May Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, rest in eternal peace.
As a result of the sad passing of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday the 8th of September, gameweek 7 was postponed in its entirety. Additionally, three of the fixtures for the upcoming gameweek 8 were postponed because the Queen’s funeral will be taking place on Monday. These games below were affected, which means that these six teams will be blanking this weekend.
- Brighton v Crystal Palace
- Chelsea v Liverpool
- Manchester United v Leeds
As many FPL managers were eyeing gameweek 7 as a good moment to deploy one of the available chips, there were plenty of questions about what happened with those chips after the whole round was postponed. As per FPL themselves, “Any FPL manager who played their Free Hit, Triple Captain or Bench Boost chip for Gameweek 7’s postponed matches will have had them automatically reinstated”. As far as deployed Wildcards go, “Any Wildcards played prior to the Gameweek 7 deadline will be rolled over into Gameweek 8”, meaning that Wildcard activation for GW7 cannot be undone. An alternative way for casino players to use chips is to play online pokies nz.
Don’t forget, the deadline for gameweek 8 is set at 18h30 (UK time) on Friday, September 16th.
Most transferred in/transferred out players (as per September 15th , 2022)
| TRANSFERS OUT | TRANSFERS IN | POSSIBLE REASONS | |
| GK | Sanchez (BRI), Mendy (CHE), Ward (LEI) | Pope (NEW), Ward (LEI), Henderson (NFO) | |
| DEF | Alexander-Arnold (LIV), James (CHE), Robertson (LIV) | Trippier (NEW), Perisic (TOT), Cancelo (MCI) | Trippier fixtures, Liverpool lack of defensive returns |
| MID | Salah (LIV), Diaz (LIV), Gross (BRI) | De Bruyne (MCI), Rashford (MUN), Bowen (WHU) | Salah expensive for few returns, KDB and Rashford recent form |
| FOR | Jesus (ARS), Greenwood (LEE), Toney (BRE) | Mitrovic (FUL), Isak (NEW), Kane (TOT) | Mitrovic goals, Isak promising start, Kane fixture |
Premium pick
With Chelsea, Liverpool and Man United blanking, and with Man City visiting a potentially stubborn Wolves defence, the premium fantasy pick of the week seems to be Harry Kane (£11.4m). Despite the fact that Spurs are coming off a very disappointing Tuesday-night outing against Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League, many a manager will have his or her eyes on Spurs assets as they prepare to welcome Leicester City to London. Kane sits on a very pretty 5 goals and 1 assist from his last five league games, and Leicester in their current form seem like the perfect medicine after a bitter Champions League defeat. Brendan Rodgers’ men have taken just a single point from this season’s first six league games and they have conceded 16 goals in the process. On top of that, Kane represents a bit of differential value as well, as he is currently sitting in “just” 18% of all teams, which is considerably less than more popular premium fantasy picks like Erling Haaland and Kevin de Bruyne.
Non-premium pick
Much of the Premier League and FPL talk this season has been about Erling Haaland, and with good reason, but the Norwegian is not the only forward who’s impressing at the start of the 2022-23 campaign. Fulham’s Aleksandr Mitrovic (£6.9m) is off to a blistering start as well upon his return amongst the English footballing elite. So far, only Haaland has scored more than the Serbian’s current 6 goals. Only gameweek 2 saw Mitrogol blank for the visit to Wolves, but he has returned in all of the other games, a run that includes a goal in each of his last four games. To provide some more context as to the goalscoring form in which the forward currently finds himself: Fulham faced Brentford at home, Arsenal away, Brighton at home and Spurs away in their last four. Mitrovic has been responsible for 67% of Fulham’s goals so far and the Cottagers find themselves in tenth place at the moment, in great part thanks to their prolific striker. Up next are fellow new boys Nottingham Forest, who have conceded 14 goals in six games. Even when ignoring the 6-0 drubbing at the hands of Man City, that’s still 8 goals in five for the Tricky Trees. As a result, we feel that Mitrovic could be a very shrewd albeit not very differential (he is owned by 28% of fantasy managers) non-premium fantasy pick for gameweek 8.
The budget enabler
If you had told us that we’d be including TWO Fulham assets in our preview for gameweek 8, we’d have probably laughed, but here we are. The reality is that the Cottagers have managed a more than decent start to the 2022-23 season and as a result, their squad currently contains a few excellent value picks. Outstanding is, of course, forward-on-fire Mitrovic, but in his shadow, Andreas Pereira (£4.6m) is proving to be an excellent budget enabler deluxe. At a price of just £4.6m, the former Manchester United midfielder offers security of starts combined with the occasional attacking return. He has already provided 2 assists this season, both in home games (against Brentford in GW3 and Brighton in GW5) and it’s Nottingham Forest on the road up next for the Belgium-born Brazilian. As we wrote earlier, Forest have shipped their fair share of goals already this season, though it should be noted that they managed a few good displays so far this season as well. Nevertheless, we feel that Fulham are slight favourites for this one, so if you’re looking for a budget enabler for GW8, look no further than Andreas. And if you have Mitrovic already then Pereira makes sense to collect the assists for his goals.
The differential
For our differential fantasy pick for gameweek 8, we’re also taking home advantage into account as a big factor. Alexander Isak (£7.0m) was only recently brought in by Newcastle for an astronomical £59 million, a club-record fee, and he’s looked like a more than interesting addition to the official game in his first two games for the club. He debuted with a goal against Liverpool at Anfield, not a bad way to introduce himself to the Newcastle faithful, and then showed plenty of promise of things to come in gameweek 6 against Crystal Palace. While the sample is extremely small, The Swedish international has recorded an Expected Goal ratio of 1.7 in his first two games, indicated considerable under-performance on his part as far goalscoring goes. He is facing Bournemouth at home next and the Cherries have already conceded 18 goals in the first six league outings of the season. There is, of course, the 9-0 anomaly at Anfield, but even without counting that one, that’s still 9 in five for the newly promoted side. After Bournemouth, Newcastle are up against Fulham (away) and Brentford (home), so now might be the perfect moment to get in on Isak as he currently still sits in only 4.4% of all teams in the official game.
The (vice-)captaincy
Despite gameweek 8 being a reduced gameweek in terms of fixtures, it offers us a few good options for the GW8 Captain’s armband. We’re going with Harry Kane as Spurs are preparing to host a Leicester side that has been hopelessly out of form so far this season. The Foxes have shipped a shocking 11 goals in 3 away games so far and we can easily see Kane pile on to that defensive misery this weekend.
The obvious alternative for Tottenham’s Very Own is, of course, Erling Haaland. Man City are visiting Molineux on Saturday and the Norwegian needs no further argumentation. His teammate Kevin de Bruyne, who already has 1 goal and 4 assists to his name, is a good option for the captaincy as well. More daring captaincy picks include Aleksandr Mitrovic away at Nottingham Forest, Kieran Trippier at home versus Bournemouth and Jarrow Bowen for West Ham’s visit to Goodison Park.