With the third international break of the 2019-20 Premier League season upon us after gameweek 12, the build-up to gameweek 13 can be seen as an excellent opportunity to take a good, hard look at your team and find out why your ranking has until now seemed allergic to breaking inside the top one million. You like the way your team looks and your decision-making has been sound this season, but you’re still ranked 3,763,954th in FPL? Well with 7 million people playing the game you’re about half-way, although thankfully my team is riding high in the top 50,000.

In addition to our usual gameweek preview article and lineup predictions piece in the build-up to gameweek 13 on the 23rd of November, we’re also going to dive a bit deeper into the matches of gameweek 12 from an FPL point of view. This piece will take a quick look at the matches from Friday and Saturday, which included the bottom clash Norwich vs Watford, top-six challengers Leicester hosting Arsenal, and Frank Lampard’s in-form Chelsea looking to make it six consecutive victories in a row. Our piece tomorrow will look at Sunday’s matches, which, of course, includes the top-of-the-table clash between current leaders Liverpool and reigning champions Manchester City. You can also find other interesting clashes at https://conquestador.com/

Goalkeepers

Four clean sheets from the first 7 games of gameweek 12 was not a bad return from a defensive point of view. To start with, Watford’s Ben Foster £4.8m) put on another match-winning performance, this time against Norwich at Carrow Road. Besides the Hornets veteran, Chelsea’s Kepa (£5.5m), Burnley’s Pope (£4.7m) and Leicester’s Schmeichel (£5.2m) all kept their nets clean. With 9 FPL points, courtesy of 4 saves and 2 bonus points in addition to the clean sheet, the Burnley shotstopper in particular showed his outstanding value again, averaging almost 4 FPL points per game.

Defenders

Naturally, a decent number of clean sheets also benefits defensive performances in the Premier League’s official game. Chelsea’s Tomori (£4.8) not only kept a clean sheet, but also brought home the full three bonus points for a total score of 9 FPL points after the home game against Palace. The Blues have now kept the ball out of their nets on three occasions, all of them in front of their own crowd, and they have three favourable home fixtures coming up over the next five weeks (West Ham, Aston Villa, Bournemouth). At Turf Moor against West Ham, James Tarkowksi (£5.0m, 1.5% ownership) even did a bit better by adding an assist to his clean sheet and three bonus points (12 FPL points in total). Leicester’s Söyüncü (4.8m) brought the 11.4% of managers who own him a third return in as many gameweeks by keeping a clean sheet against Arsenal and winning 2 bonus points. That’s now 28 FPL points over the last three gameweeks for the Turkish central defender. His teammate in defence Ricardo Pereira (£6.3m) was awarded 1 bonus point in that same game to make it a total of 19 FPL points over the past three gameweeks for him. Finally, Newcastle booked a really important 2-1 victory over Bournemouth at home, in part thanks to a subtle strike by central defender Ciaran Clark (£4.3m, 0.2% ownership), who amazingly enough also scored during the 2-3 away victory against West Ham just a week earlier. He didn’t keep a clean sheet this time either, but his goal and 2 bonus points resulted in 10 FPL points, or 17 FPL points over the last two gameweeks. The other stand-out performer in the Newcastle defence was Andre Yedlin (£4.4m, 0.1% ownership), whose goal strangely enough did not result in bonus points, but he still did end up with 8 FPL points.

Midfielders

As has been the case more often than not over the past weeks, James Maddison (£7.4m) was one of Leicester’s best players against Arsenal. The talented playmaker is at the heart of most attacking intentions at the Foxes and a constant danger to opposing defences. His second-half strike from the edge of the area put the clash with the Gunners beyond all doubt, 2-0, and the resulting 9 FPL points for Maddison are likely to help his current ownership of 19.4% increase further. At exactly the same price, you can also opt for Chelsea’s Christian Pulisic (£7.4m, 11.7% ownership). Captain America seems to have nailed down a spot in Lampard’s starting eleven and is not planning to give it up again any time soon: 5 goals, 5 bonus points and no less than 37 FPL points over just the past three gameweeks. His goal against Palace this weekend saw the Blues midfielder bring home 8 FPL points. In less obvious but still good form is his teammate Willian (£7.1m), who provided an assist in gameweek 12 for 7 FPL points. The Brazilian now has 2 goals and 3 assists in his last six Premier League games, or a goal and 2 assists in his last three. For Everton, who seem to be on the way to a bit more consistency and especially goals of late, Richarlison (£7.9m) is stepping up. His goal against Southampton was his first since his brace versus Wolves all the way back in gameweek 4 and saw him record 10 FPL points. After a single assist in each of the gameweeks 9 and 10, the Brazilian has now provided three attacking returns in the last four rounds, totalling 23 FPL points. His more defensive teammate in midfield Tom Davies (£5.3m) recorded 10 FPL points as well, courtesy of his first goal of the season and three bonus points.

Forwards

Lately, it has been impossible to talk or write about strikers in an FPL context without mentioning Jamie Vardy (£9.5m, 32% ownership). We’ll just put down the stats for his last 6 gameweeks and you make of it what you will: 8 goals, 2 assists, 11 bonus points and a total of 60 FPL points. In gameweek 12, his goal and assist brought his owners 12 FPL points (and 24 points to those managers’ like me that captained him). Somewhat surprisingly, this haul was matched by Watford’s Gerard Deulofeu (£6.1m, 2.1% ownership). The Spaniard will be key for the Hornets if they want to still make something of their season, and he underlined this by scoring a goal and providing an assist during the crucial 0-2 win over Norwich. Deulofeu had a great finish to last season and despite starting this season badly has now shown recently what a class (and fast) player he is. For Chelsea, the inevitable Tammy Abraham (£7.9m) made it three attacking returns in his last three Premier League games by scoring a good opening goal versus Palace. The most-captained player of the weekend recorded 8 FPL points and made it 25 FPL points in total over the last three gameweeks. In the budget category, Southampton’s Danny Ings (£6.0m) scored his fifth goal of the season at home to Everton for 7 FPL points. He has now scored 4 goals and recorded 35 FPl points over that period.