Liverpool, Watford and Wolves make the GW22 Preview

Jan 9

FPL Gameweek 22 Preview from @NiallHawthorne

As the dust settles following a typically frantic festive fixture schedule, some of you may be casting your gaze across the ashes of your FPL squad and wondering how it’s possible your rank dropped so much during a two-week period when you were gorging on alcohol, chocolate and meat. It’s truly a mystery.

Like Yoko Ono with The Beatles and Meghan Markle with The Royal Family, many are blaming Rebekah Vardy and new baby for the split between Jamie Vardy and FPL points. However, if you take a closer look, Jamie stopped scoring (and playing, quite frankly) right after Leicester were shellacked by Jurgen Klopp’s men on Boxing Day. Rumours that Jamie consoled himself by slipping into a two-week binge of Blue WKD and vegan sausage rolls cannot be confirmed nor denied, but many will be hoping he dusts off the Ferrero Rocher crumbs, sobers up and decides to pick on someone not his own size once more, as Southampton travel to The King Power Stadium looking to get revenge for the 9-0 drubbing they received at the hands of the Foxes just a few weeks ago.

That new Wildcard may be burning a hole in your FPL pocket, so let’s see what we recommend for GW22….

GW 22 Defender: Matt Doherty, Wolverhampton Wanderers

First things first, as a New Year means a new chance to right some wrongs.

It’s pronounced ‘Daw-her-tee’. There’s no ‘c’ in his name nor in the pronunciation of his name. And as I’m on my soapbox, many of you have been pronouncing Kevin Moran and Paul McGrath wrong for decades too. So there.

Anyhoo, Wolves face a home fixture against a Newcastle outfit running out of fit players and without more than a single goal in a match since GW16. The crashing realisation that they bought a huge turkey for £40m about four months too early is dawning on them, as Joelinton achieves the remarkable feat of making Andy Carroll look like a real option. Ludicrous.

Therefore, the chances of a Wolves clean sheet are higher than normal, and you throw into the mix the fact that Matt Daw-her-tee frequently finds himself as the most advanced Wolves player on the park. He has three goals and three assists so far, this season, and this weekend may well prove fruitful.

GW 22 Midfielder: Ismaila Sarr, Watford

Nigel Pearson has really turned things around at Watford since taking over with three wins and a draw in their last four. While the return to fitness of Troy Deeney has helped, the close personal friend of African Footballer of The Year Sadio Mane has made the biggest impact. Anybody who witnessed his quite comical attempts at finishing chances at Anfield in GW17 must now be astonished at his return of two goals and two assists in four games since.

He’s big, he’s strong, he’s quick and he’s finally worked out which foot is right and which foot is left. With an ownership of under 1% and a match against a bewildered Bournemouth this weekend, Sarr is a strong option for a budget midfielder with huge potential returns.

GW22 Forward: Sergio Aguero, Manchester City

Nice and rested after an evening on the bench giggling at Manchester United in midweek, I reckon Kun is a stick-on to start this weekend away to an Aston Villa team who put a lot into their own Milk / Littlewoods / Rumbelows / Coca-Cola / Carling / Carabao Cup semi-final on Wednesday night.

His absence through injury from GW14 – GW17 means he’s not overworked, so should get a run of starts in the league at least until the Champions League starts again and Pep targets a trophy he has a chance of winning. Heh.

Or he could be benched for Jesus and you throw abuse at me on Twitter.

GW22 Captain: Mohamed Salah, Liverpool

The FPL website is, for the most part, a wonderful tool. It allows us to play this game with ease, has more up to date stats than you can shake a stick at, and is pretty intuitive.

Unless you want to talk about the ‘difficulty’ of fixtures.

Liverpool face Spurs (A) and Man United (H) in the next two games, and they are both ranked as being ‘4’. In Red. Danger.

LOLZ.

Are Liverpool playing GW22 in the 17/18 season and GW23 in the 95/96 season? Have they invented time travel over Christmas?

Spurs are a mess right now, and the patented Jose ‘Park the Bus’ system is broken as they’re leaking goals like The White House leak ‘Situation Room’ pictures. They’re without Harry Kane. Liverpool’s senior players have had nine long restful days to prepare. Salah’s got the hump that Sadio beat him to an individual award.

Spurs are gonna get it on Saturday evening.

GW22 Outsider: Orjan Nyland, Aston Villa

Tom Heaton is broken for the rest of the season, so Nyland steps in between the sticks.

This could be like West Ham when Fabianski got crocked and Roberto made a horse’s ass of himself while stepping up.

However, I’ve seen this Nyland lad in action in the Milk / Littlewoods / Rumbelows / Coca-Cola / Carling / Carabao Cup quarter final against Kindergarten Klopp’s charges a few weeks ago, and he looked handy in fairness.

So, he’s owned by 0.2% of players and is a cert to start every game. The very definition of an outsider.

GW22 Draft: Junior Stanislas, Bournemouth

Like the White House media manager asking Trump to record a piece to camera without saying something stupid or racist or horrid, let’s go again and try to get it right this time.

Junior Stanislas has had more comebacks than The Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac and The Beach Boys combined, but goddammit if he doesn’t have real ability and potential for huge FPL hauls.

He’s owned by 0.0%.

Like an abandoned puppy in January, have a heart and give Junior Stanislas a good home.

Thank you.

Fantasy Football – Gameweek 22 Preview Written by @NiallHawthorne