After another relatively low-scoring FPL gameweek last weekend (average: 44 points), we’re looking forward to a fourth gameweek with a few tasty fixtures. There are home games for Chelsea and Man City, against Sheffield and Brighton respectively, and a Pukki-led Norwich are visiting a leaky West Ham who have conceded 7 goals in three games. The only team to concede more so far are the Canaries themselves. Sunday will be redemption day as Everton host Wolves (who themselves are hosting Torino for the return game of their Europa League play-off on Thursday) after losing 2-0 to Villa last weekend, while Spurs will be looking to bounce back against Arsenal at the Emirates after their more than underwhelming display at home to Newcastle in week 3 (0-1 loss). In other words, plenty to look forward to before the first international break of this season.
Don’t forget: the deadline for gameweek 4 is set at 11h30 (BST), on Saturday, August 31st..
How did our picks for the previous gameweek fare?
| PICK | PLAYER | OPPONENT | POINTS |
| Premium | Raheem Sterling | Bournemouth (away) | 8 |
| Premium | Harry Kane | Newcastle (home) | 2 |
| Non-premium | Anthony Martial | Palace (home) | 5 |
| Non-premium | Aaron Wan-Bissaka | Palace (home) | 0 |
| Differential | Leandro Trossard | Southampton (home) | 2 |
| Differential | Gerard Deulofeu | West Ham (home) | 2 |
| Captain | Raheem Sterling | Bournemouth (away) | 16 |
Premium picks
Look, they say repetition is the key to mastery and we’re all trying to master the FPL, so we’re not ashamed about recommending Man City’s Raheem Sterling (£12.2m) for a third time in four weeks as our first premium pick. There’s just no getting around the Skyblue forward at the moment, thanks to his excellent form coinciding with favourable fixtures. He is currently the league’s top scorer with 5 goals from 3 starts and despite the promising stuff Brighton have shown under new manager Graham Potter this season, it’s hard to see the Seagulls returning home from the Etihad on Saturday without having conceded a few goals. The chances of Sterling having a field day against them are worth betting on, though the likes of Kun Aguero (especially now that Gabriel Jesus is injured) and creator-in-chief Kevin de Bruyne provide excellent potential as well if you want a bit of variation. As far as we are concerned, Sterling is the best bet and you will see his name again in our captaincy section later on.
With Liverpool facing a potentially tricky away fixture at Turf Moor, and Arsenal and Spurs disputing a London derby on Sunday, we are, as an exception, taking our second premium pick from the same team. City’s Sergio Aguero (£12.0m) wasn’t among the most popular picks ahead of the 2019/20 FPL season as a result of his participation in the Copa America, Pep Guardiola’s love of rotation and some fears (ungrounded, really) about his age possibly starting to affect his goal-scoring potential, but 3 games and 4 goals later, he’s back among the most-coveted FPL assets. With his main rival for a starting berth up top now out injured until at least after the international break and with 2 goals from his last away game at Bournemouth in the pocket, the Argentinian striker is one of the surest bets for gameweek 4. Aguero has scored 4 goals and recorded 24 FPL points in just 176 minutes of Premier League football, and he has registered attacking returns in 13 of his last 17 home games overall, so the Brighton defenders have their job cut out for them this weekend.
Non-premium picks
One of this year’s best parties has come early and it currently looks like it’s not going to end any time soon. Teemu Pukki (£7.0m) is, at this moment, the FPL’s highest-scoring and best-value player, and with good reason. The Norwich striker has made a devastating return to the Premier League by scoring 5 goals and providing 1 assist in 203 minutes of Premier League action for the newly-promoted Canaries. In just three weeks time, his price has risen by £0.5m and with an away game versus West Ham on the agenda for Saturday, both his attacking returns and his price tag could see further increases over the weekend although Norwich then have trickier fixtures coming up. Norwich are the only team to have conceded more goals than the Hammers (8 vs 7) in the opening three encounters of the season, while Manuel Pellegrini’s men have also allowed the second-most attempts on goal on average over that period (17.7 per game). Only Liverpool and Man City have scored more than Norwich’ 6 goals, so it’s hard to see them not scoring against West Ham and when they do, count on Pukki to be in the thick of it.
Our second non-premium pick is a bit of a gamble due to injury rumours, but Chelsea manager Frank Lampard has been giving positive updates on Mason Mount (£6.2m) this week. On top of that, the talented English midfielder/winger was pictured in training this week as well, so the hope is that he is fit from what reportedly was a dead leg (to his calf) and ready to continue firing on Saturday when the Blues face newly-promoted Sheffield United at Stamford Bridge. In the absence of Pedro last week, Mount was posted as a left winger and he showed that true quality attacking players can play anywhere by scoring a goal and picking up 8 FPL points in the process. In total, he has already scored 2 goals and recorded 4 bonus points for a total of 20 FPL points, and he has completed the 90 minutes in every league game so far. At his current price tag, he’s turning out to be one of the best-value assets in the game.
A differential pick or two
Our first differential pick for gameweek 4 is a team mate of Mason Mount and another player who has blossomed since the appointment of Frank Lampard. Emerson Palmieri (£5.5m) has emerged as Lampard’s first-choice left-back and with an ownership of just 2.5%, he represents a real differential. While it is true that his current 3 FPL points will hardly impress anyone, it’s worth noting that no defender in the Premier League has had more attempts on goal (6) or on target (4). A run of three difficult games to open the season (United away, Leicester at home, and a high-scoring Norwich away) has resulted in an absence of clean sheets for the Italy international, but his could change when the Blades roll up to Stamford Bridge on Saturday. Only five teams have scored less than Sheffield’s 3 goals, so a first shut-out could be on the cards for Chelsea.
West Ham’s record signing Sebastien Haller (£7.4m) finally opened his goal-scoring account last weekend and he did so in style (despite saying afterwards that he did not play very well!). The powerful French striker, who is owned by just 4.1% of FPL managers, scored a brace at Watford for a haul of 13 points and he’ll be looking to start something of a purple patch by netting again when Norwich visit the Hammers on Saturday. The Canaries, though entertaining, have shown to be far from defensively solid, which is illustrated by the 8 goals they have conceded in the first three games of the season. Haller has already seen his price drop by £0.1m this season, but a good performance against Norwich could very well be the spark that ignites a bit of a bandwagon fire. An early punt on the Frenchman might pay off handsomely, both in terms of returns and your squad’s value.
The captaincy
With Man City facing Brighton at home this weekend, the captaincy options seem quite clear. The pick of the bunch for us is Raheem Sterling, who is one of Guardiola’s most nailed-on starters, especially in his current form. Five goals, 4 bonus points and 34 FPL points in total make him both the the Premier League’s top scorer (together with Pukki) and FPL’s second-highest scorer (34 points vs Pukki’s 35). Brighton have looked pretty good so far and they seem capable of running a more than satisfying 2019/20 campaign, but it’s hard to see them getting anything but a hammering at the Etihad.
About three-quarters of the FISO Forum FPL GW4 Captain Poll also agree with Sterling for the captain’s armband this weekend.