Last week’s dilemma, this week at Stamford Bridge
Last gameweek, it was all about Manchester City at home to Coventry. This gameweek, it is all about Chelsea at home to Hull. The pattern repeats itself with a precision that ought to make us suspicious: a top side gets a fixture that looks straightforward on paper, the transfer market goes into overdrive, and half of Norway’s Fantasy managers make the same two transfers at once.
Experience tells us that it usually pays to resist this. Optimising your team for a single fixture is the most expensive habit you can have in FPL. It costs you a transfer, often four points on top, and leaves you with a player you would not really want in Gameweek 5.
But last week’s instinctive response to City cannot simply be applied to Chelsea. It is worth explaining why.
Chelsea are not City
The argument against City’s players last week was never that the fixture was poor. It was that Enzo Fernández and Iliman Ndiaye arrived on deadline day, making the competition for the attacking roles behind Erling Haaland too intense. Rayan Cherki and Phil Foden look sharp, but uncertainty over their minutes eats away at their value. Should either suffer a long-term injury, the calculation changes overnight. We are not there yet.
The Chelsea trio do not have that problem:
- João Pedro – 90, 90, 90
- Cole Palmer – 82, 90, 90
- Morgan Rogers – 81, 90, 86
Those are the minutes of three players a team is built around. And Chelsea have no European competition to divide their energies during a period when most of their rivals will now be playing midweek fixtures. In a season that could quickly become a battle for minutes, that is a genuine advantage.
The underlying numbers back this up. Chelsea remain among the Premier League’s leading sides for xG, even after their average was dragged down by the trip to Arsenal – the toughest assignment of the season, and it is already out of the way. Pedro and Rogers have strong xGI figures. Palmer is lagging behind for now, but he takes penalties, has comfortably the best track record, and three matches are nothing. His expected points tally is still the highest of the three.
Rogers is the most interesting. At Aston Villa, he consistently outperformed his xG, largely through accurate long-range shooting. He has made a good start at Chelsea. A change of club still makes the picture less clear than the statistics suggest, though, and that should be factored into the assessment.
The fixture run also continues after Hull: Brentford away, Bournemouth at home, Everton away, Tottenham at home. Brentford away is tougher than people remember, given how they have played so far, but this is a period through which you can own Chelsea players, not a single fixture for which you need to buy and then sell them.
That is the main point. If you are buying Chelsea this week because you plan to sell them again in Gameweek 5, you are making the classic mistake. If you are buying them because you want them for the next six gameweeks, that is something quite different.
Hull’s numbers do not stack up
Before the season, Hull were identified as the weakest team in the league. After three gameweeks, they have seven points from a possible nine and are the only side yet to concede.
The question, then, is whether we are reading the numbers correctly. Hull have an xGA of almost five. In other words, with a normal outcome, they would already have conceded around five goals. Zero does not indicate a defence that has cracked the code. It reflects a combination of fine margins, goalkeeping and luck that will not last.
The correction will come. Nobody knows whether it will happen at Stamford Bridge this weekend, but Chelsea have developed a useful habit of scoring early this season, and conceding early is exactly what causes this sort of house of cards to collapse. Wednesday’s 6-3 League Cup win over Leeds, after going 2-0 down, shows how quickly things can change. Palmer scored twice. Rogers provided four assists. In 45 minutes.
Hull could certainly carry their momentum into the match. But building your FPL strategy around them continuing to keep clean sheets means banking on an obvious overperformance continuing.
The cost is felt elsewhere
This is where most analyses stop too soon. The question is not whether Palmer and Rogers are good buys. The question is who you sell.
To afford them in midfield, it is usually Bruno Fernandes or Bryan Mbeumo who makes way. They are the second and third most-sold midfielders this gameweek, while ranking first and second for xGI among midfielders so far this season. That should give us pause.
Yes, Manchester United face Manchester City at Old Trafford, and yes, that is a very different fixture from Hull at home. But in the corresponding match in January, Mbeumo scored and Fernandes provided an assist in a 2-0 win. Fernandes has a total of three goals and three assists in 13 appearances against City. Mbeumo has one goal and one assist in seven attempts. And in matches with more space to counter-attack, Marcus Rashford often does well – perhaps he will be the one to shine this weekend.
