Fulham trio to star against Saints - FPL tips & team of week

Sometimes the Premier League schedule presents you with a gift, in Fantasy Premier League terms, and this week it is Fulham at home to a Southampton side in complete disarray.

Not having any Tottenham players last week against Saints was a big mistake in hindsight, so I'm not making the same error twice.

Another good thing about Fulham is they are heading into a superb run of enticing fixtures, so feel free to load up on a couple of their assets.

The team of the week is selected based on current FPL prices to fit within a £100m budget, as if you were playing a Free Hit.

How did last week's team do?

I'm sure a lot of FPL managers felt let down by Mohamed Salah, Cole Palmer and Bukayo Saka all scoring five points or fewer - this team was no exception.

Fine performances from Alexander Isak (11 points) and Nicolas Jackson (9) dragged the team to an average 48 points.

Staring at Jacob Murphy's 13-point haul on the bench hurts!

Listen to the latest Fantasy 606 podcast on BBC Sounds.

Keeper and defence

Andre Onana, Manchester United, keeper, £5.2m - home to Bournemouth

After shipping three goals in their last home game, and Onana making an error, this might seem like a strange choice.

However, visiting Bournemouth are one of the most profligate sides in the league.

Only Manchester City have had more shots - and more shots in the box - yet the Cherries have a relatively mediocre 24 goals in 16 games.

They average more than 11 shots per goal so that says to me that Onana can accumulate save points - on top of a decent enough chance of a clean sheet.

Malo Gusto, Chelsea, £4.9m - away at Everton

The Frenchman is a bit of a minutes risk, but he is the Chelsea defender with the best chance of an attacking return (with Marc Cucurella suspended).

Everton have failed to score in five of their past six games so a Chelsea defensive asset is a must.

Gabriel, Arsenal, £6.2m - away at Crystal Palace

In another one of those weeks where you look at the fixture list and struggle to predict more than a couple of clean sheets, reverting to FPL's top-scoring defender isn't a bad idea.

Arsenal can shut out any team and everyone knows about their corner prowess.

Antonee Robinson, Fulham, £4.8m - home to Southampton

A very popular player in FPL at the moment and he ticks all the boxes from a budget defender.

Assist potential? Yes - six already.

Clean sheet potential? Yes - Fulham only have two this season but their fixtures until the end of January are as good as anyone's.

Cheap? Yes - under £5m so grab him while you can.

Antonee Robinson got two assists at Liverpool last week and kept Mohamed Salah relatively quiet

Midfield

Mohamed Salah (captain), Liverpool, £13.4m - away at Tottenham

We are going back to the Egyptian King as captain this week.

Last week was the first time he had failed to score since gameweek seven and he still got an assist.

I'm looking at that Tottenham 3-4 Chelsea game a few weeks ago and picturing the same scenario on Sunday.

Spurs can't defend and are also injury-hit at the back - the perfect stage for Salah.

Cole Palmer (vice captain), Chelsea, £11.2m - away at Everton

Everton put in a stellar defensive performance last time at Arsenal, but on a different day they could have been well beaten.

Less than a quarter of the possession and 13 shots conceded.

If it plays out the same way against Chelsea - in red-hot form - then Palmer and co could have a field day.

Amad Diallo, Manchester United, £5.2m - home to Bournemouth

Got us a return the last time he was in the team of the week and look at what he did in the Manchester derby!

Diallo is emerging as a star and he comes at a bargain price too.

Excluding players with low playing time, only Saka (0.79) has more assists per 90 minutes this season than Diallo (0.71).

Noni Madueke, Chelsea, £6.3m - away at Everton

The England winger was unlucky to only get an assist against Brentford last week.

He had seven shots, six in the box and one big chance.

I'm going all in on Chelsea to wallop Everton this week and Madueke is the midfielder - outside of Palmer - with the best chance of a double-digit haul.

He has three this season and two of them were away from home.

Emile Smith Rowe, Fulham, £5.5m - home to Southampton

Alex Iwobi or Smith Rowe - one of them was getting in this team and there's little to choose between the budget pair.

Smith Rowe has three goals from an expected goals of 2.2, whereas Iwobi has massively over-performed with five goals from 1.9xG.

That's reason enough to cross my fingers and take a punt on ESR.

Noni Madueke scored 13 points on his last away start in the league

Forwards

Raul Jimenez, Fulham, £5.5m - home to Southampton

Yes, it is a Fulham triple-up this week! Does anyone expect Southampton to improve straight away just because they sacked Russell Martin?

Jimenez probably won't play 90 minutes but he should start and has a decent five goals this season.

Fulham could put three or four past Saints so he's got to be in.

Alexander Isak, Newcastle, £8.7m - away at Ipswich

Over the past five weeks, Isak is the top-scoring FPL striker with 33 points.

He's on one of those hot runs that make him almost essential - three goals in the past three games - and Ipswich's defence shouldn't scare anyone off.

Subs bench

Danny Ward, Leicester City, £4m - home to Wolves

May emerge as a £4m option if Mads Hermansen's injury lingers. Not that Leicester will get many clean sheets - but Wolves at home this week is a better chance than usual.

Jamie Vardy, Leicester City, £5.6m - home to Wolves

It was hard to cram Vardy into the starting XI this week but he is a fine first sub against a Wolves side who are all over the place.

Aaron Wan-Bissaka, West Ham, £4.6m - home to Brighton

The right-back is getting in some very attacking positions at the moment with only one assist to show for it.

Leif Davis, Ipswich, £4.5m - home to Newcastle

The flying full-back has 10 more key passes (36) than any other defender and more crosses than anyone except Spurs' Pedro Porro.

Team total cost = £95.6m

Player to watch

Rasmus Hojlund faces struggling Wolves and Southampton in his next five games

Rasmus Hojlund, Manchester United, striker, £6.9m

The Dane appears to be emerging as Ruben Amorim's preferred centre-forward and has three goals in his past three games in all competitions.

At £6.9m, he's a good price for those looking to jump off popular Wolves striker Matheus Cunha, who could be facing a ban and also has tough games after this week.

Hojlund scored seven goals in a six-game spell last season, so is capable of hot streaks.

Team to target

Aston Villa - Man City (h), Newcastle (a), Brighton (h)

Wait a couple of weeks but you might want Villa players on your radar from that Brighton game onwards.

After that they have Leicester (h), Everton (a) and West Ham (h) in the space of four games.

View from Fantasy 606...

I see that Fulham's Robinson makes the team of the week above, Statman Dave and I both moved to bring him into our squads not long after Rayan Ait-Nouri got himself sent off after Wolves' defeat to Ipswich last weekend.

If you're also looking to sell Ait-Nouri but can stick his replacement on your bench this week then I really like the look of Crystal Palace's flying full-back Daniel Munoz, a similar price to Robinson, but he's suspended for their game against Arsenal on Saturday.

Palace's fixtures really pick up from gameweek 19 though so the Colombian could deliver you an attacking return or two which means big points if it's combined with a clean sheet.

You might also want to start thinking about how to get a Liverpool defender into your squad soon if you don't already own one but I wouldn't rush to do it this week for the trip to Tottenham.

The manager of our listeners' team has finally decided it's time to bite the bullet and sell Erling Haaland but if you've held him for this long then I would actually be tempted to keep him for the run of games against Everton, Leicester and West Ham which follow Saturday's match at Aston Villa.

It's now very tight at the top of our little mini-league and if you think you can make the difference for the listeners by taking the reins for a week then send us an e-mail on [e-mail]

The Fantasy 606 podcast league standings