Before we delve into GW14 we’d like to point out that Fanteam & The Scout Gaming Group have announced the opening of their World Cup 2022 Fantasy Football Games which carry a £50k and £100k guaranteed prize funds (for the signle entry and multi entry games).
Now straight onto FPL. We don’t have the historical figures to back this up, but just from the looks of it, we doubt that there has ever been an official Team of the Week with a lower squad value than in gameweek 13. The eleven highest-scoring assets last weekend combine for a total value of £60.9m (£48.7m if you leave out Erling Haaland) as only three players carry a price tag of £5.0m or higher, those being Danny Ings (£6.6m, 12 FPL points), Alex Iwobi (£5.5m, 12 points) and the previously mentioned Haaland (£12.2m, 13 points). In defence, all top performers are priced at £4.5m (Zouma, Castagne and Mykolenko) or less (Mings at £4.3m), while the midfield is formed by popular budget enablers Andreas Pereira and Leon Bailey plus Casemiro and Iwobi. No wonder more and more FPL managers are finding themselves with cash to spare at the moment just like visitors to online casinos in Canada.
Gameweek 14 looks set for premium fantasy delight though, as several of the official game’s most expensive assets are lining up for favourable fixtures this weekend. Manchester City’s stars are visiting the King Power stadium for the gameweek opener tomorrow, Harry Kane and Spurs are rolling up to Bournemouth right after, and Liverpool are welcoming Leeds to Anfield at the end of that same day. On Sunday then, league leaders Arsenal are playing bottom Nottingham Forest. As a result, picks from these sides will feature heavily in our FPL preview for GW14.
Don’t forget, the deadline for gameweek 14 is set at 11h00 (UK time) on Saturday October 29th, 2022.
Most transferred in/transferred out players (as per October 28th, 2022)
| TRANSFERS OUT | TRANSFERS IN | POSSIBLE REASONS | |
| GK | Mendy (CHE), Sanchez (BRI), Sa (WOL) | Kepa (CHE), Henderson (NFO), Alisson (LIV) | |
| DEF | James (CHE), Koulibaly (CHE), Perisic (TOT) | Trippier (NEW), Saliba (ARS), Dalot (MUN) | James + Kolibaly injuries, Saliba fixtures |
| MID | Salah (LIV), Gross (BRI), Zaha (CRY) | Almirón (NEW), De Bruyne (MCI), Trossard (BRI) | Almirón form, KDB form, Trossard goal in GW13 |
| FOR | Jesus (ARS), Firmino (LIV), Haaland (MCI) | Kane (TOT), Mitrovic (FUL), Toney (BRE) | Kane form, Haaland injury doubt |
Premium pick
“He plays a lot of minutes, the game was under control and Cole Palmer is an excellent player and was looking forward to playing. If the game would have been tight Erling would have continued but it is better to rest for Southampton”. Signed, Pep Guardiola, after being asked about his subbing off of Erling Haaland at halftime versus Dortmund on Tuesday. Despite the change not pointing at any physical issues for the Norwegian, the official game has marked him yellow with a 75% chance of playing due to a “knock”. We’re pretty sure Haaland will start against Leicester on Saturday particularly as Pep has said Haaland felt better after training today and we don’t really need to explain what that could mean for FPL (the man’s scored 17 goals in 11 games), but seeing as it’s not 100%, we’re taking this as an opportunity to go a different direction with our premium fantasy pick for gameweek 14. Just a tiny bit different though, because our pick for this weekend is Haaland’s teammate Kevin de Bruyne (£12.3m). The Belgian maestro is back to his best this season, currently sits on 2 goals and 9 assists from ten league starts, and was not used during the mid-week Champions League encounter in Germany. He is starting at the King Power tomorrow and we wouldn’t be surprised to see him bag a double-digit haul there.
