Bukayo Saka, Benjamin Šeško & Cole Palmerplaceholder image
Bukayo Saka, Benjamin Šeško & Cole Palmer | Getty Images
Our resident FPL expert picks out three players to sign and three to sell ahead of the Gameweek 36 deadline.
As we enter the final weeks of the Fantasy Premier League season, we’re reaching a point at which every last transfer will have an outsized impact on our chances of winning mini-leagues or reaching personal milestones. Buy and sell the right players, and the bragging rights will be yours. Guess wrong, however, and your FPL campaign could easily end in disappointment.
As 3 Added Minutes’ FPL expert, it’s my duty to try and help out by picking out three players worth signing ahead of the Gameweek 36 deadline – and three worth selling. Well, more like 13 players worth selling, as one of my recommendations is to jettison an entire team. You’ll see what I mean.
One group of players I won’t mention: Manchester City players. They have a double this week and having three members of Pep Guardiola’s side is simply compulsory. The players below are the assets you should be looking at after you’ve maxed out on City. That obviousness aside, let’s take a look at how I’d be looking to roll the dice before Saturday’s deadline…
Three FPL players to sign this week – including Man Utd & Arsenal stars
Benjamin Šeško: The Slovenian striker hasn’t really caught fire since signing last summer and when most players look for Manchester United attacking assets, they’re understandably looking at Bruno Fernandes, Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo. But Šeško has quietly hit an impressive patch of form, and becomes an intriguing differential option for the run-in.
Šeško has six goals in United’s last 10 games despite only starting six of them, and while that last point may sound like a reason to swerve him, he’s also started four on the bounce and seems to have a place sewn up for now. United also have a pretty gentle run of fixtures – a Sunderland side who have hit a rough patch, a Nottingham Forest team who may rest players if they make the Europa League final, and then an admittedly tough trip to Brighton. Fernandes, Cunha and Mbeumo are all fine signings, but Šeško can fill a spot up front.
Bukayo Saka: I’ll admit that signing Saka isn’t exactly a revolutionary concept, but thanks to recent injuries his ownership has fallen well below 10%, making him far more of a differential than is usually the case – and picking up Arsenal players seems to be a pretty smart move right now.
Yes, they have a reputation for bottling it at the end of the season when there’s silverware on the line, but their recent results in both the Premier League and Champions League suggests that they’re toughing it out for once, and their fixtures are pretty gentle. Triple Arsenal strikes me as a necessity, and picking up Saka could be a way to get a big leg up on the competition given his relatively low ownership.
Pedro Porro: Players who need to take some big swings should probably take a look at Tottenham Hotspur right now. They’ve got tons to play for, their opponents are teams who could be halfway to the beach and a Chelsea side who have hit the rocks, and they look much sharper under Roberto De Zerbi.
Thanks to attacking injuries, I’m not expecting Spurs to score a ton of goals, but De Zerbi has used Porro in a particularly attacking manner (he picked up an assist against Brighton) and he looks in good nick. I wouldn’t be at all shocked if Spurs got a clean sheet or two between now and the curtain call, and while I wouldn’t chance my arm on Spurs defenders if I was in a strong position in a mini-league, they’re unlikely to be in the teams you’re hunting down if you’re coming from behind.
Honourable mentions: Micky van de Ven; Harry Wilson; Dominik Szoboszlai; Kaoru Mitoma.
Three players to sell in the FPL - including Brentford & Nottingham Forest players
Igor Thiago: The Brazilian striker has been perhaps the single best attacking asset of the season given his starting price, and getting him in early was a move which will have made a massive difference to a great many teams – but I’m not looking to keep him for the run-in.
As impressive as Brentford have been, they have some tough fixtures (Manchester City and Liverpool are among their last three opponents) and Keith Andrews’ side haven’t been scoring much against bigger sides since the turn of the year. Thiago has looked a little off the boil, and selling him could be a smart differential to look at for the final three weeks – and profitable, if you’ve had him for a while. Selling him could free up cash for moves elsewhere.
Morgan Gibbs-White: Form matters in the FPL, and Gibbs-White has been superb lately, coming up with a huge haul against Sunderland and looking like a player every team should consider signing. That, however, would probably prove to be a mistake.
Gibbs-White has picked up a nasty facial injury and could easily miss some time, and even if he soldiers through Thursday night’s Europa League semi-final he may well be rested over the weekend. Vítor Pereira demonstrated that he will be prioritising Europe with his selection against Chelsea on Monday, and now that Nottingham Forest are all but safe he’ll almost certainly leave his best out next weekend if they make it past Aston Villa. I simply don’t see Gibbs-White playing anything close to 270 minutes over the last three matches.
The entire Chelsea team: Because form matters, it’s time to give up on Chelsea. They’re on an abysmal run, seem to have forgotten how to score (unless it’s a spectacular bicycle kick when the game is long gone) and have tricky games against Liverpool and a desperate Spurs side on the immediate horizon.
Cole Palmer has lost his mojo, João Pedro isn’t getting any service, and Chelsea don’t look like a side who will be keeping any clean sheets between now and the final day. There isn’t a single Chelsea player I want in my side right now, and players like Palmer and João Pedro are at the top of my list to move on to make room for the Sakas and Šeškos of the world.
Dishonourable mentions: Morgan Rogers; Ollie Watkins; Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
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