What we learned from FPL Gameweek 1...

One Liverpool star whose performance is going under the radar, the end of the Son and Kane show, and a 0.5%-owned midfielder who is playing up front...

Welcome to the first of our regular ‘What we learned’ articles for the 2022/23 Premier League season. These articles will have a clear and simple purpose - to use our knowledge of FPL, football and the importance of value to provide useful insights that can help you win your mini-league.

We won’t just tell you things you already know (yes, Erling Haaland (FWD, £11.6m) is very good at football and will score lots of goals for Man City) but dig beneath the surface to spot the undervalued or overlooked players who could deliver points in the coming weeks and months.

Horse racing is probably the best-known British sport where this sort of analysis is commonplace. Racegoers aren’t generally looking for experts to tell them about a superstar horse that won the last race by 10 lengths. However, knowing a runner was impeded six furlongs out and ran on strongly towards the end (often despite failing to deliver any winnings for punters that day) is useful and might suggest the ‘market’ is underpricing its potential.

You see it in NFL fantasy too, where the focus is often on how many opportunities a player had to score a touchdown or catch a ball versus what actually happened. Those who underperformed expectations narrowly, often simply due to bad luck, might therefore be undervalued by other players and in line for a turn in fortunes in the following weeks - or so the theory goes.

Don’t expect every player and team to get a mention here, but rather those we think have shown something significant in the weekend’s fixtures that FPL managers should take notice of.

Now we’re all set, let’s head to Craven Cottage…

All eyes are on Mitrovic…but don’t miss the Liverpool star who showed plenty too

FPL gaffers’ eyes might understandably have been glued to the performances of double-digit points scorers Aleksandar Mitrovic (FWD, £6.6m) and Mo Salah (MID, £13m) in West London on Saturday. The former’s two-goal performance may have surprised a few, although not those who read Fantasy Gameweek’s team-by-team guides before the season kicked off (you can check out our guide to the promoted clubs here).

The general consensus that a striker who scored over 40 goals in the Championship (and could now form a central part of a ZeroForward strategy) would struggle in the top division just because that’s what happened last time always felt like a classic example of narrative ignoring facts.

Circumstances have changed, Fulham have improved and Mitrovic is clearly better - but even we were surprised at just how emphatically the Serbian proved us right.

Anyway, enough bragging - we now all know Mitrovic is a viable attacking option in FPL, and a competitive Fulham could make their assets (including the richly talented Andreas Pereira (MID, £4.5m) and, once fit, Harry Wilson (MID, £6m)) hugely valuable.

However, beyond the headlines Liverpool winger Luis Diaz’s (MID, £8m) performance was more than a little encouraging.

The Colombian might have blanked in Gameweek 1, but he had a goal ruled out, hit the bar with another beautifully controlled effort and was denied a third by a brilliant last-ditch tackle from the Fulham defender.

What’s more, Diaz was shooting early and arriving late in the box sniffing out chances, pointing to a player who will likely score a variety of different types of goals.

Over 100,000 FPL managers have transferred Diaz out following his Gameweek 1 blank. With Crystal Palace arriving at Anfield after being turned over comfortably by Arsenal and Liverpool hunting a first win of the campaign, Diaz is well-placed for a bounce back.

Spurs are no longer just about Kane and Son…

OK, so Dejan Kulusevski’s (MID, £8.1m) man-of-the-match performance against Southampton didn’t exactly go under the radar, but the fact this isn’t a new phenomenon this season perhaps has.

Kulusevski bagged 5 goals and 9 assists after joining Spurs mid-season in 2021/22, averaging a seriously impressive 7 points per 90 minutes played. Son (MID, £12m), the second top scoring player in last season’s FPL, scored 7.7 points per 90 minutes.

Kulusevski is now fully settled and firing at Spurs, and could conceivably challenge both Son and Harry Kane (FWD, £11.4m) as their most productive performer this season. Even with his £0.1m price rise at the time of writing, Kulusevski is still £3.9m cheaper than Son and £3.3m cheaper than Kane. That really matters.

Oh, and while we’re on Spurs, we did say whoever nails down a starting spot at wing-back will represent serious value-for-money given the system operated by Antonio Conte. Gameweek 1 against a porous Southampton defence demonstrated exactly why, with both Ryan Sessegnon (DEF, £4.5m) and Emerson Royal (DEF, £5m) delivering attacking returns and frequently buccaneering into the final third.