More importantly, United have a better fixture than Chelsea in Gameweek 5, with Fulham away, followed by Tottenham at home in Gameweek 6. Fernandes is not a rotation risk either, even with midweek Champions League matches ahead. He plays 90 minutes in the Premier League almost regardless.
Selling Fernandes for Palmer is therefore not a cost-free switch. It is a wager that Chelsea against Hull is so much better than United against City that the difference will cover the cost over time. It is not obvious that this is true.
Free Hit?
On paper, the Free Hit solves the whole problem: maximise your Chelsea returns this gameweek, keep your United players for the fixtures ahead, and leave room to target Liverpool at home to Fulham, for example, at the same time.
I would still save the chip. Gameweek 12, when Arsenal face Manchester City, is a better time. Then you avoid having half your team playing against one another, and can instead load up on Crystal Palace at home to Hull and Leeds at home to Coventry.
A Wildcard now is even harder to justify. If your team is already reasonably well set up, you are using one of the season’s most powerful tools for marginal improvements.
The real bargain is in Arsenal’s defence
While everyone is looking towards Stamford Bridge, there is something far more striking in the statistical tables.
Arsenal have an xGA of 1.27 after three matches. Manchester City are next best with 3.13. That is not a small gap; it is a different category – and it has come from an opening fixture list that included Chelsea, the league’s highest-scoring team.
Three matches is a small sample, admittedly. But this is not a new phenomenon. It is a continuation of a clear trend from last season and the season before. And now the fixtures get easier: Sunderland, Brighton, Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Everton in the next five.
The names to consider:
Riccardo Calafiori (5.7) has already risen from 5.5 and is probably this week’s clearest “must-have”. He takes up so many attacking positions that his potential for goals and assists comes on top of the best clean-sheet prospects in the league.
Ezri Konsa (4.4) is simply mispriced. He started against Chelsea, earned defensive contribution points, and looks set to be a regular starter for as long as William Saliba is out. A regular starter in the league’s best defence at 4.4 should really cost around 6.0.
Gabriel Magalhães (8.0) is expensive, but last season’s king of the defenders will head home from set pieces sooner or later. If you can afford him, he will justify his price over time.
Ben White is a different matter. He is delivering, but Jurriën Timber will return from injury at some point and reclaim the right-back spot. If you own him, that is fair enough. I would not buy him now.
Ødegaard or Saka – or neither?
Martin Ødegaard at 6.5 was underpriced from the start and has delivered accordingly. A player with 23 and 19 goal involvements in his two best seasons, who also picks up bonus points and has previously cost 8.5, is an obvious buy now that he is finally injury-free.
But there is a trend here that I do not like: 75, 70 and 76 minutes in his three Premier League matches. It reflects the attacking depth Arsenal now have, and the issue is unlikely to affect only him. Bukayo Saka at 9.5 is three million more expensive, and with Champions League matches in midweek, I think his minutes will also be trimmed at times.
That is why I think three Arsenal defenders are a better answer than two defenders plus an Arsenal attacker. You get the same exposure to what is truly exceptional about this team, without paying for minutes you cannot be sure of getting.
Ødegaard did, incidentally, provide a good response to this himself in midweek, scoring the winner against Napoli and getting 90 minutes under his belt.
This gameweek’s captain
For the first time this season, neither Haaland nor Fernandes is the obvious choice. They face each other at Old Trafford.
That leaves the Chelsea players at home to Hull. Liverpool against Fulham, Crystal Palace against Ipswich and Arsenal away to Sunderland are good fixtures, but none of them has a player who makes the cut in this discussion.
Palmer is the first choice if you own him: the most expensive, on penalties, the best track record.
Pedro is more widely owned and will attract a significant share of captaincy picks regardless. He is in excellent form and gets into more clear-cut scoring positions than Palmer. If you do not own Palmer and have no intention of buying him, the Brazilian is an entirely reasonable choice, not a last resort.
The conclusion
The Chelsea trio are good FPL picks. That is not where the disagreement lies. It lies in how much you should pay to bring them in right now.
My approach is one transfer, not two. Bring in one of the Chelsea players, give him the armband, and retain flexibility heading into Gameweek 5 and the long international break before Gameweek 6. If you use two transfers this gameweek to bring in both Palmer and Rogers, you are left with a luxury problem on the bench and fewer options in reserve.
And use your next transfer on Arsenal’s defence instead. That is the part of this gameweek that is still underpriced.
Remember the transfer deadline on Saturday at 14.30.