With the next Fantasy Premier League (FPL) deadline almost upon us, we’re getting insight and team reveals from our panel of Hall of Famers and guest writers. Here, three-time top 500 finisher FPL General talks us through Gameweek 11, plus his plans for Gameweek 12 and beyond.
Gameweek 11 Review
We’re almost there, folks. A few more days and FPL will be back in our lives. The best part of the season is about to begin with games coming thick and fast. There are also no more international breaks until March. Woohoo!
It’s been a more interesting break than usual with a lot of FPL managers migrating from X to Bluesky, or at least setting up an account there. Having been on the platform for about a week now, my first impressions are very positive. It has the potential to take over as the number one social media platform for the FPL community. Check it out if you haven’t already. It’s a nice escape from bots, ads and trolls and has a ‘Twitter of old’ feel about it.
As for my team, it was a red arrow in the most recent Gameweek, dropping from 731k to 751k. I like to set small targets and the first one when the football returns will be to get back inside the top 500k, which is only 11 points away. Mark Flekken (£4.5m) will score that alone versus Everton this weekend (then probably lose it all in the last five minutes again). Once that goal is achieved, I’ll be aiming to get into the top 100k by the turn of the year. That is currently 44 points away.
The free transfer in Gameweek 11 was used to bring in Chris Wood (£6.6m) for Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£5.7m), which didn’t result in any immediate gains. I’m hopeful, despite the tricky fixtures, that the Nottingham Forest striker will continue to be a good value pick.
Losing Erling Haaland (£15.2m) ahead of Gameweek 10 and buying Mohamed Salah (£12.9m) and Matheus Cunha (£6.8m) at the same time has worked out quite well (so far!). Salah has produced the goods as captain in the subsequent two Gameweeks and he’s very likely to keep the armband for Southampton away. The intention when selling the most expensive player in the game was to avoid him until around Gameweek 18. It’s going to take a lot of courage to see it through but I’m determined to stick to the plan and see how it goes.
The defence continues to be a nightmare! Arsenal’s fixtures improve now, so that should see Gabriel Magalhaes (£6.1m) get back to what we expect from him points-wise. I’m keen to add either David Raya (£5.5m) or a second Arsenal defender in the near future for the defensive double-up. If there’s no positive update on Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.0m) ahead of the Southampton fixture, he may need to go this week…