Game Week 1: The Battle of the Strikers

The new season is upon us. I’ve spent the majority of the offseason lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for this upcoming weekend because the Premier League is the truest source of joy. I’m going to try to write one of these posts every week to pick a few players to look out for in Official FPL as well as FTSY in the next set of fixtures. So without further ado, let’s jump into Game Week 1.

1. Vardy

Hull vs Leicester has the making of potentially the most one-sided opening game to any season ever. Let’s start with Hull. At the time of writing (one day before this match), Hull have thirteen fit players and no manager. The newly-promoted team only have their backup keeper and three defenders available; it’s no wonder their manager decided to pack it in. They’re in a pretty dire place and are looking favourites to be relegated.

Onward to the current title holders. Leicester lost possibly their most important player over the summer. Kante’s move to Chelsea will hurt the Foxes greatly. Thankfully Vardy and Mahrez seem to be staying, at least for now. M’ahrez (*tips fedora*) was one of the most effective midfielders last season with 17 goals, 11 assists, 2.3 shots per game, and 1.8 key passes per game. Jamie “chat shit get banged” Vardy tied for 2nd place for total goals last season with 24. The meme’s average of 3.2 shots per game was towards the top end of things too. However, I don’t think many people are expecting The Foxes to do a repeat of last year.

Vardy looks like a great pick for GW1. He’s currently sitting at a value of 6 in FTSY, making him one of the most popular players. If you’d like to go for a more risky pick, Mahrez is valued at 8. Vardy’s salaried at 10.0 in FPL making him a versatile choice. At this price you can easily downgrade him to the likes of Giroud, Costa, and Lukaku in the future, or you can shuffle your team around a bit to bring in heavy hitters like Kane and Ibrahimovic. But I would beware of keeping him as a long term option.

2. Kane

There’s not much to say about Kane apart from this.

After a rather disappointing Euro 2016, you might be cautious to back the Spurs frontman, but it seems like Kane is back to his best after a short rest. The current golden boot holder averaged 4.2 shots per game, which was the 2nd highest of the past season (beaten only by Coutinho, and let’s face it, half of Coutinho’s shots end up in the upper tiers of the stands). He also managed to score twice and assist once in Spurs’ 6–1 thrashing of Inter Milan, a defeat which caused Inter to sack their manager.

A strong case can be made for Kane here due to his support from midfield being stronger than ever. Eriksen and Alli looked sharp in preseason. However, it seemed to be Lamela pulling the strings. Lamela (aka Keira Knightley with a fauxhawk) finished the last season very strongly and kept up his form during his appearances in Argentina’s Copa America campaign. The Skeletor-esque player was on fire (just like the legend Will Grigg) in preseason, and many Spurs fans are tipping him to have a strong 16–17 season.

Spurs are going up against Everton in their first match, not the easiest of fixtures. Everton’s defense will be strong with Koeman as manager. However, with the loss of Stones and Williams not being ready, I fully expect Spurs to come out of the gates at full pace.

Kane is valued slightly lower than Vardy in FTSY at 5, but he is a very safe option if you want guaranteed points on the board. But, keep checking the FTSY values; they’ll keep changing with popularity, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Kane gets knocked to lower than 5 when all the last-minute fantasy players scramble to make their selections. Again you can go with the more risky pick of Alli at 9 if you’d like. Kane is in a similar position as Vardy in FPL. His price of 11.0 makes him the 3rd most expensive player in the game, but that’s what you’d expect for a proven Premier League striker. Although Lamela offers a very compelling, and cheap way into the Spurs attack at only 7.0.

3. Ibrahimovic

There’s much to be said about Zlatan, and there are two ways to see things. Zlatan is getting old, BUT he’s still an incredible physical player. Zlatan hasn’t proven himself in the Premiership, BUT he has proven himself in every other league in the world. They’ve sacked van Gaal, BUT they’ve hired Mourinho, who likes to park the bus. Man Utd were terrible last season, BUT they’ve strengthened their team with the addition of Mkhitaryan and Pogba.

It might be the smart thing to wait until we know if Zlatan can do it on a cold rainy night in Stoke, but where’s the fun in that? We want to make rash decisions which we end up regretting. Zlatan is exactly the kind of player you want if you’re looking for goals. He averaged 5 shots per game in his last season at PSG and managed to score 1.23 goals per game. Yep, he scored more than one goal per game on average. Even though that may be in the one-sided excuse of a league that is Ligue 1; if he can manage even half of that this year, he’ll hit around 23 goals and be in contention for the Golden Boot.

Bournemouth away looks to be a nice way for Zlatan to ease into the Premier League. But the real question here isn’t whether or not Zlatan will score, it’s how many times do you think we’ll hear a variation of the phrase “welcome to the premier league” during the match?

Just like Kane, Zlatan is currently valued at 5 in FTSY. They hype train has left the station. Unlike Kane, there are no enticing Man Utd players as an alternative. We’re not sure how Mourinho is going to line up the rest of the attack, and Martial (the only other player I would consider at the moment) is very streaky. Zlatan is currently sitting at a 39% ownership rate in FPL. At a price of 11.5, he’ll take up a large portion of your funds, but if you’re intent on having Man Utd coverage in your team he’s the one to go with.

Risky Pick: Firmino

I know, he’s playing Arsenal, the team with the most number of clean sheets last season. However, Arsenal always have at least 20 players injured at any given time. This time the injuries seem to have hit their defense. Koscielny is being rested after a long Euro campaign. Mertesacker and Gabriel are also out with long term injuries. Arsenal will be forced to play Chambers and new signing, Holding. There’s a chance that Monreal will be moved inwards from his regular fullback position, but that’s beside the point, because almost anyone will tell you that a CB pairing need to play together regularly to function well. Of course, Wenger will try to sign another CB before the window closes, but that looks unlikely to happen before GW1.

The defensive shambles going on at Arsenal make Liverpool a rather attractive option in the first week. I think Firmino is the player to back here given the fact that Sturridge is once again injured (it’s as if he’s made of paper and held together with off brand Blu Tack). Liverpool have Origi, Benteke, Ings, and Balotelli (lol) to cover for him but it looks likely that Firmino will play up front. The Brazilian, who bagged three goals and an assist in Liverpool’s preseason fixtures, is looking like a good option if you want to go for an under-the-radar pick.

Firmino is currently a bargain in FTSY. His value of 9 makes him one of the least-picked players and could give you a leg up over your friends. His price of 8.5 in FPL makes him slightly cheaper than the myriad of 9.5 midfielders, which could free up valuable funds to invest elsewhere. With an ownership of only 9.7% he could be a great differential pick in the early weeks.

So there you go. I’ve given you four decent options for attacking returns in GW1. A lot of this post was based on preseason and previous season performance, which we all know counts for almost nothing. There’s a chance that all of these predictions fall flat on their face, and in that case I take no responsibility. It’s your fault for listening to some random guy on the internet.