Week 8 – Time to give up on Mo?

Another surprise defeat for the Champions and another blank for M. Salah (£7.5m) !! 😯

J. Mateta’s (£4.2m) hat-trick makes him our Star Player of the Week. It was a poor week for Midfielders (none were in the top 11 weekly points scorers!) and this has led to another change of formation in the Team of the Season :-

with I. Thiago (£3.6m) coming back in for the injured E. Fernandez (£4.3m) and J. Mateta (£4.2m) making his debut in the Team of the Season replacing J. Anthony (£2.8m).

R. Roefs (£2.6m) reclaiming top keeper spot from N. Pope (£4.1m) in the only other change.

Another clean sheet for Arsenal and with very favourable forthcoming fixtures :-

will surely lead to gamers transferring in Arsenal’s defensive assets :-

we can see a + 13% jump in Arsenal players being brought in and with just 3 goals conceded in their first 9 games and it is thus their defensive assets that look most appealing with goals and assists being spread out amongst the team.

Our new report – Differentiators – page 9 on the Player Stats Portal :-

shows us the increasing popularity in the Arsenal defensive assets as the weeks progress – D. Raya (£4.4m) is now up to 15% ownership and, with D. Henderson (£3.1m) – owned by 31% of gamers – facing tough imminent fixtures (including Arsenal away next !) – he doesn’t even appear now on the top 5 keeper form charts over the last 7 weeks.

Swapping Henderson out for Raya will likely be a popular move this weekend…

J. Timber (£4.3m) or, even more so W. Saliba (£4.6m) are the big differentiators from Arsenal to also consider bringing in, Timber tops the last 7 game weeks form but is in 16% of teams now (up from just 2% on Week 1!) Saliba on the other hand is only in 11% of teams and is possibly slightly less of a ‘minutes risk’ than Timber who does have B. White (£4.5m) waiting in the wings…

That said, G. Magalhaes (£4.5m) and R. Calafiori (£4.2m) offer consistent offensive threat…. maybe you can bring them all in?!

How this could be funded is fairly obvious….. last seasons stand out player, M. Salah (£7.5m) :-

is really struggling for form now with 3 ‘blanks’ in a row and his ownership has now dropped to just 38% – he was the games second most popular player on Week 1 (behind C. Palmer (£6.2m) in half of gamers teams !

Our final look this week is at the Six Week Form rank – this removes Timber’s 20 point haul in Week 2 and thus moves him down the list (NB – Calafiori isn’t even on it!), highlighting the form of Gabriel, Raya and Saliba most prominently :-

E. Haaland (£8.3m) and A. Semenyo (£3.1m) top the form charts but, J. Mateta (£4.2m) and I. Thiago (£3.6m) warrant serious consideration, despite Palace and Brentford facing Arsenal and Liverpool respectively in Week 9…