⚽ FPL Gameweek 29 Tips

👋 Hello 👋

You'll be happy to know that the final international break of the season will soon be over. From Saturday there will be 10 Gameweeks in 58 days and then we're done. Still plenty of time to win those mini-leagues and increase your overall rank.

Quick reminder that it's a Double Gameweek this week, the biggest one of the season, with 12 teams Doubling:

• Bournemouth

• Brighton

• Leeds

• Nottingham Forest

• Leicester

• Aston Villa

• Chelsea

• Liverpool

• Manchester United

• Brentford

• West Ham

• Newcastle United

Don't forget - Gameweek 29 deadline - Saturday 1 April, 11:00 UK ⏰

 🔥 Gameweek 29 - Hot Topics 🔥

Blank Gameweek 32

Due to the FA Cup quarter final results, we now know that Man United, Chelsea, Brighton and Man City will all Blank in Gameweek 32.

If you still have your Free Hit left this could be a good week to use it. You get to keep all of the players from teams that have multiple Double Gameweeks left this season, including Man United, Brighton and Man City, and can also load up on Liverpool and Arsenal players for their games against Nottingham Forest (h) and Southampton (h) respectively.

If you don't have the Free Hit then I'd be more cautious about selling Arsenal players because of their next four fixtures.

Outside of that it's about balancing Double Gameweek in 29, whilst not being in a mess when you get to Gameweek 32. So for example, lots of people are thinking of doubling or tripling up on Man United players this week, but it might be better to go for just 1-2 if you aren't able to Free Hit them out in Gameweek 32.

With Man City I think they can be ignored for the most part outside of Erling Haaland (£12.0m) if fit, until their Doubles later on. It's hard to know which players will get regular starts, and while they're still in the Champions League we could see a bit of rotation.

Gameweek 34 Confirmed

During the break, Gameweek 34 was confirmed as a Double Gameweek. There are 6 teams Doubling that week:

• Liverpool vs Spurs (h), Fulham (h)

• Fulham vs Man City (a), Liverpool (a)

• Manchester City vs Fulham (a), West Ham (h)

• West Ham vs Crystal Palace (a), Man City (a)

• Brighton vs Wolves (h), Man United (h)

• Manchester United vs Aston Villa (h), Brighton (a)

Liverpool, West Ham, Brighton and Man United all Double in Gameweek 29 and 34.

I don't think we need to panic about Liverpool players right now as their Double this week is Man City (a) and Chelsea (a) followed by Arsenal (h) in Gameweek 30. After that they're worth considering. With Luis Díaz (£7.8m) back in training, Jürgen Klopp will soon have all his attackers available. That leaves Mohamed Salah (£12.8m) as the only one we can likely be assured of regular starts from. In defence it's Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.3m) if you have the cash. Alisson (£5.4m) could be worth a look if you need a new goalkeeper.

Including Gameweek 29, Man United will have three Double Gameweeks before the end of the season. They also have some good Single Gameweek fixtures outside of that with Everton (h), Nottingham Forest (a), West Ham (a), Wolves (h), and Fulham (h).

Theoretically if you are Free Hitting in Gameweek 32 you can bring Man United players in this week and leave them in for the season, but keep in mind they are still in the Europa League and FA Cup, so at some point there may be some rotation.

The four players I'd look at are David De Gea (£5.0m), Luke Shaw (£5.2m), Marcus Rashford (£7.3m) and Bruno Fernandes (£9.6m).

We've talked a lot about Brighton recently so I won't go over too much old ground, but they have four Double Gameweeks before the season ends. After Gameweek 29 it's Spurs (a), Chelsea (a) and a Blank in Gameweek 32.

You could make an argument to delay the triple up until Gameweek 33 or later, but with a Double in Gameweek 29 of Brentford (h) and Bournemouth (a) they look good to bring in right now.

The top options are Lewis Dunk (£4.7m), Alexis Mac Allister (£5.5m), Solly March (£5.1m) and Kaoru Mitoma (£5.5m). They should all offer regular starts and minutes.

Jason Steele (£3.9m) is tempting as he's so cheap, I'm just worried that Robert Sánchez (£4.6m) might get a game again at some point before the end of the season. Pervis Estupiñán (£4.8m) is more attacking than Dunk but maybe slightly more susceptible to missing the odd game or being subbed early. There's a chance his attacking output will trump any of those concerns either way. Under different circumstances I think lots of us would own Evan Ferguson (£4.6m) as he's so cheap and listed as a forward. The concern with him is, he's only started 3 of the last 5 games, and Brighton have so many extra fixtures, I'd prefer to go with one of the midfielders. If you have no midfield slots spare for a Brighton player, Ferguson might be worth the risk.

Selling Arsenal players...

There's been a lot of discussion during the break about selling Arsenal players and it's proving quite divisive.

There's certainly no issue with their fixture this week, they've got Leeds (h) who will be without some key players.

Without a Free Hit, Arsenal's next four fixtures are Leeds (h), Liverpool (a), West Ham (a), Southampton (h). That's four good fixtures and there's no rush to remove their players. Even if you sold Bukayo Saka (£8.6m) to Bruno Fernandes (£9.6m) to gain an extra fixture this week, you'd lose it in Gameweek 32 when Man United blank. You can of course use transfers to get more Double Gameweek players in and then remove them again, but each individual FPL manager will have to decide if they can spare the transfers for those type of moves.

