Fantasy Premier League Preview for Gameweek 12.

TLDR: Leeds aren’t very good against top teams but Bamford will probably keep doing his thing and scoring. James Rodriguez looks like he needs to go. Same with DCL. Jack Grealish and Wilfred Zaha are some hot picks. Son is a great pick but difficult to know when to captain. Don’t think Werner is very good. Salah should be captained this weekend. Owning lots of highly owned players is a differential in of itself.

Leeds:

Leeds got absolutely wrecked by Chelsea. Really uncompetitive, probably their worst game this season. It should have probably been 7-1, completely obliterated. So far, Leeds’ performance has been iffy, and they have been relying a lot on Bamford and it’s showing. Their midfielders are also not good enough. Rafinha has got a ton of skills, but it’s not enough. Jack Harrison is also not great. Alioski not even close to Premier League standard. Almost like the New York Giants, no talent but great coaching. The Leeds game against Chelsea was not great, possibly just because Chelsea had better players all around. Chelsea was dominating Leeds. So much pace and skill to continually break through Leeds’ backline. Leeds frequently found themselves outclassed. Kante was beating Leeds at their own game with his insane work rate and pace advantage. This fixture pile-up will be especially nasty for Leeds since they are a very high energy team. Leeds won’t have their usual week of rest and will be forced to play every couple of days on a much tighter schedule without much result. The result won’t be too pretty. Will Leeds fall off the second half of the season since Bielsa will just run his players into the ground? While this may be a concern for Leeds supporters, this probably won’t be an issue for FPL managers who own Bamford. Bamford will keep running around and doing his thing, shooting and scoring. Same thing with Leeds FPL wise. Leeds will continually underperform their xG since they always keep shooting but don’t have good enough players to convert their chances into goals. Leeds’ game against Chelsea might indicate that worse is yet to come, or it might suggest that they don’t do great against good teams at the top of the table. Leeds still has some easy games against teams like West Ham to pop off and do well against those teams.

Everton

Everton’s last game wasn’t that bad. Even James probably should have a goal and an assist. But they were playing Burnley, and Burnley is not exactly top class, so that might be why Everton wasn’t looking too bad. Everton has some challenging games coming up with Chelsea, Leicester, Arsenal, and Manchester City in four of their next five games. Everton has just five good players, four now with Digne out. All the other players on the squad are only team players who enable the top players to perform. For Everton to perform, it seems like everything needs to be going right for them. With the pandemic, things are just getting harder for Everton. Just overall, very frustrating.

James Rodriguez

Is it time to drop James? James is a fantastic player, and I love to see him play and love him in general. However, in terms of FPL, James has got to go. James does not have the legs to run. With the fixture pile-up, this is going to be a significant problem. At the moment, James is a deep line playmaker, almost like Thiago Alcântara at Liverpool. James is not a forward, never really in the box, can’t catch up to Richarlison and DCL on the counterattack, and has been blanking for an incredibly long time. James’ last return was an assist in GW5 against Liverpool. Right now, there are so many good premium options to replace James, like Jack Grealish or Wilfred Zaha.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin

DCL does not create many chances. If DCL can poke in a goal in he scores or he doesn’t not. That being said, DCL’s movement is so good. I don’t think that any strikers get chances where DCL can get chances. Every single time when Everton is building up or counterattacking, DCL is always able to find space. It’s just nuts. With my love for DCL now known, getting rid of DCL is a very valid argument. With Digne out for two months, Everton’s width has been a bit hampered. Couple this with Richarlison being selfish and not making the right decisions, and the harder fixtures coming up, selling DCL is pretty logical. Maybe transferring out DCL for these five bad gameweeks and then transferring back in might be wise.

Mid Priced Midfielders

Ranking Jack and Wilf:

#1. Jack Grealish. A great pick.

#2. Wilfred Zaha is also a great pick. The combination of Batshuayi coming back, Ayew being fit, and Zaha starting at the top makes it a no brainer to get Zaha in. Zaha is so good. Starting at striker and shooting more often, Zaha will get the most goals he’ll ever have in a Premier League season. Just a great pick.

Don’t get James Ward-Prowse. Just don’t. JWP only scores some free kick worldies and gets lucky that way.

Pulisic is not good. Pulisic is good when he plays, but he is a trap. Don’t go near this guy. Pulisic gets injured much easier.

Diogo Jota is not good.

Spurs

Son and Kane have been an unstoppable duo. This duo has been leading the league in combined goals and assists. So, is it time to get them out? Obviously no. Starting with Son, he is in such good form. Son’s goals have usually been worth around 5-6 points with his insane bonus points. Kane is number one in basically every statistic, and that’s a player you want into your team.

I don’t see myself captaining Kane, and Bamford does seem to keep up with him, so I transferred Kane out and put in Bamford. I don’t feel bad about that. I do feel bad about not having Son. Partially because Son is 1.5 million cheaper, and with that 1.5 you can have Salah, Bruno, KDB along with him.

Also, I have no clue which fixtures are good for Spurs. Leeds and Southampton are good fixtures since Spurs are regularly able to counter and score, but otherwise, Spurs’ fixtures are unpredictable. This makes it hard to pick a captaincy.

Rambling

Timo Werner has hat trick potential. I like that. But formation keeps changing, and Werner is playing reverse out of position. So far, Werner has had just one double-digit return, which is not acceptable. When you have DCL and Bamford, two and three million less, I don’t think Werner does not bring much value. Maybe I’m wrong.

Lamptey was not very good, and it’s clear that Brighton cannot keep clean sheets. It’s hilarious that when I see a Lamptey highlight, he’s the furthest guy up the pitch, and he’s only a defender.

Captain Options This Week:

Salah’s captain is pretty obvious this week. Liverpool at Everton is a great fixture, and Salah should return.

Maybe a Bamford captain with the West Ham fixture this week? This man keeps returning.

FPL Fallacies

People think that if they have many 40% owned players, they won’t rise since they don’t have any differentials. The thing is that not many people have 3, 4, or even 5 of these 40% owned players in a single team. For instance, according to LiveFPL.net, in the top 10k of managers the combined ownership of Salah, De Bruyne, and Son is just 1.6%. This goes to show that owning combinations of highly owned players is, in fact, a differential in itself. What matters more is just getting your captaincy right. That will guarantee green arrows every week. If you have good players, keep them. There are players in this game who have a small amount of risk and players with considerable risk. It just depends on how you want to play the game. Bottom line, nail your captain.

My Gameweek 12 Team:

Up there is my Gameweek 12 Team. I brought in KDB and Bamford for Kane and Foden. Not really sure why I did that but it felt right since Foden didn’t seem to be getting many minutes and Bamford was keeping pace with Kane pointwise. KDB looks like a regular starter and hopefully he and Bamford can perform. I’m going with my Salah captaincy choice since it’s the most obvious. Hopefully things go smoothly this week.

Also looking to get Rodriguez out asap and bring in Zaha.