However, neither Sessegnon nor Royal are guaranteed long-term starters, with Ivan Perisic (DEF, £5.5m), Djed Spence (DEF, £4.5m) and Matt Doherty (DEF, £5m) representing threats to their respective minutes. If you had either Sessegnon or Royal in Gameweek 1, nice work - but be prepared to ship them out should they fall out of favour.

There’s a Wolves bargain in our midst…and it’s not who everyone thought…

FPL Twitter was positively HOT about Wolves’ prospects heading into Gameweek 1, with a crop of talented players available at rock bottom prices.

Much of this hype centred on Pedro Neto (MID, £5.5m), Morgan Gibbs-White (MID, £5.5m) and Daniel Podence (MID, £5.5m). While Podence bagged a well-taken goal, the others blanked in a 2-1 reversal at unfancied Leeds United.

As we said in our final team-by-team preview, talent is only likely to be converted into FPL points if combined with opportunity, which requires a team to be playing consistently well. The jury remains out on whether Wolves can deliver that, although they were a tad unlucky at the weekend and have soft fixtures coming up.

That said, Wolves have an actual striker who started, picked up an assist and is classified in FPL as a midfielder. Hwang Hee-chan (MID, £6m) looked sharp in bursts last season, is the best finisher at the club in Raul Jimenez’s absence and played 85 minutes at Elland Road. For as long as Jimenez remains unavailable, Hwang (pictured above) appears best placed to gobble up any attacking points that might be on offer.

He’s also in just 0.5% of FPL teams as things stand…

Jesus draws a blank…and we’ve never been higher on him

It was inevitable wasn’t it? Arsenal’s pre-season goal machine Gabriel Jesus (FWD, £8m) featured in over 70% of FPL line-ups in Gameweek 1 at Selhurst Park…and duly delivered zero attacking returns.

The reaction has been predictable, with over 260,000 transfers out ahead of the Gameweek 2 visit of Leicester City to the Emirates Stadium.

The trade for many will likely have been Jesus out, Mitrovic in, with valuable capital freed up to use elsewhere. However, a warning - Jesus played well in Gameweek 1, particularly in the first half, and is unlikely to keep blanking for much longer based on what we saw.

What’s more, Leicester aren’t exactly a reliable defensive unit, so don’t be surprised if we see a few FPL managers’ fingers burnt on this one by the end of Gameweek 2.

Quickfire notes

Darwin Nunez (FWD, £9m) - took goal brilliantly, could have had another, will surely have to be in Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp’s starting XI sooner rather than later. His price won’t stay at £9m once that happens.

Harry Kane (FWD, £11.4m) - Kane owners are clearly wincing after backing the wrong horse versus Haaland in Gameweek 1, and over 600,000 have already jumped ship. That makes sense for now, but the anti-Kane narrative has gone too far and he will remain a vital (potentially differential) option for managers at some point in 2022/23. If you’ve abandoned ship, don’t forget the England target man exists.

Bruno Guimaraes (MID, £6m) - looks truly transformative for Newcastle. Not guaranteed to deliver big points individually but his quality in possession raises the value of all other assets in the team.

Marcus Rashford (MID, £6.5m) - part of a poor team performance at Old Trafford against a good Brighton side. Deserves patience given his low price and the attacking returns he has previously delivered.

Brenden Aaronson (MID, £5.5m) - the 21-year-old American looked the part in Leeds’ Gameweek 1 win over Wolves and was a toenail away from a debut goal. His output in the Bundesliga last season wasn’t exactly show-stopping (4 goals and 5 assists in 26 games), but definitely one to watch.

Aston Villa - worrying opening day flop at Bournemouth. Some have already sold their assets but it’s probably worth keeping patience given a depleted Everton side are next up, and at home too.

Bournemouth - took advantage of a below-par Villa performance. Dominic Solanke (FWD, £6m) impressive in flashes in a role slightly off central stroker Kieffer Moore (FWD, £5.5m). Big returns for defender Lloyd Kelly (DEF, £4.5m) too. A team to keep an eye on for now.

Brighton - everyone is talking about Manchester United’s deficiencies but don’t overlook the other team involved in that Gameweek 1 match. Brighton are a well-oiled machine under Graham Potter, keep the ball extremely well and have talent going forward too.

Pascal Gross (MID, £5.5m) delivered the goods with two goals at Old Trafford but Leandro Trossard (MID, £6.5m) was also excellent and remains the most likely to produce big FPL returns in 2022/23.