If you do decide to use your Free Hit in Gameweek 32 the conversation gets a little more interesting. You wouldn't have to worry about the Southampton (h) game because you can triple up when you Free Hit. So if we compare Arsenal and Man United fixtures, forgetting about Gameweek 32, it looks something like this:

Arsenal players are clearly great value across the board. It's not often you get someone like Saka for example with genuine attacking threat, costs less than £9m, starts every game, gets great minutes and takes penalties.

While none of that should be ignored, if he's my only route to get someone like Fernandes, I think I'm willing to take the risk for the extra and better fixtures.

I'm even more keen to sell Gabriel (£5.2m) to Luke Shaw (£5.2m) because I think the Arsenal fixtures are worse for a defender than an attacker. I'm even tempted to do it for a four point hit.

Whatever you decide, don't sell your Arsenal players without giving it a lot of thought. They're great value and could continue to do well, especially from an attacking perspective.

I'm taking the view that if I'm ever going to risk selling some of my Arsenal players, it's with the fixture run they have coming up. It may go wrong, but that's a chance I'm willing to take.......I think.

📈 Transfer Activity 📉

With a yellow flag and only a single Gameweek in Gameweek 29, Haaland has been sold by 113,297 FPL managers this week. We don't have any concrete news from Pep Guardiola yet, but there are reports that he missed training on Thursday.

What to do with him really depends on what Pep says in his press conference. Let's assume he's ruled out for Gameweek 29 but potentially back for Gameweek 30. If you own him and aren't Bench Boosting I'd just bench him ready for next week. If you are Bench Boosting in Gameweek 29, you may have to sell him with a plan to get back pretty soon. If you don't own, just sit back and relax and enjoy the chaos.

For some reason 83,292 managers have transferred Ivan Toney (£7.9m) into their squads this week. Keep in mind he's only one yellow card away from a two game suspension. If he was to get one against Brighton in the first game of Double Gameweek 29, he'd miss the second game against Man United, and Newcastle (h) in Gameweek 30. It's not the time to bring Toney in! I'd look at someone like Alexander Isak (£6.7m), Ollie Watkins (£7.5m) or Kai Havertz (£7.6m) instead.

👑 Captaincy 👑

It's the biggest Double Gameweek we have left this season so despite Saka looking good against Leeds (h), we're only talking about Double Gameweek players for captaincy in this newsletter.

These are my favoured options in order:

• Marcus Rashford

• Alexis Mac Allister

• Bruno Fernandes

• James Maddison

• Mohamed Salah

Assuming Erik ten Hag gives Rashford the all clear in terms of fitness, I think he's the best pick. Although on paper Brighton's fixtures might look slightly better, both teams have to play Brentford (h). I think Rashford is a better FPL option in general and for me that outweights having to play Newcastle (a) instead of Bournemouth (a) as the other fixture.

Rashford's goal threat for the season sits at 0.45xG per 90 compared to Mitoma (0.23), March (0.27) and Mac Allister (0.22).

I will say, it's perhaps harsh to judge Mac Allister over the season as he hasn't always played in an advanced role. His numbers have improved a lot in this position, and he has the bonus of being first choice penalty taker which is why he's second on the list. I haven't listed Mitoma or March, but I'd have them just behind Mac Allister and just ahead of Fernandes who I don't think we should ignore with guaranteed minutes and penalties.

Maddison has a nice looking Double Gameweek on paper with Crystal Palace (a) and Aston Villa (h). I know that Palace have a "new" manager now, but I can't see them suddenly becoming great defensively. Maddison has put up an impressive 0.23 xG + 0.34 xA per 90 over the season so is definitely in the conversation.

It's hard to leave Salah out completely because he's everything we want in an FPL option - nailed, fantastic minutes and takes penalties. I assume he still takes penalties anyway, after all he did miss the last one! At 0.47 xG and 0.20 xA per 90 he's putting up some great numbers this season. I just find it hard to captain someone with Manchester City (a) and Chelsea (a) which is why he only makes it into 5th place.

💪 My Team 💪

My Bench Boost is active this week! After Wildcarding in Gameweek 26 it was always my intention to play it in Gameweek 29.

I'm hoping that Rashford and Sven Botman (£4.5m) are passed fit to play. Unless we get lots of injury news during the press conferences, I don't see any reason to delay using the Chip.

As it stands my moves are going to be Saka and Gabriel to Fernandes and Shaw for a -4 point hit. I don't think it's guaranteed to pay off this week, but they are moves I want to make at some point soon anyway, so I'd rather do it in a Double Gameweek and hope that I get lucky.

I do have £6.6m in the bank, so I can afford the same moves by removing Martin Ødegaard (£6.9m) instead, but it stops me buying Haaland back in Gameweek 30 for Toney if that's something I want to do. If you are in a similar position but can sell Ødegaard instead of Saka, I'd do that instead.

As per the captaincy discussion, I'm currently on Rashford. If there are any doubts about his minutes against Newcastle I'll probably switch to Mitoma.

📽️ My YouTube Content 📽️

If you want some more thoughts about my team including future plans then you can check out this video.

The Gameweek 29 Deadline Stream will start between 9:30am - 10am UK time on Saturday morning.

If you're not already subscribed, make sure you click here.