🙏 A Moment For Son Capitainers... GW8 Recap 🌟

Gm football fans. Route One here.

While the international break is a snooze-fest, I think all FPL managers can agree on one thing: a break is necessary. It’s time to rethink strategy and recover from what has been nothing short of a season from hell.

Anyway, I’d like to thank the many of you who joined us over the weekend. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us (we reply to everything!!) by simply replying to this email. We’d love to hear from you. : )

Today’s briefing is a ~5 min read:

• 🗞️ Morning Brief: Bowen set to leave Hammers and United eye up Canadian left-back.

• 🤩 Arsenal vs City: stat summary of the weekend’s biggest game…

• 🙏 GW8 FPL Review: a moment please for Son captainers.

Psst… GW8 results are at the bottom.

RESULTS

Sunday 8 October

Saturday 7 October

🗞️ MORNING BRIEF

🌟 THE BIGGUN’

Arsenal 1 vs 0 Man City

Yesterday was one of the biggest games of the season. No wonder Arsenal had a shaky start.

But, City didn’t look like their ruthless selves. The only reason they clocked in a 0.55 xG was because of early chances that, really, should have been taken.

Urumph…

From treble winners to losing back-to-back Premier League games, it’s been a rough couple of weeks for Guardiola’s boys.

They’ll pick up form eventually but the lack of Rodri (and, meh, De Bruyne) is taking its toll.

• But, it’s not only defensively that they’re lacking… City’s pass completion in the final third was a dismal 51%, compared to 87.3% across the entire pitch.

Arsenal didn’t register a shot on target in the first half - the first time this season.

And, though they picked up the pace in the second half, to be honest, it didn’t look like they were going to break down City’s defence.

But football is a game of moments - and in the 86th minute, Martinelli had his.

😬 Fantasy Premier League

A Moment For Son Captainers… 🙏

Here at Route One we ran the numbers before gameweek 8.

We got a few things right:

• Arsenal weren’t going to concede many - and they didn’t concede any!

• Haaland wasn’t a good captaincy choice this gameweek.

• And ummm

• Urr ummm

Oh, that’s about it.

Can you blame us? We’re going off objective stats, grounded on previous trends and historical analysis.

But, who gives a toss about that this season? That’s not the meta.

The meta is to chuck in a bunch of players - honestly it doesn’t matter who at this point - and just hope for the best.

On paper, Son was a good captain choice.

This is not the time to question your intelligence if you did captain him. Of the top 100 managers, 39 went with Son - and 34,000 triple-captained him.

Yikes…

Yes, his xPts were high… BUT the data doesn’t account for the fact that Luton at home might be one of the highest grounds to play at.

This probably explains why Luton’s xGC is relatively low.

Reminder: factor this in next time you’re tempted to bully a Luton fixture.

So, let’s summarise GW8… and (try to) put you out of your misery. 

• If it makes you feel any better there weren’t that many points up for grabs this week… many of the main FPL assets blanked

• If you’re jealous of Sterling owners, just remember 16 points in one week doesn’t make up for the 6 out of 8 blanks for the season

• If you captained Salah (over Haaland and Son congrats to you my friend)

• Don’t fool for over-hyped assets (Cough Watkins Cough) … there’s a reason that his xPts are lower than the rest. I know I said don’t listen to the stats but the stats suggest his hauls are anomalies…

• Cole Palmer looks good at only £4.9m. He has 3 returns in 2 starts, he's on pens and only owned by 0.7% (at the time of writing this). BUT, there's a caveat... Chelsea's upcoming fixtures. Arsenal, Brentford, Spurs, City, Newcastle. 😬 Palmer is going to be a good budget enabler between GW16-24.

• Just avoid United players atm. Simple as.

💯 GW8 Results…

😆 MEME