FPL Fortress

The second half of the Wolves vs. Arsenal game was being played during the recording of this episode. When Gabriel provided an assist for Hincapié, Jacob and Jiayang—who had both triple-captained him—exclaimed with joy. Jiayang, in particular, manifested that Gabriel would finish the gameweek with at least 12 points. Five minutes later, Hugo Bueno wiped out Arsenal’s clean sheet, bringing Gabriel down to 8 points. We proceeded to discuss this week’s hefty Dilemma Deliberation, regarding which assets to target from teams with kind fixtures ahead. After reaching some good conclusions about Brentford, Fulham, Villa, and Liverpool, we moved onto a quick captaincy segment, before getting ready to wrap up the episode. Lo and behold, just as Jiayang was about to wish everyone a healthy green arrow, Jacob jumps in with one more update from the game: Calafiori had scored an own goal in the 94th minute, meaning Man City are now only five points behind with a game in hand—and with Arsenal still yet to visit the Etihad this season. But more importantly, in addition to putting a humongous dent in Arsenal’s title ambitions, this own goal meant Gabriel had now sunk to a measly 7 points. Heartbreak for Gunners, heartbreak for Gabriel triple-captainers. Who has it worse, really?

Following a gameweek where the average points was finally over 50, we now turn our attention to Double Gameweek 26, which has just been confirmed with Arsenal’s victory over Chelsea in the EFL Cup semi-final. What, then, is the best Arsenal triple-up—and is there an “objective” answer, or is it more so team dependent? To what extent should managers modify their teams if they already have a trio of Arsenal players that doesn’t align exactly with their ideal triple-up? A question of marginally secondary importance: just why is Jacob so bullish on Mateus Mané?

We also have a look at which assets in each position might be worthy of being considered “season keepers” from now on, and discover that the number might be no more than three or four. Although Haaland’s recent performances have been poor, we’re probably not at the point of selling him before the season’s end (yet). But we think managers would be wise to at least entrust their armband with someone else for the near future—Jacob, for one, is poised to finally free himself from Erling’s shackles and might just get a new lease on life in the process.

After the sixth successive gameweek with an average score of fewer than 50 points, it’s hard not to feel a little discouraged; but still, we must trudge on with the hope that someday in the near future, we’ll hop back over the fence to the good side of variance. Michael Carrick’s spirited Manchester United narrowly beat Arsenal, who, it must be said, have failed to take full advantage of their trailers’ recent slip-ups. Could the Red Devils’ exciting trio of Bruno, Mbeumo, and Cunha prove to be the solution to this prevailing attacker drought? Might we also look at the blue side of London, where Rosenior’s Chelsea have won five games on the bounce ahead of four bright green fixtures? With Haaland’s dip in form, captaincy seems more open than it’s been for most of this season—but are we brave enough to put our faith in Bruno, Enzo, or even Gabriel? Please also enjoy an important segment on Eli Junior Kroupi. Or is it just Junior Kroupi, as his Instagram account would suggest? Or maybe Kroupi.Jr, which is emblazoned on the back of his jersey—but doesn’t the period usually go after the “Jr”?

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In an otherwise not-so-exciting gameweek, Manchester United defeated their Mancunian rivals 2-0, marking a fourth blank in five matches for Haaland, a fifth blank in as many matches for O’Reilly, and a sixth successive blank for Foden. Liverpool are experiencing a slump, drawing their fourth match in a row—with Ekitiké bagging only a solitary assist after playing a total of 265 minutes at Anfield against Wolves, Leeds, and Burnley. Amidst this barren landscape, could Rosenior’s Chelsea offer an answer, ahead of what can only be described as the juiciest of fixture runs to grace any team’s calendar this season?

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On this fine New Year’s Day, Jacob and Jiayang gather with their friend Nicolas to watch some fine Premier League fixtures—but unfortunately, although the company was very fine indeed, the fixtures were not so. Despite watching a combined 270 minutes of soccer, we witnessed not a single goal that was not ruled out for offside. The drab results reflect a recent slump in FPL points across the board, which has left both of us feeling slightly stumped as to how we might turn our teams around and rekindle a feeling of excitement when we glance at our overall ranks. Although we don’t reach any particularly satisfying conclusions, this episode does prompt each of us to reflect on the first half of the season and come up with resolutions to propel us into 2026.

