Cianan’s Column: Let’s talk GW9

FPL GW9 is right around the corner, and there’s no time to waste – the Friday deadline is fast approaching; read on to learn the key knowledge necessary to take this weekend’s football by the horns.

Don’t sell Pedro. He may have been deeply frustrated over the past four weeks, but Sunderland (H) is simply not the time to jump ship, especially since his best replacement, Mateta, is facing Arsenal (A). Hold off until next week, when it may be time to move on from a few popular forward options, including Gyökeres, who appears allergic to scoring a goal. He’s certainly not worth his £9.0m price tag at the moment.

Buy Fernández, primarily for the same reason you shouldn’t sell Pedro (not yet, at least): Sunderland (H) is a prime fixture. Plus, he offers excellent value at his £6.7m price point and has averaged a goal involvement every 61 minutes this season, thanks to both his newfound penalty-taking responsibilities and his relish for pushing further forward in the absence of Chelsea talisman Palmer. The Blues have a stellar fixture run until GW16 (excluding Arsenal (H) in GW13) too, and thus the Argentinian passes the long-term test.

The other Fernandes, as in the £8.9m Manchester United captain, is also showing the value this column has long claimed for him, having grabbed an eight-pointer last week against reigning champions Liverpool. Though his consistency has been subpar this season, there isn’t a game in which he isn’t playable until GW22 (in mid-January), and he has several avenues to points: goals (especially from penalties), assists, DEFCON, and a strong bonus point record when he does grab a goal contribution.

Newcastle defenders may have proven disappointing (I’d keep faith in the likes of Pope and Burn, though), but one spark for the Magpies is Woltemade, who seems incapable of not scoring. He’s scored in four of his first five games for Newcastle, including three in the last three, so it’s no surprise he’s had nearly 600k transfers in so far this round. It’s hard to keep ignoring him, given the consistent shortcomings of the other, more popular, striking options. At the very least, keep him on your radar.

Salah just isn’t the man this season; he’s far too expensive. Sell him and redistribute the funds elsewhere. There’s not really much more to it at this point; it’s extremely hard to make a case for keeping hold of him while he’s averaging only 0.3 xG per 90, and only 4.5 points per match.

Such numbers would be more than passable for a winger who was worth, say, £6.5 million, but we don’t even need to imagine such a scenario. Ndiaye costs exactly that much, is averaging the same xG, and has a better points-per-game of 5.1. It’s never fun to sell someone who can be as exceptional as we all know Salah can be, but you have to take the plunge eventually. If you want to own a Liverpool attacker, look at the cheaper and more consistent Gakpo – but even then, you can just wait for their fixtures to improve from GW12 onwards.

Since we were on the topic of Liverpool, there is something else worth discussing to close out this week’s FPL article. Team performance is obviously important, as strong collective effort allows individual players to flourish, but this form ebbs and flows over time. Liverpool will not remain this weak for long, and Arsenal’s defence won’t be impenetrable forever. It’s worth making hay while the sun is shining, while simultaneously trying to spot opportunities others won’t because of their misguided perception that form won’t change, but it almost always does. Just food for thought.

Rapid recommendations

● If you don’t own two Arsenal defenders (Gabriel, Timber, Raya, Calafiori) at this point, please take a long, hard look in the mirror.
● Perhaps I should start to, but typically this column doesn’t address captaincy. That’s because, for now, there is only one answer: Haaland.
● Going to have to swallow my pride and confess: I was wrong about Muñoz. Although I prefer DEFCON defenders this season, he’s still a great option.
● Reijnders is so cheap that you need not worry about him too much – he shouldn’t have been more than a rotational asset anyway.
● Will James stay fit long-term? Probably not. Is Cucarella safe from rotation? Probably not. Can Chelsea go one game without a red card? Seemingly not!

The Boar standings

1st: Dwight Club (514) – managed by Cianan Sheekey
2nd: parths11 (500) – managed by Parth Malik
3rd: Lightning McLean (484) – managed by Thomas Spinks