Fantasy Premier League Gameweek 5: transfer tips and what we know about Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs and more

We’ve now got four weeks’ worth of Fantasy Premier League data to pore over and the picture of the best possible team is gradually becoming a little clearer – and that could be important with a lot of people getting ready to wildcard after the upcoming Gameweek 5.

As 3 Added Minutes’ resident FPL expert and proud owner of a Top 2,000 finish last season, it’s my job to help you figure out what the ideal team might look like going forward, whether you plan to wildcard your way towards it or just to transfer yourself in the right direction in a more serene fashion. The plan is that next week, I’ll put together what I believe the perfect GW6 wildcard team should look like – and this week, I’m going to talk about the trends I’ve spotted which will help me figure that out, in the hope that they’ll inform your decisions whether you plan to make wholesale changes or just minor tweaks.

Before we get into the meat of it, it’s my duty to remind you that we have an early Saturday kick-off this weekend between West Ham United and Chelsea (two teams that will come up a little later) and that means that it’s an 11:00 BST deadline on Saturday morning.

The good, the bad and the baffling

Picking out long-term trends from the small sample size of games that we have – four Premier League matches and one or two cup ties of one kind or another – isn’t all that easy, but figuring out how the next few months will likely pan out is important to making sure we make the right decisions.

For instance, a lot of players will have been very worried about Ollie Watkins after a couple of blanks and some glaring misses early in the season, but he’s now managed two goals and two assists in his last three matches, so we can probably assume that he’ll be fine going forward despite that brief wobble. But it isn’t just about working out whether individual players are on song or struggling. We need to know which teams to back and which to steer clear of.

Watch the latest episode of The Premier League Panel right here as our experts look at Liverpool’s new regime.

Let me start by correcting myself. Last week, I suggested that players looking to wildcard ahead of GW6 should probably sell Arsenal assets ahead of the away game against Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City. I was wrong. The Arsenal defence put up the most clean sheets of any team last season and even with injuries and suspensions, they convincingly kept Spurs at bay last weekend. When you factor in the fact that they kept two clean sheets against Pep Guardiola’s boy last season, I’m now at a point where I believe Arsenal defenders are simply much better assets than I had appreciated given how much they cost.

But how do you afford players like William Saliba (£6.0m)? Well, I’m cooling a little on Trent Alexander-Arnold, who was in almost every pre-season draft team I made and made my final selection. At £7.0m, we don’t just need clean sheets (three already, to be fair!) but goals and assists, and he hasn’t got any in the league just yet and just one in the Champions League. He’s crossing slightly less frequently than he used to, as well – 5.7 per game so far compared to over seven last season and eight in years gone by – which is partly because he’s supporting the midfield sometimes when he previously would have gone bombing down the flank.

That doesn’t mean that he’s a bad player to have in your team, by any means, and he will put up returns, but will he score enough points over a player like Saliba to justify the extra million? I have my doubts at this point, and am pretty certain that from week six forward, the best team likely has two Arsenal defenders (or David Raya) and Bukayo Saka.

Speaking of which, Saka may be the single most reliable scorer in the game outside of a certain big, blond Norwegian. He always adds something to the points total, and any team not playing him is likely making a mistake. That includes me – I was responsible for some transfer gymnastics last week which saw me replace Saka with Mohamed Salah, and Saka immediately picked up more points. My second bad mistake of the season, after starting Jarell Quansah. Even alleged experts aren’t perfect… But going forward, if you can move towards triple Arsenal including Saka and some defensive players, you’ll be playing the odds.

Of course, it takes two to tango to give Arsenal a clean sheet, and I’m getting a little concerned by Spurs. Ange Postecoglou gets a lot of deserved love but the results, performances and goals just aren’t there right now. I’m not quite ready to jump ship on Dominic Solanke, at least without good cause, but players like Son Heung-Min, James Maddison and Micky van de Ven are just less interesting to me than they should be. If teams look a little dodgy overall, you shouldn’t ignore that even if logic tells you that they should be better.

