GW4: after-action review

A major proposition of FPL90cents is highlighting the popular "blind spots" in the FPL community. These lead to "reverse differentials" that generate strong, torqued returns for readers.

A few major theses played out this week, from both our recent and previous insights:

• "Grealish is more risky than you think" (from last week's paid post) - we said that although Everton/Grealish are doing well, we shouldn't count on any player to deliver immediately, and people are not pricing in the risk of him blanking due to a tricky fixture run.
  
  True enough, this is what the next fixtures look like now:
  

• "Why we don't have Salah and we hope he hauls" (last week's free post) Sadly this came true too... Salah's stats continue to suggest he is overpriced notwithstanding his GOAT status. We hope the last-minute penalty will give "hopium" for our opponents to continue holding on to him...
• Our paid post also highlighted that GW4 - despite the transfer window closing - was oddly more uncertain than GW3. We advised against getting Isak/Ekitike (the bets were too "expensive" given the uncertainty), and we recommended captaining Haaland, and generally holding on to existing players.
• Our remaining key thesis from earlier weeks was that Fernandes will disappoint - true enough, here is how Fantasy Football Scout (in their free article ) described his performance:

The above theses "protected the downside" for our team - we finished four points above average even with (a) the Salah miracle and (b) three players getting 1-pointers due to the international break - including Richarlison and Johnson who did not start in Tottenham's 3-0 win over West Ham.

We'll take it!

Overall rank: 310,639

Another drag was Arsenal doing well - we have been avoiding Arsenal players so far as they only have 2 easy games (Leeds, Nottingham) in the first 6 matches (Liverpool loss, Man Utd draw, and next are Manchester City and Newcastle). We don't think it's a poor call overall; Arsenal's quality means that things have been finely balanced.

What next?

As always, because FPL90cents is about using FPL to train your broader decision skills, we recommend that readers look back at their own decisions (ideally using a decision journal!) and work out if there were avoidable mistakes, and how to do better.

A rule of thumb for FPL is to avoid early transfers during European gameweeks, due to the potential for Injuries and Insights during this period. After the dust settles, look out for our paid posts on:

(a) our usual, updated House View of All Clubs, and
(b) a "transfer combination" for the upcoming weeks that includes a differential play for GW5. For those on free subscriptions - Click to subscribe!