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Jacob has concluded his adventures in Oceania and Asia, and both of us are back in New York to hunker down for the Festive Fixtures. (And to closely follow AFCON with a keen eye toward any innovations in neck tension relief. Looking at you, Patson!) Hugo Ekitiké is on the forefront of most FPL managers’ minds, and for good reason—fixtures don’t get any juicier than Wolves at home. The perfect way to fund Ekitiké seems to be selling Bruno, who’s injured for the first time in years. But for which other midfielder? Options are plentiful—Cunha and Rice lead the pack, while Gordon, Rogers, and maybe even a wild Florian Wirtz are also in contention. Finally, for captaincy, any decent striker against Wolves probably isn’t the worst idea—especially when they’ve just scored five goals in their last three three matches—but is this really the week to bet against the ever-dominant Haaland?

It’s perhaps fitting that the international break would fill our teams with flags. But even though I would consider myself an amateur vexillologist—at one point, I was able to identify nearly all the national flags in the world—I’m not loving the yellow flags that have appeared next to many of my players. The injury of most consequence seems to be Gabriel’s—with him set to be out for 1–2 months, we must ask ourselves if we want to replace him with another Arsenal defender or look elsewhere. With a rather delectable fixture run ahead, Manchester United midfielders look quite attractive. But aside from the well-discussed trio of Mbeumo, Bruno, and Cunha, Jiayang tosses another name into the ring: Amad Diallo. Currently embroiled in his Critical Approaches to Art History course, Jiayang also brings up the art-historical methodology of connoisseurship, specifically the elusive “Sense of Quality” that art historian Bernard Berenson tantalizingly alludes to at the end of his 1902 essay, “Rudiments of Connoisseurship.” Jacob, hearing the idea for only the first time, applies it beautifully to the context of soccer—just what is it about Amad that makes him a player of such “Quality”? What are the indicators of Quality for different positions? Finally, we examine a few mid-table teams whose fortunes either have shifted recently, are in the process of shifting, or seem destined to shift imminently.

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Thanks to Ndiaye and Xhaka respectively, Jacob and Jiayang both enjoyed successful Bench Boosts. Our overall solid gameweeks, however, owed little thanks to our starting midfielders, none of whom got a single return. Which leads to the question: are we in the midst of a midfielder drought? Five out of the top ten highest-scoring midfielders are either box-to-box or defensive midfielders, with Rice looking especially enticing due to Arsenal’s ever-potent set-piece threat. Jacob is also forced to confront some first-world problems: firstly, still having a Free Hit chip without an obvious gameweek to play it in, and secondly, having no idea what to do with any of his four transfers. Speaking of which—more than a year after managers were allowed to have five free transfers in the bank instead of two, Jiayang wistfully reminisces about the days when using three transfers in one go—two free transfers and a hit—felt like a joyous mini-Wildcard.

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I can’t remember the last time a Manchester United player other than Bruno Fernandes was a viable FPL asset, but Cunha and especially Mbeumo finally appear to be hitting their stride. Could it be time to invest? In the striker department, Haaland is of course unnegotiable currently; Mateta isn’t too far off, having racked up a whopping 7.99 xG in just nine games—only marginally less than Haaland himself. Who should our third forward be? Jacob and Jiayang have both become rather enamored with Igor Thiago, though one could also make good arguments for Woltemade and Kroupi Junior. Finally, we take some time to critically reassess our fixture-o-meters—that is, our perception of fixture difficulty. Sunderland and Leeds, who we thought would be easy targets at the start of this season, have shown thus far that they are more than capable of holding their own. On the flip side, West Ham, Wolves, and Nottingham Forest have been worryingly bad. Perhaps it would be wise, at least for the moment, for us to purge from our memory the fact that they have typically been solid, mid-table teams, each of them even having competed for Europe in recent years.

We have been building up to this moment for a few weeks now: Jacob has decided to activate his Wildcard!

We work our way through the options from the bottom up, going through the locks and then discussing the shortlisted players for each position. Given the healthy selection of attractive defenders available at the moment, the question is instead how many defenders at each price point Jacob wants. In midfield, the bulk of our conversation revolves around which budget options can best supplement Saka and Semenyo. We run into the most trouble with the forwards—we love Haaland and we like Mateta, but no one else seems quite up to par. At the end, Jiayang is left pondering whether he wants to activate his Wildcard too—to be fair, he does want to replace his entire backline, but he remains unconvinced by the appeal of any attacking assets that he doesn’t already own.

As for captaincy—any sane person should probably captain Haaland for against Everton at home. Sadly, we won’t be able to record next week, so we also have a crack at captaincy for Gameweek 9. The decision is slightly trickier—Semenyo at home to a free-falling Forest looks promising—but Haaland might just be too damn good to bet against.