What we learned from FPL Gameweek 2...

Do you see a duck or a rabbit?

During episode six of the riveting, illuminating and at times hilarious All or Nothing series currently airing on Amazon Prime, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta pulls a picture up on his iPad. You can see the image he beams on to the big screen over his right shoulder below…

“What do you see?” the Spaniard asks. “A duck,” a woman off-camera says. “I normally see a rabbit,” a second person says.

“This is the most difficult thing at a football club,” Arteta says. “My only aim is that everybody sees the duck or the rabbit, because if you see a duck and I see a rabbit then we are moving in different directions.”

Arteta was talking about the importance of having a common vision when managing a football team, but the duck/rabbit picture also has a slightly different application in FPL.

In a debate with a friend about Luis Diaz’s (MID, £8m) performance for Liverpool against Crystal Palace on Monday evening, I found someone who saw identical events in a very different way.

There was some concern over Diaz’s value in FPL, he argued, because he’d been largely anonymous in the first half and dropped deep to get involved in play in the second. Potentially good for Liverpool, he suggested, but not ideal given a midfielder’s FPL points centre on direct goal involvements.

What’s more, Diaz had scored a stunning 20-yard goal unlikely to be repeated on a regular basis, and his ‘expected goals’ (xG) for the game was relatively small at 0.2, according to data from FBREF and Statsbomb.

Where my friend had seen a duck, I was very much staring at a rabbit. I had watched a player dropping deep out of necessity after Darwin Nunez’s (FWD, £9m) brainless red card, putting one of the best team’s in Europe on his back and in the process cementing his place in manager Jurgen Klopp’s mind as a key part of their attack.

I’d seen enough in Gameweek 1 (read here) to suggest in more normal circumstances Diaz would get into the positions needed to deliver fantasy points. This performance just cemented my belief Diaz has the potential to be a top-five FPL midfielder in 2022/23.

And the anonymous first half? I’ve seen Thierry Henry stink out Ewood Park. No player, I argued, even the very best, plays well for 90 minutes every single week.

Football and FPL are all about opinions and, ultimately, choices. That’s what makes the game interesting. People, particularly on Twitter, often claim to have the right answer based on data, the “eye test” or even just a “feeling”.

Assumed truths will be forged which lean on pre-conceived ideas, others’ opinions and inbuilt biases. Sometimes they might be right, but often they end up being very wrong.

In reality, there is no complete, perfect FPL answer covering the entire Premier League season for every player. The form of teams and individuals will ebb and flow.

Instead, fantasy football management is a set of choices made every week based on incomplete information, using finite resources to try to maximise your points haul. Data can be helpful, but you need to put any data - such as xG - into context.

Keeping your mind as clear as possible is crucial, as is making decisions based on logic rather than emotion or stubbornness because you feel you have committed to a decision or player (often referred to in economics as the “sunk cost fallacy”). That is hopefully where Fantasy Gameweek comes in.

The Jesus-Mitrovic trade…don’t say we didn’t warn you…

Which brings us neatly to Gabriel Jesus (FWD, £8.1m). The Arsenal hitman was transferred out by over 250,000 FPL managers after his Gameweek 1 blank, despite looking razor-sharp against Crystal Palace.

We warned the Brazilian’s performance merited patience, particularly given his pre-season goals tally and the fact a ropey Leicester defence were next in line. Sure enough, Jesus delivered two goals, two assists and 19 points to those who kept the faith. It’s not an exaggeration to say he could have scored four.

Given Aleksander Mitrovic (FWD, £6.6m) was one of the most transferred-in players following his two-goal opening day salvo against Liverpool, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out a decent number of managers did the Jesus-Mitrovic swap after Gameweek 1. Mitrovic missed a penalty and recorded -1 points against Wolves.

If you’re new to all this, the FPL Gods can be very, very cruel.

Just as you shouldn’t have given up on Jesus after one blank Gameweek, think carefully before dumping Mitrovic now. The best players in the world sometimes miss penalties, and there is a clear positive spin - namely that Fulham looked threatening again and have won penalties in their first two games of the season.

