FPL GW3 tips: The best fixtures, who to captain, who’s in TAA’s team?

Benedict O'Neill • 25 Sep 2020

GW3 pits the most FPL expensive assets — Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang — against one another. It could be tasty.

GW2 was a lesson in patience, with the game’s second most transferred-out player, Son Heung-Min (£9.0m), topping the scoring with a 24-point haul to leave me bosses feeling stupid.

Sadio Mane (£12.0m) and TAA (£7.5m) also proved the doubters wrong with comebacks after a poor GW1.

So will rash transfer decisions also define GW3?

Over 600,000 FPL managers have already brandished their receipts for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£11.9m), despite the Arsenal captain posting attacking returns in the first two GWs.

Timo Werner (£9.5m), meanwhile, is the third most transferred-out asset, despite facing a West Brom defence currently conceding four goals per game.

These are our top tips for GW3, including fixtures to look out for and your best captaincy options.

Best fixtures

Crystal Palace – Everton

We could devote this section to Man City, Liverpool and whoever is facing West Brom on any given weekend, but we’ll try to keep it interesting.

Both Palace and Everton have enjoyed perfect starts, but Everton could be the ones to buckle first.

This column praised Jordan Pickford last week, but the keeper then conceded two soft goals against, er, Fleetwood Town.

Moreover, Palace could actually field a better side than the one that beat Man United 3-1 in GW2.

Eberechi Eze (£6.0m) has looked lively in his two sub appearances and could complement Tyrick Mitchell (£4.1m) and the reborn Wilfried Zaha (£7.1m) — both backed by Planet Football from the beginning.

And this is Michy Batshuayi’s (£5.9m) last chance to start a match until October 17 — Palace face the Belgian’s parent club, Chelsea, before then — which could tempt Roy Hodgson into resting the goalless, penalty-botching Jordan Ayew.

READ: Comparing Calvert-Lewin’s Everton stats under Silva and Carlo Ancelotti

Burnley – Southampton

We’re backing an away team with zero points from two matches. Hear us out.

If Son and Harry “Riquelme” Kane were the worst possible opponents for Southampton’s high line in GW2, Chris Wood — for all his talents — is a rather different proposition.

Oh, and Burnley’s Bilbao-esque transfer policy means they’re fielding FM regens like “Jimmy Dunne” instead of professional footballers.

Sean Dyche’s team will be rugged as always, but Danny Ings (£8.4m) could fill his boots, regardless of whether Dale Stephens completes his move to Burnley. (You couldn’t make it up!)

Sheffield United – Leeds

Another away fixture that possibly belies its 4/5 difficulty rating.

Last season, Dean Henderson made 97 saves for Sheffield United, conceding 33 goals. But the jury’s still out on new stopper Aaron Ramsdale, who has already conceded as many goals (three) as he’s made saves.

The likes of Patrick Bamford (£5.7m) and Helder Costa (£5.6m) will fancy their chances against the 22-year-old.

On the other hand, Leeds have scored and conceded seven already, so the Blades’ Oliver Burke (£4.5m) — an FPL midfielder playing as a striker — is an interesting budget option.

It wouldn’t be crazy to field attackers from both sides.

READ: Introducing Helder Costa 2.0: Harder, better, faster, stronger

Who to captain

Raheem Sterling

Kevin De Bruyne (£11.6m) might be the obvious choice given his big return in GW2. (Leicester also conceded a mind-boggling 11 penalties last season.)

But a home match against Leicester — who will be without defensive shield Wilfred Ndidi — promises more attacking opportunities in open play than the trip to Wolves did.

Raheem Sterling (£11.5m), owned by just 5.5% of managers, could get in behind novice defender James Justin.

And just think what you could do with that extra £0.1m.

Mohamed Salah

Mo Salah (£12.1m) scores a lot of goals at home, and you shouldn’t need much more incentive than that.

But he also scores plenty against Arsenal.

Since joining Liverpool three years ago, his PL games against the Gunners at Anfield have gone like this:

2017–18: 1x goal, 1x assist
2018–19: 1x goal, 1x assist
2019–20: 2x goals

Do you really fancy Sead Kolasinac to put a stop to that run?

READ: A breakdown of Jurgen Klopp’s incredible record vs big six at Liverpool

Raul Jimenez

Last week’s outside contender was Everton defender Lucas Digne, who scored 1 point, so we’ll go with someone a little less Pickford-reliant this GW.

Raul Jimenez (£8.5m) tends to score even after looking like a carthorse for most of a match, as he did against City. So he’s got a decent chance against managerless, COVID-stricken West Ham.

The Mexican has three goals in four games against the Hammers, the last of which was a classic Traore-assisted header.

Who TAA and Robertson are picking

It’s always good to see who professional players put in their FPL teams.

And who could shed more insight on the game than two of the highest-scoring FPL defenders ever?

Liverpool full-backs Andrew Robertson (£7.0m) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.5m) are competing in a mini-league that also contains Robertson’s Scotland team-mate Grant Hanley.

(Given that Robertson is also in a mini-league of Scottish internationals, should we assume he sent Hanley the wrong invite code?)

Trent is one point ahead of Robbo, though both are struggling with totals of less than 100 points.

TAA’s XI is supported by a strong backline containing Alisson (£6.0m), Virgil van Dijk (£6.5m) and, obviously, TAA himself.

But last week he suffered the unusual setback of having two players sent off. Kieran Gibbs (£4.5m) earned him an impressive -4 points, while Yves Bissouma (£4.5m) got away with 0.

The England right-back captained former team-mate Danny Ings for 22 points.

Robertson’s picks are just as interesting. In GW1 the left-back picked both himself and his nearest doppelganger, Kieran Tierney (£5.5m).

But Jurgen Klopp clearly fucked him over with some bad intel, because Robbo also picked team-mate Curtis Jones (£4.5m) in midfield, who didn’t play.

Neither Alexander-Arnold nor Robertson have picked each other. Banter.

By Benedict O’Neill