Not to toot our own horn (too much), but two of our Gameweek 9 fantasy picks earned themselves a spot in the Team of the Week last weekend. Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo, our recommended fantasy pick in the non-premium budget category even managed to grab the Player of the Week award by scoring a brace against Ipswich Town for 15 FPL points. Chris Wood, who we mentioned as a potentially rewarding budget fantasy pick, scored a brace as well, at the King Power Stadium in his case, for 13 FPL points. The third spot on the podium was reserved for Fulham’s Alex Iwobi and Ipswich Town’s George Hirst, who both brought home 11 FPL points.
At first glance, the fixtures in Gameweek 10 don’t look as clear cut as those in Gameweek 9 did. For FPL managers, Manchester City’s visit to Bournemouth on Saturday looks enticing, as does Liverpool’s home game against Brighton, though the Seagulls are in excellent form at the moment. Then again, the Reds did just eliminate them from the League Cup (3-2). Gameweek 10 looks more like one for the neutral viewers with high-profile clashes between Newcastle and Arsenal (to kick off GW10), Spurs and Aston Villa (as opening fixture on Sunday) and Manchester United at home to Chelsea on Sunday afternoon.
Don’t forget, the deadline for gameweek 10 is set at 11h00 (UK time) on Saturday, November 2nd, 2024. The free to play FPL or pay to play season/weekend/daily games like FanTeam are ideal ways of following the Premier League action.
Most transferred in/transferred out players (as per October 31st, 2024)
TRANSFERS OUT | TRANSFERS IN | POSSIBLE REASONS | |
GK | Raya (ARS), Alisson (LIV), Martinez (AST) | Sels (NFO), Pickford (EVE), Fabianski (WHU) | Alisson injury |
DEF | Gabriel (ARS), Porro (TOT), Mazraoui (MUN) | Ait-Nouri (WOL), Gvardiol (MCI), Keane (EVE) | Ait-Nouri recent attacking returns, Gabriel injury doubt |
MID | Diaz (LIV), Son (TOT), Jota (LIV) | Mbeumo (BRE), Saka (ARS), Salah (LIV) | All transferred-in midfielders are in good form, Jota injured, Son injury doubt |
FOR | Watkins (AST), Solanke (TOT), Havertz (ARS) | Wood (NFO), Wissa (BRE), Cunha (WOL) | Wood goal-scoring form, Cunha recent away form, Villa + Arsenal difficult upcoming fixtures |
Premium pick
Once again, there is very little between the two giants of the Fantasy Premier League, Mo Salah and Erling Haaland (£15.4m) this weekend. The former is playing at home against Brighton, but got about 20 minutes in the League Cup Round of 16 a few days ago, while the latter is visiting Bournemouth after not playing in the League Cup at all this week. Besides that, the other two fantasy assets priced £10m or more at this moment, Cole Palmer and Bukayo Saka, have Man United away and Newcastle away, respectively. Considering all of the above, we have decided to go with Haaland as our premium fantasy pick for Gameweek 10. He will be fresh and rested, and facing a team that has had a decent start to the season so far, but that should concede versus City as well. The Cherries have conceded 11 goals in 9 games and managed just one clean sheet, back in GW8 at home to Arsenal. We don’t expect this one to be a walk in the park for Manchester City, but we definitely see chances here for Haaland to work on his current numbers: 11 goals in ten league starts.
Non-premium pick
On Thursday (October 31st), Nottingham Forest boss Nuno Espirito Santo said the following: “Morgan [Gibbs-White] is one of the players inside that group that we have to assess and see how he is. Chris [Wood] also, and Elliot [Anderson] and Jota [Silva]. They have knocks”. The reason we are quoting the Forest manager here is because we have decided to move Chris Wood (£6.4m) from the budget fantasy pick category to the non-premium fantasy pick category after his brace at Leicester City last weekend. Not because £6.4m is not great value for the Kiwi striker in his current form (because it is), but because there are plenty of other even cheaper budget enablers who also deserve a shout. Wood is currently flagged in the official fantasy game though, with a 75% chance of playing and we personally think that he will be present by the time Forest kick off against West Ham on Saturday. The forward has now returned in three consecutive league games and sits on 7 goals from nine league starts in total. As we said before, at his current price, that’s excellent value for money.
The budget enabler
If you come into the Premier League as a regular starter for the first time, for a side that has just been promoted and that boasts the smallest budget in the league, and you sit on 5 goals after nine league games; hats off. This has been a very brief resumé of Liam Delap’s (£5.7m) so far, after moving from the Manchester City U21s to Ipswich Town last summer for about £20 million. The 21-year-old has needed no time to get used to his new club or to being a Premier League regular, having already collected 38 FPL points in the first nine games of the current season. The Tractor Boys are now preparing for a home game against Leicester City, who have already conceded 17 goals so far, followed by two difficult games against Spurs (away) and Manchester United (home). After that though, it’s Nottingham Forest away, Crystal Palace at home, Bournemouth at home and Wolves away for the new boys. Like the rest of his team mates, Delap is surely looking at that run as well to score a few goals and collect a few more points before the schedule turns more complicated again.
The differential
If we’re talking about the biggest disappointments of the 2024-25 Premier League campaign so far, Wolves are probably around the top of the list. The West Midlands club had a horrid start to the season, in big part thanks to their incredibly tough opening schedule, which explains why not a lot of their players have featured in our FPL Gameweek previews. They currently find themselves in 19th place in the league with just 2 points from the first nine games, but if it’s up to Matheus Cunha (£6.5m), that won’t be for much longer. The 25-year-old attacker is getting into goal-scoring, having scored 3 goals in the last five games. It’s therefore no wonder that he is the highest-scoring Wolves player in the official fantasy game at the moment. That’s not all though, because Cunha also leads his teammates in goals scored (4), total shots (27), total shots in the box (19) and key passes (15). In other words, the Wolves attack ticks around the Brazilian and with the fixture schedule finally clearing up for Wolves, we suspect that he could represent considerable differential value (he’s currently owned by 3.8% of fantasy managers) all the way up to and including Gameweek 17.
The (vice-)captaincy
As far as we are concerned, the captaincy is once again a bit of a coin toss between Mohamed Salah and Erling Haaland. We are going with the latter, but to be honest, the former is just as a good pick for the armband in Gameweek 10.
If you want to move away from the Haaland-Salah debate, Gameweek 10 offers a few high-risk-high-reward options as well, including Chris Wood at home to West Ham United, Bukayo Saka away at Newcastle and Raul Jimenez at home to Brentford.
For further thoughts and discussions on the new FPL season visit FISO’s FPL forum.