The schedule is pretty tough over the next few weeks (Brentford and Brighton are down as ‘green’ games in FPL but look much better than that, while Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea have top-four ambitions), but Mitrovic has already proven his prowess against a top tier Liverpool defence.

If you don’t have Jesus you should probably get to him sharpish (Arsenal travel to Bournemouth this weekend), but that doesn’t necessarily need to be at the expense of Mitrovic.

While we’re on Arsenal, Gabriel Martinelli (MID, £6.3m) has become the first player to experience two price increases in the 2022/23 FPL season.

If you’re the kind of person who gets put off buying someone after their price has jumped, remember this game is all about value - and the Brazilian, as a richly talented, near-guaranteed starter who has already registered two very different types of goals for a flying Arsenal side, still looks cheap.

Awoniyi hits the onion bag in Forest win…but our eyes are elsewhere…

In the search for low-cost, reliable striker returns, a goal for Taiwo Awoniyi (FWD, £5.9m) might have made a few FPL managers’ ears prick up. We assessed Awoniyi’s potential in our team-by-team preview of the promoted clubs (you can read that article here), suggesting he could become a viable option IF he’s an out-and-out striker rather than a facilitator of space and chances for others.

Hitting the back of the net in his first start doesn’t hurt Awoniyi’s case but it was a lucky strike, deflecting off his knee after a mishit Jesse Lingard (MID, £6m) effort. A repeat of his 15-goal season for Union Berlin in 2021/22 isn’t impossible but, based on what we’ve seen, the jury remains out - particularly following the arrival of Emmanuel Dennis (FWD, £6m) from Watford.

As a reminder, the Nigerian bagged 17 goal involvements last season (10 goals and 7 assists), particularly impressive when you consider it was his first Premier League season and Watford as a team only scored 34. His output fell off a bit of a cliff at the turn of the year, but he nevertheless represents a significant threat to Awoniyi’s minutes.

Arguably the standout performance at the City Ground came from an overlooked West Ham asset - Said Benrahma (MID, £6m). The former Brentford winger might have blanked but was seriously unlucky, having a goal disallowed for a marginal offside and hitting the underside of the crossbar with a terrific 25-yard free-kick.

Crucially, West Ham’s attack was based around getting the ball to Benrahma, potentially bad news for the short-term prospects of Jarrod Bowen (MID, £8.5m), who was subbed off with five minutes to go when the Hammers needed a goal. Never a good sign.

It’s worth noting that Benrahma has blown hot and cold before, and one quiet performance from Bowen shouldn’t overwrite all of last season’s achievements. But from what we saw on Sunday, Benrahma - who features in just 2% of FPL teams at the time of writing - is the clear value option.

Chelsea pass the eye test with flying colours…but could it be Perisic time…?

Chelsea battered Tottenham in a thrilling 4.30pm ‘Super Sunday’ game where much of the focus was on the touchline rivalry between managers Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte.

From an FPL perspective, Marc Cucurella (DEF, £5m) starting and looking impressive get-go - including delivering the corner for the opening goal - will have value-hunters licking their lips.

He faces genuine competition for minutes from Ben Chilwell (DEF, £6m), who put in a more-than-decent performance against Everton in Gameweek 1 and could yet be rotated back into the line-up. If, however, Cucurella has won the job on a permanent basis, he immediately becomes one of the best-value attacking defenders in FPL.

Speaking of which, the fact Chelsea improved once Reece James (DEF, £6m) was shifted from centre half to wing-back - culminating in the England international’s goal and a wicked cross which Kai Havertz (FWD, £7.9m) somehow contrived to skew wide - will have the 41% of managers who own him breathing a sigh of relief.

Assuming James stays at wing-back for the rest of the campaign, he is a candidate to be the top scoring defender in FPL in 2022/23 (something we flagged in our team-by-team preview of last season’s top four here). As a reminder, James delivered just shy of 7 points per 90 minutes during an injury-plagued 2021/22 season - a better return per game than Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold (DEF, £7.5m) (6.5 points per 90 minutes).

For Spurs, the introduction of Richarlison (FWD, £8.5m) sparked a significant improvement, with Harry Kane (FWD, £11.4m) grabbing a last-ditch equaliser after another otherwise anonymous outing.