Non-premium pick
Like KDB, Gabriel Jesus (£8.0m) was rested for his side’s mid-week European match as well, but not for the entire 90 minutes. At around 64 minutes and while being 2-0 down against PSV Eindhoven on Thursday, manager Mikel Arteta decided to bring the Brazilian off the bench in the hopes of forcing a comeback. Unfortunately for everything Arsenal, to no avail, but the Spaniard’s man management did place Jesus on top of our non-premium fantasy picks list for gameweek 14. The Gunners are hosting Nottingham Forest tomorrow afternoon and Jesus will surely be looking to get back on the scoresheet for the first time since his goal against Spurs back in gameweek 9. The Arsenal striker has been great so far this season, scoring 5 goals and providing 4 assists, though his last two league outings (away at Leeds and Southampton) ended in consecutive blanks. Disappointing, absolutely, but he might just make up for it with a return or two against this weekend’s opponents Nottingham Forest, who are bottom of the league at the moment with the third-leakiest defence in the division. Only Leicester City and Bournemouth have conceded more than their 23 goals so far.
The budget enabler
From the Arsenal attack to the Arsenal defence, where Takehiro Tomiyasu (£4.2m) has returned from his injury from earlier this season in full force. The Japanese international seems to have made the left-back spot his for now and that’s excellent news for those FPL managers looking for a good budget-enabling pick. He has not missed a minute of Premier League action since gameweek 10 against Liverpool and he started the mid-week game against PSV as well before being taken off in the 74th minute for Ben White. For us, this hopefully points at another start in the domestic competition for Tomiyasu this weekend and that has put him at the top of our budget enablers list, as the Gunners are hosting goal-shy Nottingham Forest tomorrow. The Crazy Trees have so far scored just 8 goals, only Wolves have scored even less, while Arsenal boast one of the defensive set-ups in the league. Tomiyasu has yet to record an attacking return this season, but a second clean sheet in four games looks like a reasonable expectation for the upcoming game. At a price of just £4.2m, that’s excellent value, especially with Wolves away coming up in gameweek 16 as well.
The differential
Our differential fantasy pick of the week is priced at £8.8m, cost £85 million in real life and has started three of the last six league games for Liverpool. Darwin Nuñez (£8.8m) has not exactly had the kind of raring start like, say, Erling Haaland at his new club, but that’s not to say that the Uruguayan has not shown promise yet. In the Premier League, he has delivered an attacking return every 84 minutes on average (3 goals and 1 assist in 339 minutes of action), while he scored a goal in each of his last two Champions League games as well. With the likes of Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota out injured, his role in Jurgen Klopp’s side only looks set to grow and considering the transfer fee Liverpool paid for him, that’s more or less what’s expected of him. Darwin started against Ajax Amsterdam on Wednesday and scored the second goal of the night in the 49th minute before being taken off in the 63rd minute for Curtis Jones. An early rest, in our opinion, to prepare optimally for the upcoming game against Leeds on Sunday. The Uruguayan target man will surely start versus the Whites, who have lost their last four league games in a row and descended into the relegation zone last weekend. Liverpool are far from their best form, but Nuñez starting at Anfield against a leaky Leeds side while sitting in just 6.5% of all teams, that’s screaming “differential potential” all over the place for us.
The (vice-)captaincy
Normally, we would just write down “Erling Haaland” here for his visit to Leicester, but considering the slight injury doubt surrounding his persona at the moment, we’re going with Kevin de Bruyne instead. As we wrote earlier, the Belgian was not used for the Champions League visit to Dortmund and will surely return to dictate play for the Cityzens at the King Power stadium on Saturday. The Foxes have conceded 24 goals in 12 games so far, so we’re placing the armband on KDB.
If you’re considering going without a Man City captain altogether this weekend, Mo Salah at home to Leeds and Harry Kane away versus Bournemouth could be good options as well. Both are talisman for their sides and on penalties as well. Along the more differential route for the captaincy, you will find Ivan Toney at home to Spurs, Wilfried Zaha at home to Southampton and Gabriel Jesus at home to Nottingham Forest. The votes on the FISO FPL GW14 Captain Poll is mainly between KDB and Salah.