Fantasy Premier League Gameweek 12: Tips and captain picks plus whether to sign Saka, Palmer or Salah

The third international break of the season is finally done and dusted, and that means that we can finally focus our attention back on the Fantasy Premier League – which will either be a sweet relief or a source of immense stress, depending on how well you’re doing.

If it’s the latter, then at least we’ve got some good news for you, because the return of the FPL also means the return of our resident expert, who finished in the global Top 2,000 last year – and in this week’s advice column, he’s going to help you decide which premium midfielders to sign over the coming weeks.

Before we hand over to Matthew for his pearls of wisdom, a quick reminder that the deadline to make all your Gameweek 12 transfer by is 11:00 GMT on Saturday 23 November, right before Leicester City’s early kick-off against Chelsea.

The battle of the big-name midfielders

Let’s get right down to business – a lot of players are looking at signing Cole Palmer, Bukayo Saka and other expensive, high-scoring midfielders, and most of us can only add one or two. A lot of people will be thinking of selling Son Heung-Min or even moving Erling Haaland on to make room. So what are the right moves to make?

First of all, this is definitely a week to wait until the managers’ press conferences before making moves. Palmer and Saka both have yellow triangles next to their names after withdrawing from the England squad, and with Bryan Mbeumo pulling out of Cameroon’s side as well, there’s another important player who could miss out and be the right person to sell this week.

Mercifully, there are no indications that any of the relevant players’ prices are going up or down before Friday, so we have the luxury of waiting until we’ve heard what the coaches have to say – and remember that we will publish a run-down of all the main injury news on Friday afternoon as well right here on 3 Added Minutes.

Let’s assume for now that everyone important is fit and firing, and that we can make our decisions freely, and that we have the requisite funds and free transfers to make the moves we want. Which players are set to be the best signings?

Let’s start with Mohamed Salah. He’s comfortably the highest-scoring player in the game right now and players who decided to go without (including me, sadly) have been left to regret that move. He’s the first player past 100 points and has scored in four consecutive matches, as well as being a bonus point magnet.

If you don’t already have him, however, signing him isn’t as clear-cut of a win as it may seem. Liverpool’s next six games include three you’d expect them to win and three which could prove rather trickier – Manchester City at home along with Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur away.

On the other hand, Salah has been the focal point of Arne Slot’s attack and has already scored against Chelsea and Arsenal in the past month or so. He’s only failed to score in three games. If you have space for Salah in your team, then it’s very hard indeed to argue against bringing him in. There is one good counter-argument, however – so far, Salah has scored his eight goals from 6.5xG, which is an overperformance but not necessarily an unsustainable one for the best goalscorers. Salah, however, has actually slightly undershot his expected goals in both of the past two seasons. There is some suggestion that he could regress to the mean a little bit, especially when the fixtures aren’t the easiest.

The only real reason not to sign Salah on current form, however, is the fact that he’s so damned expensive. If Salah regresses just a little, then he isn’t likely to overperform players like Saka and Palmer to such a vast extent that he’s worth up £2-3m more. So the only players who should move into Salah are probably those who are able to switch a mid-priced player like an injured Bryan Mbeumo or Jarrod Bowen out for him. That’s probably a fairly exclusive club.

Saka and Palmer, meanwhile, are both big scorers who fall a little further down the affordability scale, and both present very different options. Saka is a consistent scorer who rarely goes nuclear but doesn’t blank too often – although he has in the last two weeks. Palmer, meanwhile, has scored 17 more points than Saka so far, but if you take that 25-point, four-goal haul against Wolverhampton Wanderers away, he’s in the same ballpark. Palmer tends to be feast or famine. Saka makes for a more reliable meal.

That means that Palmer lends himself to being signed in short, targeted bursts of good fixtures. Chelsea’s next four games are a slightly mixed bag – two against relegation candidates (but both away from home) and then two slightly tougher games against Aston Villa and Spurs. From Gameweek 16, however, Chelsea have a wonderfully long run of games against teams expected to wind up in the bottom half of the table.

In other words, we would definitely plan to sign Palmer in a few weeks’ time even if we don’t do so now. Having him in these next few weeks looks fine, but not necessarily as enticing as Salah or perhaps Saka. Arsenal have been poor of late, but have roughly the same strength of schedule as Chelsea and likewise then run into good fixtures at the same time.

Which would I pick up for the short term? I’m leaning very slightly towards Palmer, but it’s close, and largely predicated on Arsenal and Chelsea’s respective recent form. If you’re signing a player for the long haul, then my order of preference is Salah, Palmer, then Saka. If you’re worried solely about the coming weeks, it’s Palmer, Salah, Saka, factoring in Liverpool’s slightly tougher fixtures.

One further note I’d make is that I won’t sell Mbeumo unless he’s injured, and I don’t think there’s an urgent need to sell Son either. A lot of players have been disappointed by his returns in recent weeks but injury has been a factor, and while he does face Manchester City away this week he has scored eight goals in 19 previous games against them and Pep Guardiola’s defence does look fallible. With better fixtures afterwards, I wouldn’t buy him, but I wouldn’t rush to sell him until Chelsea and Arsenal’s fixtures get better in a few weeks’ time – at that stage, I absolutely want Saka and Palmer if at all possible.

I also still don’t advocate for selling Haaland. He’s still one of the league’s most reliable goalscorers and I don’t think the advantage of selling him is sufficient, especially if you’re tight on transfers. If I was wildcarding, I would entertain a team which had Salah, Saka and Palmer but not Haaland, but outside of that I think he’s worth clinging on to. We want to move players who aren’t going to bag big points on, not players like Haaland.

Captain choices and 3 Added Minutes FC

While I may not be in a hurry to sell Son or Haaland, I’m not going to tell anyone to captain them, either. Salah and Palmer are the players I’m looking at this week, with nobody else really on my radar. If you don’t have either, Alexander Isak and Ollie Watkins are sensible enough choices. Or Haaland. You never know.

As for my example team, 3 Added Minutes FC, another good week has us slowly moving up the rankings after a dreadful start to the season – my decision to sign Yoane Wissa was a data-driven move that paid immediate dividends, driving me to a solid 60-point week against an average of 49. I’ve still got a seven-digit ranking, which rankles, but we’re getting there.

This week, I’ve got some tough decisions to make. I can’t make the money work to get Salah in without making an awkward transfer that I don’t like much, but I can go from Emile Smith Rowe to Cole Palmer with exact money, and then save my second free transfer to help me switch Son out for Saka in a few weeks. Alternatively, I could move Bowen to Palmer and then either roll the transfer or switch Chris Wood out for Nicolas Jackson or a similar striker, which dodges some tough Nottingham Forest games in the near future and gives me the Son to Saka money as well. I’ll make my decision after the pressers.

That’s all for this week – best of luck to all of you and may your most expensive purchases pay off.