There’s also a very pale amber flag over Son Heung-min (MID, £12m), who, like West Ham’s Bowen, was substituted despite Spurs needing a goal.

However, the 19% of FPL managers feeling their heart beat a little faster would do well to remember Son’s consistent output in recent seasons - particularly last year - and a threatening performance in the opening day win over Southampton which could have yielded more than the single assist he registered.

Fixtures against Wolves, Forest, West Ham and Fulham represent an attractive enough run to stick with the South Korean, at least for now.

The cameo of Ivan Perisic (DEF, £5.4m), including delivering a wicked corner for Kane’s dramatic equaliser, also really caught our eye. If you’re brave, there is an opportunity to get a jump on your rivals by transferring in the winger-turned-wing back before his ownership - and price - inevitably climbs.

Quickfire notes

Erling Haaland (FWD, £11.7m) - a lot of chat about his lack of touches in the 5-0 win against Bournemouth, but Haaland’s assist for Ilkay Gundogan (MID, £7.5m) was excellent and Phil Foden (MID, £8m) should have squared to him for a tap-in during the first half. No significant flags against that performance from us.

Kevin De Bruyne (MID, £12.1m) - concerns the Belgian may be asked to operate deeper following the signing of Haaland appear unfounded. If anything, the presence of the Norwegian striker is creating space for De Bruyne to roam into.

Brennan Johnson (FWD, £6m) - this newsletter is always looking for unlucky players who blanked in the previous Gameweek. Step forward Nottingham Forest’s Brennan Johnson, who finished beautifully from an offside position against West Ham and looked sharp throughout.

Neco Williams (DEF, £4m) - classed as a defender in FPL, Williams wears No.7 for Forest and takes set pieces. He was an obvious value play for your bench at the start of the season but could push his way into starting line-ups, particularly at home against lesser sides. One note of caution: Forest were VERY lucky to keep a clean sheet on Sunday.

Rodrigo (MID, £6.1m) - the Spaniard is hardly going under the radar, having scored three goals in his opening two games of the season for Leeds. The big question: can he continue that run? Rodrigo’s best La Liga season saw him score 16 goals and assist another 7…but that was in 2017/18. He hasn’t come near that since and two goals against this Southampton defence may not turn out to be much of an achievement. Nonetheless, if he wasn’t on your radar before, he should be now.

Emiliano Buendia (MID, £6m) - the Aston Villa player has the talent to be a breakout star in 2022/23, and his 30-minute cameo on Saturday could see him get a role from the start against Crystal Palace this weekend. He scored 15 and set up 17 in Norwich’s successful 2020/21 Championship campaign and, at 25 years old, looks well-placed to finally deliver on his undoubted potential. That potentially spells bad news for Leon Bailey (MID, £5m), who has yet to replicate his pre-season form and was benched against Everton.

Ollie Watkins (FWD, £7.4m) and Danny Ings (FWD, £7m) - played together and Villa looked more threatening as a result. Both delivered attacking returns and are worth considering if their minutes become more reliable, particularly when Villa take on lesser clubs at home.

Ivan Toney (FWD, £7.1m) - repeat after me: “Assists are only worth one point fewer than goals for forwards in FPL.” Toney battered an appalling Man United team at the weekend, delivering two assists and 9 points, and has arguably the softest run of games of any Premier League striker coming up.

Josh Dasilva (MID, £4.6m) - unsurprisingly popular among FPL managers after two goals in two games but that may prove the high point. Danish star Mikkel Damsgaard (MID, £5.5m) has now arrived and could take his place in the starting line-up.

Manchester United - if they sort things out, a number of players could become valuable in FPL. But they look a long way from sorting things out and have Liverpool at Old Trafford next. If you’re of a squeamish disposition, find something else to watch.

Thanks for reading. Graham’s latest FGPE 100 rankings will be hitting your inbox on Friday. If you enjoyed this article or Fantasy Gameweek in general, please spread the word by sharing with others.

Cheers

P.s. if you haven’t seen the Arsenal All or Nothing documentary yet, we’d highly recommend it. In particular, keep an eye out for the ‘heart’ and ‘brain’ characters below, created by Arteta’s own fair hand…