Worth gambling on Salah as captain? Fantasy football tips

The first thing to say is don’t forget it’s a Friday FPL deadline at 18:30 BST before the Luton v Everton game, which kicks off at 20:00 BST.

I would try not to make any transfers this week if your squad is in decent enough shape, so you can then set yourself up for two free transfers in the double gameweek 37 or the final gameweek of the season, which could be extremely useful to you.

If you are making transfers, though, you should really be looking at players from the six teams who have that double gameweek 37 – Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham, Newcastle, Chelsea and Brighton.

The notable exception there is Arsenal, who don’t double in gameweek 37 but whose remaining three fixtures are against Bournemouth, Manchester United and Everton.

I actually went with two Arsenal defenders, Gabriel and Ben White, as well as Kai Havertz on my gameweek 35 wildcard, because I feel they could easily outscore the alternative double gameweek options and act as a bit of a differential for me against those managers who have sold their Arsenal assets.

The one player I didn’t manage to bring in on the wildcard is Kevin de Bruyne and he would be my priority transfer this week if you’re able to get to him.

The Manchester City attacking trio of De Bruyne, Phil Foden and Erling Haaland looks very tempting and if this Premier League title race goes to the wire then I think you can forget about Pep roulette with those three, who have a home game against Wolves on Saturday.

Captaincy

That means that all three of them are excellent candidates for the captaincy this week, with De Bruyne having the lowest ownership of the three if you want to take a risk and try to make some gains on the field.

I think Cole Palmer is the next best alternative if you don’t want to go with Manchester City – Palmer comes up against a West Ham team who haven’t managed to keep a clean sheet in their past 15 Premier League games.

But if you see this week as a chance to do something a bit different with the captaincy then how about a Crystal Palace attacker for their home game against Manchester United?

Take your pick from Eberechi Eze, Michael Olise or Jean-Philippe Mateta, who’ve all been in sparkling from under Oliver Glasner.

Fixtures to target

Chris Sutton and I are going to be commentating on Burnley v Newcastle on BBC Radio 5 live on Saturday and it’s an interesting game from an FPL point-of-view.

One of the big decisions for a lot of managers this week, particularly those who went with the wildcard in gameweek 35, is whether to bench Anthony Gordon or Nicolas Jackson.

Dropping Gordon sounds ridiculous when you consider he has 25 attacking returns this season but 22 of those have come at St James’ Park and just three away from home.

On the flip side, he faces a Burnley team here who have to get on the front foot against Newcastle to try to win the game to give themselves a very real chance of staying up – and that could offer Gordon the kind of space he thrives in.

Nicolas Jackson, like Darwin Nunez this season, has had FPL managers tearing their hair out with some of the chances he contrives to miss but his ownership is lower than Gordon’s and he’s up against that leaky West Ham defence.

I am one of the managers having to make this very decision this week and at the moment it’s Jackson who’s getting the nod.

The other option is to leave Son Heung-Min out for Tottenham’s trip to Anfield after a quiet night against Chelsea on Thursday, but he’s scored five goals in his past six games against Liverpool which puts me off that idea.

Differentials

I’m going to reiterate my Noni Madueke shout from last week and I’m also going to suggest you have a look at a couple of Nottingham Forest players in Morgan Gibbs-White and Chris Wood.

They are not one of the teams who double in gameweek 37 but they’ve got everything to play for to try to stay in the Premier League and I’d fancy them to score some goals in their last three games against Sheffield United, Chelsea and Burnley.

Gamble of the week

How about a dramatic return to the starting line-up and a classic FPL points haul from Mohamed Salah against Tottenham on Sunday?

Let’s see what Jurgen Klopp has to say about his star man after their bust-up on the touchline at West Ham but a Salah captaincy is a gamble that could reward you handsomely if it comes off.

Alistair Bruce-Ball presents the Fantasy 606 podcast alongside former Premier League winner Chris Sutton and Statman Dave. Just search for ‘Fantasy 606’ on the BBC Sounds app and click subscribe.