I’ll say the same about West Ham. Julen Lopetegui may get things going back in the right direction, but Jarrod Bowen excites me less than he did a week or two ago, and they look a little off the pace so far in defence and attack. There are some tempting players at the London Stadium and their fixtures gradually get easier, but I’m a little leery for now and can’t imagine going too hard at them when I build my wildcard team next week.

Newcastle United are another interesting case study. They’re winning games and inside the putative top four, but aren’t looking as good in attack as before, and Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon aren’t hitting their highest notes. With a very mixed bag of fixtures in the near future, I doubt both make my team next week. I do like Lewis Hall as a long-term £4.5m defender, however, while Tino Livramento could be good but isn’t looking as nailed-on for 90 minutes every week.

Aside from all that, one individual player I wanted to flag up was Cole Palmer. After a haul against Wolverhampton Wanderers in GW2, a lot of people moved to get him in their teams, but he’s managed a relatively tame 9 points since. The key is how Enzo Maresca seems to be using him, which has him providing but not getting on the end of chances as often. He’s racking up assists (expected and actual) at a great rate but is earning about a third of the xG per game compared to last season. That cuts his ceiling considerably if it continues, and for now there’s no argument for playing Palmer over Saka, for instance.

There are other, more obvious trends. Until proven otherwise, we have to assume that Everton defenders and Jordan Pickford are a complete bust, and the only teams who look good for regular clean sheets are Arsenal, Liverpool, and maybe Nottingham Forest and Manchester United. No other team has kept more than one or really looked like doing so.

Finally, and this will be obvious advice to most but needs to be said for the sake of the few players whose arm somehow needs twisting – the best team definitely contains Erling Haaland. It probably doesn’t contain any other Manchester City players (although we’ll see on a freshly fit Phil Foden and Kevin de Bruyne is still a worthy consideration), but if you don’t have Haaland are hoping your luck will turn, my only advice is to please just accept defeat and bring him in, whatever the cost. He is a unique FPL asset and no team will ever be better for his absence.

3 Added Minutes FC

One thing I discussed last week was the possibility that it would be better to hold of on your wildcard until GW9, as there’s another fixture difficulty shift there which hasn’t been commented on quite so often as that which comes next week – but if your team is a bit of a mess and strays too far from the ideal template, it’s still probably wise to drop your wildcard sooner rather than later. Sadly, after my screw-up last week, that may be necessary for me as well.

I dropped Saka, Quansah and Gordon to make room for Salah, Facundo Buonanotte and Kosta Nedeljkovic. The former blanked with the captain’s armband on and the latter two, admittedly only intended as bench warmers, didn’t even get on the pitch. The result is that I currently have zero Arsenal players – admittedly not a complete disaster when their next game is at the Etihad, but something which almost certainly necessitates a wildcard next week as I won’t have the free transfers to get where I want to be. I’ll make that judgement once I’ve developed my wildcard team in a week’s time.

As you can see, I only picked up 36 points last week against a global average of 51, an absolutely awful return which has sent my rank spiralling to a point lower than I was ever at last season. Such is life. Still, I’m not panicking, and there’s no need for transfers this week as my team should be fine, if no better than that. My bench, for what it’s worth, had Buonanotte, Nedeljkovic, Harwood-Bellis and Virginia on it, for a sum return of one whole point.

I’ll probably run captain Salah back again this week as even Haaland isn’t guaranteed to score against that Arsenal defence. If you don’t have Salah then I’d say Watkins is the second best captain choice, with any Liverpool players after that. You can gamble on Spurs if you like, but Brentford look decent and Spurs no better than decent thus far.

That’s all for this week – hopefully that’s given you some food for thought and I’ll be back with some wildcard help next Thursday. Until then, may all of you who try to follow the trends you think you see be rewarded.