To those FPL managers who captained Sterling for gameweek 6 to subsequently see Pep bench him for 90 minutes while his team mates absolutely thrash Watford: we feel for you, really. It might be of some comfort to know that he was actually the most-captained player, or it might not. With an average score of 52, it was nevertheless quite a high-scoring weekend, with the likes of Bernardo Silva (19 points), Kevin de Bruyne (17 points) and Aaron Cresswell (14 points) recording big hauls. There was no mid-week European football this week, but all of the Premier League clubs did have League Cup obligations, so do keep that in mind when making your decision for gameweek 7.
Finally, don’t forget: the deadline for gameweek 7 is set at 11h30 (BST) on Saturday, September 28th.
How did our picks for the previous gameweek fare?
| PICK | PLAYER | OPPONENT | POINTS |
| Premium | Sergio Aguero | Watford (home) | 9 |
| Premium | Lucas Digne | Sheffield (home) | 1 |
| Non-premium | Ashley Barnes | Norwich (home) | 2 |
| Non-premium | Roberto Firmino | Chelsea (away) | 9 |
| Differential | Danny Ings | Bournemouth (home) | 1 |
| Differential | Heung-Min Son | Leicester (away) | 5 |
| Captain | Sergio Aguero | Watford (home) | 18 |
Premium picks
Tottenham have had a bit of a rocky start to the season, to say the least, but despite that, talisman Harry Kane (£11.0m) has already got 4 goals and an assist from just six games to his name. The Spurs striker has returned in each of his last three games (a goal against Arsenal away, an assist against Palace at home and a goal versus Leicester away) and brought his owners (current ownership: 20.5%) a satisfying 36 FPL points, which boils down to an average of 6 points per game. Next up for Spurs are Southampton, who lost at home to Bournemouth last weekend and against whom Kane boasts an excellent record. The English forward has faced the Saints nine times in the Premier League, a run in which he scored 8 goals and provided 2 assists. What’s more, he scored at least one goal in each of the last five encounters between the two clubs. With the odds for him to score this weekend stand at 58%, he’ll be aiming to extend that run to six games.
If you take a quick look at the current Premier League table, one of the things you’ll probably notice is Sheffield United’s impressive sixth place. Therefore, our second premium pick of the week isn’t so much based on this weekend’s opposition, but on his current form and his club’s unbeaten run. Liverpool’s Mo Salah (£12.5m) is currently the fourth-highest scoring player in the official game (50 FPL points) and he has only failed to return once in the first six games of the 2019-20 campaign (3 points in gameweek 2). In a broader perspective, Liverpool has won their last 15 Premier League in a row, scoring 42 goals in the process, which comes down to an average of almost 3 goals per game. Of those 42 goals, 9 came from their Egyptian wizard. Saturday’s opponents Sheffield have been remarkably solid in the back so far, conceding just 3 goals in six games, but it seems unlikely they will shut out the Reds. As far as Salah goes, he already has 4 goals and 3 assists to his name this season, and it’s fair to expect him to build on those tallies against the Blades.
Non-premium picks
In this still young season, Chelsea’s Tammy Abraham (£7.5m) is one of the revelations so far. It took Frank Lampard a few weeks to settle on his starting number nine, but he has gone with Abraham and we don’t think the Chelsea legend is regretting it. Since securing the spot in gameweek 3, the young English striker has scored a rather unbelievable 7 goals, bringing his owners 42 FPL points in the process: 2 goals and 13 points against Norwich away, 2 goals and 13 points against Sheffield at home and 3 goals and 14 points versus Wolves at Molineux. Last weekend, he blanked against Liverpool, but that can happen to the best of them, so we wouldn’t worry too much about it. This Saturday, the Blues are hosting Brighton, who have conceded 8 goals in six games so far. It might turn out to be a goal-filled encounter at Stamford Bridge, which should sound like music to the ears of the 33.7% of FPL managers who currently own Tammy Abraham.
One of the few players with an ownership higher than Abraham’s is Man City’s puppet master Kevin de Bruyne (£9.9m). Seeing as the Belgian’s price tag is still just low enough to not label him a premium asset, he is our second non-premium pick of the week. His performances so far are very premium, though. As a matter of fact, De Bruyne is currently the second-highest scoring player in the game (54 FPL points vs Pukki’s 55), courtesy of 2 goals and an incredible 7 assists in just six games. This coming Saturday, Pep Guardiola’s men are visiting Goodison Park to face an out-of-form Everton who just last weekend lost 0-2 to Sheffield on their own ground. City have an outrageous expected goals ratio per game of 3.50 and the crazy thing is that their actual average number of goals per game currently stands at 4. Last weekend’s 8-0 demolition of Watford contributed to that in a big way. In other words, City are in red-hot goal-scoring form and it would be odd to see Kevin de Bruyne no return against Everton this weekend.
A differential pick or two
Last week, our first differential pick was Burnley’s Ashley Barnes and even though he did not return against Norwich at home, the Clarets did put on a good display with a 2-0 victory as a result. As the current number nine in the league, they seem to be back to their gritty, hard-to-beat selves, and one Claret who should be raring to go at Villa Park coming weekend is striker Chris Wood (£6.2m). The New Zealander scored both of Burnley’s goals last week and recorded a 13-point haul as a result. In all honesty, these were his first two returns of the season, but he is nailed on to start under Sean Dyche and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him return again on Saturday as he faces a not-so-solid Aston Villa defence. The Villains have conceded 9 goals in six games so far, while Burnley have scored 8. At a price of £6.2m and with an ownership of just 0.8%, Wood could be a major differential in gameweek 7.
A bit further up the table, Leicester City have rather quietly settled inside the top four. The Foxes have not been particularly spectacular yet this season, but they have been racking up the points under Brendan Rogers, with Spurs representing their latest scalp (2-1 victory at the King Power last weekend). Despite the sale of Harry Maguire, Leicester have been, maybe surprisingly, solid in the back and with a kind run of fixtures coming up, we figured it could be interesting to recommend Ricardo Pereira (£6.0m), especially after his goal against Spurs in gameweek 6. It’s true that his price tag belongs to the premium category for defenders, but he could be worth it. Last weekend, the marauding right-back not only scored a goal, but also two shots on target and a very advanced position on average, with 9 FPL points as a more than decent result. This coming Saturday, Newcastle are rolling up to the King Power and the Magpies have scored just 4 goals in six games so far. A clean sheet and possibly another attacking return could be on the cards for Pereira (currently owned by just 6.2% of FPL managers)
The captaincy
Gameweek 7 is offering us another set of juicy fixtures that brings up several good options for the captaincy. For us, the final selection was between Tottenham’s very own Harry Kane and Man City’s Kevin de Bruyne (KDB), in great part due to their consistency as far as attacking returns go over the past gameweeks. In that light, Liverpool’s Mo Salah was in the running for a long time as well. We have eventually chosen to place the armband on De Bruyne‘s arm as were confident that he will be involved in the goal-scoring activities at Goodison Park this weekend.
The FISO Forum Captain Poll for Gameweek 7 has 5 players with at least 10% of the votes (none of those five are KDB) so it’s a wide open selection this weekend and a chance to make up ground on those ahead.