; Gabriel Jesus 19/20; Tammy Abraham 13/5; Christian Pulisic 9/2; Mason Mount 23/5

Man City feature in the key fixture pick for the second week in a row and will be looking to bounce back after their 3-1 reverse at Anfield in GW12. Chelsea are in good form and went above City in the league last week, though it would be a brave individual who would bet on anything other than a home win at the Ethiad this weekend.

Recent history splits these two fairly equally. Both teams have won 3 apiece of the league meetings in the last 3 seasons and it took a penalty shoot-out to separate them in the League Cup Final back in February. This perhaps doesn’t tell the whole story though. The Citizens were 6-0 winners at home in the League 2 weeks before their League Cup victory and won both league matches in 2017-18. The other meeting in 2018-19 finished 2-0 to The Blues, but prior to Chelsea taking the lead in that match City had dominated possession and had squandered several good chances.

There is plenty of FPL interest in this fixture from both sides, most notably in the attacking department. Chelsea certainly have the form players in Abraham (10 goals/2 assists this season) and Pulisic (5 goals in his last 3.) The 33% of managers who own Mason Mount however will be a bit twitchier about his prospects with him only returning a single assist in his last 4 league games. City certainly have the heavyweight premium assets but Aguero has only scored once since GW6, De Bruyne only has 1 assist in his last 4 and Sterling only has 2 goals and an assist since GW3. Surely these guys are going to come good soon…

At the back, this could be a good week to give defensive assets from both sides a rest on the bench. Who knows which combination Guardiola could start with Otamendi a forgotten player at present and the seemingly more gametime secure Benjamin Mendy benched for the Liverpool game last time out. For Chelsea, their clean sheet odds are very long for a good reason though I’m sure Tomori owners won’t feel too uncomfortable leaving the 4.8m defender on their bench. As for a prediction for this one? I’m going for an entertaining 3-2 win for the home side.

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

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FFGeek contributors show their GW13 teams part 1

Help Alex Ball choose his transfers for GW13

The transfer in and out poll

Underlying stats form tables

Fixture ease schedule 

FPL GW13 captain poll

FFGeek contributors show their teams Part 2

Defender and GK player rankings

Midfielder player rankings

FFGeek imaginary wildcard

GW13 Captain analysis

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