Here’s Rob Reid with his FPL gameweek 3 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 3 player picks
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!
Gameweek 3 Picks
Banker – Raheem Sterling (MCI) 12.1m – bou/BRI/nor/WAT
With 4 goals in 2 games already this season, Sterling already looks to have donned the old ‘essential’ tag. And with the fixtures looking great for the next 4 weeks, there should be plenty more to come from the England star. Next up is a visit to the south coast and a Bournemouth defence that shipped 70 goals last season, the 3rd worst in the league. Their last meeting at the Vitality back in March was tighter than you would have expected, with City coming away with a 1-0 win, but with it being early in the season, you’d expect the Citizens to play a bit more freely with the in-form Sterling set to profit and reward what will no doubt be a large number of managers who will captain him this week.
Ace (as picked by the FFG Twitter Community) – Harry Kane (TOT) 11.0m – NEW
Many thanks to the 751 Twitter users who voted on this week’s Poll. That’s our biggest poll yet so cheers folks!
It was close, but Harry Kane was the winner with 47% of the vote (though I simply couldn’t ignore Sterling’s 41% hence why he has been given the Banker spot ahead of Kevin De Bruyne who was my other main thought here.) We all know that Kane can return against anyone and if you couple that with a very attractive fixture, for me he is the best captain choice this week. We can certainly forgive a blank last week in a game where Spurs conceded the bulk of the possession of Man City (and yet still managed to score with 2 of their 3 attempts on goal) and he looked very sharp against Villa in GW1 where he netted a late double.
Opponents Newcastle already look like they are going to have their work cut out to avoid the drop and have lost their last 4 meetings against Spurs, though only by 1 goal in 3 of those. They conceded an alarming 12 shots in the box against Championship winners Norwich last week and it will be a hard ask for them to recreate their 15-16 record against the North Londoners where they won both meetings with an aggregate of 7-2.
Joker – Leandro Trossard (BHA) 6.0m – SOU
Brighton have started the season impressively and would certainly count themselves unlucky not to be sitting on maximum points after West Ham battled to a 1-1 draw with them at the Amex in GW2. Belgian U21 international Trossard looks a shrewd signing for The Seagulls and opened his account for his new club last weekend with a nicely taken goal as well as being unlucky to have a fine volley chalked off via Big Brother VAR. He also had 3 attempts in the box to add to his goal and posted a tidy xG of 0.55, all of which bodes well for the visit of south coast rivals Southampton this week. The visitors have conceded 5 goals in their opening 2 defeats, all of which have come in open play which bodes well for the energetic Belgian, who will be keen to add to his tally.
Key Fixture Pick – Liverpool vs Arsenal (Saturday 530pm)
Odds:
Win – Liverpool 8/15; Arsenal 11/2; Draw 7/2
Clean Sheet – Liverpool 7/4; Arsenal 8/1
Selected Anytime Goalscorer Picks – Salah 21/20; Mane 6/5; Firmino 7/5; Aubameyang 2/1; Lacazette 12/5
It’s to Anfield for this week’s key fixture pick with another fixture which has seen it’s fair share of goals in previous years. And this season lines up to be no exception – the only two 100% records in the league and the 3 players who shared last season’s Golden Boot. Surely we’re in for another goal-fest!
For Liverpool, Jurgen Klopp is unbeaten against The Gunners (4W/3D) with The Reds having notched up an impressive 23 goals in the 7 occasions they have faced Arsenal during his tenure. Not great reading for The Gunners backline. A word of caution for Liverpool defenders though – they have also conceded 12 goals across these 7 games, hence why the clean sheet odds for both sides are fairly long. Unai Emery does know how to get the better of Klopp as well, just look at the 2016 Europa League final when Emery was in charge of Sevilla for the evidence.
The home side’s most obvious players to watch are the front three. Sadio Mane is being heavily backed this week with many managers looking to save themselves 1m by jumping to him from teammate Salah. He has a good record against Arsenal with 5 goals and 2 assists in 10 league matches. But before you hit the transfer button this would probably be a good time to tell you that Salah’s record against The Gunners is better – 4 goals and 3 assists in just 4 league matches.
It’s certainly a sign of how fickle FPL managers can be that a single blank makes Mo this week’s most transferred out player at present! Better than both Salah and Mane though is Roberto Firmino. He has 8 goals and 3 assists in 8 league matches against this week’s opponents, including a hat-trick in the their latest match-up last December, a thumping 5-1 home win for The Reds. So is the Brazilian the best attacking option this week? You pay your money and you take your chance.
As for Arsenal, Aubameyang has scored in both fixtures so far this season though may not be at the forefront of FPL managers minds taking the opposition into account. The same could also be said about strike partner Lacazette, despite him also finding the net against Burnley last weekend, but I certainly wouldn’t bet against either getting on the scoresheet on Saturday. Firmly on our radars though is Daniel Cabellos who is the second most transferred in player this week after his 2 assists last Saturday. At 5.6m he could be a great budget enabler in the midfield, though I’d advise caution – his stats at Real Betis and Real Madrid were hardly eye-catching and he also faces a tough north London derby in GW4 so it might be better to watch and wait on the Spanish international midfielder at this stage.
That’s all from me this week folks – good luck!
Other GW3 posts
7 FFGeek contributors show their GW3 teams
Analysing 10 top FPL managers teams
Early thoughts on the FFGeek team
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