Fantasy Premier League Gameweek 23: Liverpool & Everton double planning and whether to captain Salah or Isak

Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.com 
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565
Visit Shots! now
Our resident FPL expert offers up hints, tips, captain picks and forward planning for Liverpool’s double gameweek.

The Fantasy Premier League is about to enter a critical phase – with a big double gameweek coming on the same week that we can finally use our assistant manager chip, FPL players have a ton of difficult decisions to make in the very near future. Fortunately, our resident expert Matthew (with a Top 2,000 worldwide finish in 2024 to his name) is here to help.

He’ll present his thoughts on how to plan ahead and get the most out of Gameweek 23 below, but before we hand over it’s only fair to remind you that you can have a bit of a lie-in this Saturday if you like, as the deadline isn’t until 13:30 on 25 January. There’s no early kick-off, and no rush as a result…

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Should you wildcard now to get ready for next week?

There’s a fair amount to get through, so I’m going to dispense with any of my usual pre-amble and prattling… the first big question we need to answer is how we prepare for Liverpool (and, less excitingly, Everton’s) double gameweek in GW24. For a lot of players, that will mean considering a wildcard.

As a baseline, we’re surely going to want triple Liverpool and perhaps an Evertonian or two – and pretty much every player who has clung on to their triple captain chip should probably be ready to blow it on Mohamed Salah. There is unlikely to be a significantly better opportunity to maximise your points.

That means that if you have a triple captain available and don’t have enough transfers to get your team right for next week without taking -4s, it’s a very tempting time to wildcard. I discussed the Liverpool players we might want last week but since then Diogo Jota has picked up yet another injury, which means that I think the choice is now fairly straightforward – Salah, Luis Díaz and Ibrahima Konaté. The upside on Trent Alexander-Arnold just isn’t enough to justify the extra outlay required to sign him.

That doesn’t mean that now is the best time to use your wildcard, however. There are likely to be two more rounds of double gameweeks, and while they’ll be smaller than they have been in the past due to the updated schedule, we can still anticipate blank gameweeks for a couple of teams in GW29, a double for those teams in GW33, another, larger blank in GW34 and then one last double in GW36 thanks to the FA Cup semi-finals.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Using our wildcards to navigate those weeks is likely to be more impactful overall with more teams blanking and then doubling, so if you can hang on to your second wildcard and your free hit to get through them, then you’re probably going to be in a better position for it. Using ‘regular’ transfers to get all your Liverpool players in is likely to the best way forward, if possible. If you don’t have your triple captain available, incidentally, then there is even less of an incentive to wildcard. We’d ideally hang on to that free hit, however.

It's possible that the remaining double gameweeks will produce an even better triple captain target than Salah, but holding out for that possibility when there’s such a juicy target on the table seems foolish.

As for Everton players, the fact that they’re facing a Liverpool team who lead the league and who almost always win the Merseyside Derby means that it feels less like a double gameweek for them and more just a chance to tack one or two bonus points on to the score they already have. I don’t blame anyone for taking a flier on a Dominic Calvert-Lewin particularly, but be prepared for him to get a normal score against Leicester and then add an average of just over two points, perhaps. Then you’re stuck with an Everton striker heading into a mixed bag of fixtures. I’m probably going to pass.

Could Arne Slot be your assistant manager?

The assistant manager chip – the former ‘mystery chip’ which was unveiled in December – comes online from GW24 and provides us with another avenue with which to make the most of Liverpool’s promising pair of fixtures.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

I walked through some early thoughts on the assistant manager chip in a previous column just after it was announced and next week, I’ll look at some specific windows we could use them later in the week, but to cut to the chase – I concluded that the best way to use the chip was probably to pick one of the most successful managers at one of the best clubs, and that makes Arne Slot the clear front-runner. Is it worth going for an assistant manager chip over a triple captain if you have the option?

Remember that the assistant manager chip lasts for three weeks, and you can’t play any other chips during that period. So firing up Slot as an assistant manager this week won’t get in the way of any other likely good uses of your other remaining chips – which makes it very tempting indeed.

There’s another tempting window of relatively gentle fixture for Slot between gameweeks 28 and 30, but if Liverpool make the EFL Cup final then they would have a blank in 29 and you’ll have blown your chance – so if, like me, you believe that going for Slot is the best bet, then this may be your best chance to do so.

On the other hand, if they do make the EFL Cup final, they should get another double with games against Fulham, Leicester and West Ham thrown in – and that would be a solid consolation prize and perhaps even better. Someone’s getting a double around that period, after all, and an assistant manager is a good way to exploit. The question is whether the odds are that you’ll get a better triple captain than Salah this week.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

I personally doubt it. A double gameweek for Liverpool in GW33 would likely be Aston Villa and Leicester away. Spurs and Arsenal lack tempting triple captain targets right no, although Bukayo Saka may be back by then – if so, he’d have Chelsea and Ipswich Town should they get past Newcastle United in the semi-finals. If Spurs beat Liverpool, they have Fulham away and Nottingham Forest home. None of these are terrible triple captain targets, but better than Salah next week? Not for me.

So to sum up, I think an assistant manager chip on Slot is a good play for those who lack their triple captain, but that triple captain is more likely to be the right move if you have the option. I don’t think you should wildcard or free hit next week, unless your team is in big trouble and needs a rebuild anyway. Hopefully, I won’t be proven completely wrong…

Who to captain for Gameweek 23?

Of course, we do have the small matter of GW23 to get out of the way before we start throwing assistant manager chips around, and that means picking out a captain – which, let’s face it, should be straightforward. I’m back to Always Salah mode after spotting the opening for Alexander Isak a couple of weeks ago, and a home game against Ipswich makes this an easy call.

If, for some obscure reason, you still don’t have Salah (or are truly desperate for differentials) then you may be beyond my help, but you could do a lot worse than Isak, away to Southampton. It’s hard to look beyond those two – this isn’t a great week for gamblers.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

One note I will make is that despite a huge haul this past week, I wouldn’t recommend ‘panic buying’ Justin Kluivert. He’s cheap and has gone over 100 points, which is great, but owes a lot of his score to two gameweeks, isn’t a consistent scorer, and has a mixed bag of fixtures coming up – two you’d say were good targets, three rather less so, and then Spurs, which could go either way. I just don’t think he’s worth a transfer right now, especially when the focus should be on targeting the double gameweek.

Also remember, if you are planning to give Slot the assistant manager job next week, that you need a spare transfer and £1.5m to spend in order to get him in. Bear that in mind when making your moves and make sure you have the space required. That’s all for this week – best of luck and may all of your forward planning bear fruit.

Comment Guidelines

National World encourages reader discussion on our stories. User feedback, insights and back-and-forth exchanges add a rich layer of context to reporting. Please review our Community Guidelines before commenting.

Follow us
©National World Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.Cookie SettingsTerms and ConditionsPrivacy notice