Here’s Rob Reid with his FPL gameweek 7 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 7 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 7 player picks
Banker – Nicolas Otamendi MCI (5.5) eve/WOL/cry/AVL
A key FPL player in last week’s hammering of Watford, ‘The General’ looks to now be City’s most secure defensive asset. Not quite content with playing for one of the leagues best and in-form defences, he’s also a dangerous attacking threat with 9 goal attempts so far this season – 4 of these in the 6 yard box. With Laporte out until next year and Stones also injured likely until November it looks pretty unlikely he’s going to lose his place in the side, which sets him apart from the uber-uber City attacking defence option of Benjamin Mendy for example. Add to that his reasonable 5.5m price tag and low ownership and you’ve got a standout FPL defensive option.
Ace – Tammy Abraham CHE (7.5m) – BHA
Thank you to everyone who participated in this week’s slightly different Twitter poll, voting for the fixture rather than the player where the Ace Pick would be selected on. I decided to run it this way as there were simply too many options to list in a 4 selection poll and although it was close, the winning fixture was Chelsea vs Brighton. I’ve picked out Tammy Abraham from this match-up. He’s hit the ground running this season with 7 goals in his first 6 games and will be confident of adding to this tally over the next few weeks with Chelsea’s fixtures set fair. The visiting Seagulls have lost all 4 of their Premier League matches against The Blues, scoring just once and conceding 11 times in the process. New manager Potter will certainly have to weave his magic wand to arrest this trend.
Joker – Heung-Min Son TOT (9.7m) – SOU
I’m seeing 8.8% owned Son in a lot of Wildcard line-ups this week and with good reason. Spurs’ form may have been patchy so far this season and they did suffer the indignity of tumbling out of the Carabao Cup to League 2 Colchester this week, but the South Korean has looked sharp in the last 3 league fixtures with 3 consecutive returns including a 16 point bonanza in GW5. This week’s opponents Southampton were all over the shop defensively in GW6 at home to Bournemouth and I suspect that Son’s pace and movement will cause them a lot of problems this week. FPL owners will certainly hoping this lead to another bumper return.
Key Fixture Pick – Everton vs Man City (Saturday 530pm)
Bookies Odds:
Win: Everton 9/1; Man City 1/3; Draw 9/2
Clean Sheet: Everton 9/1; Man City 11/10
Selected Anytime Goalscorer Odds: Richarlison 7/2; Dominic Calvert-Lewin 7/2; Sergio Aguero 4/5; Raheem Sterling Evens; Kevin De Bruyne 14/5
The form book certainly suggests an away win here with the bookmakers opinions matching this – 9/1 for a team to win a one-off game are the kind of odds you’d expect to see more frequently in a 3rd round FA Cup match. Everton have lost 3 of their last 4 fixtures and were surprisingly defeated 2-0 at home by an unfancied Sheffield United side last week. City in contrast bounced back from their surprise defeat at Carrow Road in GW5 with a thumping 8-0 demolition of a meek Watford side in GW6, once again serving FPL managers with notice of just how explosive their attacking assets can be. Mind you, past history shows that City certainly haven’t had it all their own way against The Toffees in recent years. The Citizens won both fixtures last season, but a Wayne Rooney inspired Everton took a point at the Ethiad in 2017-18 and Guardiola suffered probably his worst result as City manager at Goodison in January of 2017 where they were thumped 4-0.
We’ll start with a look at the visitors and I’m sure their attacking assets will feature heavily of most managers radars this week. Top of the pops is surely Sergio Aguero – he’s returned in every gameweek so far and got another rest in midweek so looks a sure starter this Saturday. Not far behind though is Kevin De Bruyne. 2 goals, 7 assists and 9 bonus from the 40% owned Belgian – it’s also worth noting that he’s returned in every game he’s started this season. And then there’s Raheem Sterling. Us FPL managers are a fickle bunch aren’t we? 2 blanks and a rest week and he’s being sold in droves this week; this is a guy who scored 5 times in the first 3 gameweeks and has 35 goals and 32 assists in the last 2 seasons. It surely won’t be long before he nets a big double figure haul!
Outside these premium players, let’s not forget that there were also double figure returns for Mahrez, Otamendi, David Silva and most notably Bernardo Silva last week – all of these players can potentially supplement one or two of the premiums very nicely, though do pay attention to who started in the Carabao Cup in midweek in case they have their minutes managed.
For the home side, it might be wise to avoid their defence this week. Prospective opponents aside, The Toffees have conceded 9 goals in their last 4 games and not kept a clean sheet since GW2 – owners of Lucas Digne will certainly be concerned by this trend. Going forward, Richarlison is their highest scoring player so far this season, though his 2 goals and assist don’t really scream value when you’ve got the likes of John McGinn, Mason Mount and Todd Cantwell with similar records at a much cheaper price. Perhaps the better value picks lie with cheaper options Alex Iwobi or Dominic Calvert-Lewin though I suspect managers would probably prefer to wait until next week if they’re considering bringing them in. As for my prediction for this one? I’m going 2-0 to Man City.
That’s all from me for this week on Player Picks folks – best of luck!
Other posts
GW7 analysing 10 top FPL managers
Early thoughts on the FFGeek team
Defender and GK player rankings
FFGeek contributors teams part 1
More content
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
FFGeek league code codes:
fantasy premier league: fnqq66
Sky Sports fantasy football: fantasyfootball.skysports.com/leagues/join with PIN 8426114
Telegraph fantasy football: passcode 8693. PIN code 8000919. The telegraph have also offered a prize of £100 to the winner.
Telegraph fantasy football European Super League: League PIN: 8186902 League Passcode: 2113
Sun Dream Team:
Classic League PIN: SGDKX9Y3
H2H PIN: SGFU3CR9
Social Media
For more articles like FPL Gameweek 7 player picks follow FFGeek on twitter and facebook and instagram for article updates and news
