We’re 2 weeks in and local A&E stations are being overwhelmed by sad lonely men with knee injuries. I’m tired, boss.

Bruno Fernandes megahauls, Man Utd defence still manage to punish those of us (fools) targeting their fixtures by being unable to defend against the common cold. Slabhead Maguire uses all 6 of his brain cells to handball assist an own goal that’s not ruled out because… *checks notes* …. ????!

Haaland scores two for fun. Rayan KneeCherki is the greatest FPL asset in the history of the game (he’s benched next week).

João Pedro scores an own goal but still manages to outscore Palmer and Rogers (who also return). Sanchez shat the bed so catastrophically that he’s banished to the shadow realm and replaced with EMI “That one picture of him with the willy trophy” Martinez, who concedes 3 anyway. Gross proves his doubters (me) wrong by hauling.

Isak and Wirtz finally remembered to take some diocalm and sure showed the doubters up by combining for a goal and assist against Nottingham Forest. Unfortunately Frimpong and Kerkez went out for a dodgy kebab the night before the game and are developing their very own runny bums, which Morgan Gibbs-White is more than happy to take advantage of for a haul of his own.

Wissa and Elanga have completed their 1 year probationary periods and both return for the second week in a row. Meanwhile….

Spurs (derogatory)

Tzolis subbed off for a 0 pointer. Gabriel Martinelli drinks champagne on a Saudi rooftop cackling like a witch. Villa’s team bus must be an oil rig with the amount of wheels falling off.

Remember: it’s never too early to give up on FPL and go outside.

It's clear many are considering using the Triple Captain chip on Haaland GW3. I'm leaning towards using it. Let me know if you disagree with anything, or if there's something I've missed:

For:

• Man City have no midweek games before Coventry. Haaland has an 8-day rest between the games (Palace was the Friday night game, and Coventry is Saturday 3pm)
• Coventry haven't looked great to start the season. And unlike many newly-promoted clubs historically, they've shown that they can be gotten at even if they play defensively, like Arsenal got at them
• Coventry's morale and confidence is probably at a real low. They smashed the Championship last season, winning consistently. They started this season with a 3-0 loss. Then, as relegation candidates, they played what shoulda been their easiest game of the season; Hull at home. They need to win games like this is they're gonna stay up. Then they went and outplayed them, but failed to score, and allowed Hull to snatch the win. Credit to bengreen04 for this point
• Haaland is fit, and coming off a brace, with no pressure on him
• Cherki, Foden, and Semenyo are all in good form. Cherki is 2nd only to Bruno in his creative stats. Foden has always been creative, and has shown the ability to find Haaland historically. And Semenyo currently seems to be more of a creative player than a goalscorer, in Maresca's current setup
• Every single season Haaland's been at City, his best returns have come early on in the season
• A lot of people either don't have Haaland, or are using a chip to get him, and thus can't triple captain him
• Haaland's effective ownership will be over 150% this gameweek, so you won't feel particularly great if Haaland smashes it and you haven't triple captained him
• If you don't have anyone else from City and can't get to them, then TC Haaland is a way to mitigate against that. And if those City players you don't have do well, then it's more likely that Haaland will have done something.

Against:

• We still don't have much info. Coventry were expected to be the best of the newly-promoted teams, and they've only lost to the best team in the league, and a Hull team that they outplayed, but who got lucky and snatched a goal. Man City have looked good, but we still don't know where they're at post-Pep. Losing Pep is a big deal. As well as Rodri, Bernardo, Stones, Aké, and less importantly fringe attackers like Marmoush and Savio. They only scraped by Bournemouth at home, and they smashed a Palace team that are in a bad place. We don't yet know how good they are, basically
• Man City travel to Portugal for their UCL opener against Porto, just 3 days after the Coventry game. The Cov game is on Saturday, and the Porto game is Tuesday. If City go a couple of goals up, Maresca might decide to play it safe and sub Haaland early
• A better opportunity might present itself; City also have home games against Ipswich, Fulham, and Hull, before the chip deadline runs out. Alternatively, it might turn out that you'd prefer to captain someone other than Haaland, if Palmer, Saka, Bruno, Isak, or another, hits a run of form and their team looks superior to Man City
• You'll feel shit for a longer period if the chip fails. If it fails later, then you'll get over it easier. If it fails now, then you'll have to watch others use the chip throughout the many weeks until Christmas. You'll feel more comfortable for the coming weeks if Haaland blanks, and loads of people use the chip, while you save it. This is purely a psychological factor.

Aston Villa have completed the signing of 18-year-old Senegalese right winger Ibrahim Mbaye from Paris Saint-Germain.

The deal is worth around £47m, with Mbaye signing a five-year contract, plus an option for a further 12 months.

Newcastle United have confirmed Nick Woltemade has completed a season-long loan move to Juventus.

Newcastle will receive a £3.5m loan fee for their club-record £69m signing.

Hi All, we're back again this season with the first in our Kneejerk Check series.

GW2 paid off several early moves, but selling Bruno Fernandes after one blank was still the week's worst call. He scored 23 points. De Cuyper and Kayode went the other way, turning big GW1 hauls into two of the week's clearest misses.

Full Post & Interactive Charts

TL;DR

Good buys:

• João Pedro (9 pts): The cohort's biggest buy, at +89.1k net transfers, delivered again and played another 90 minutes.
• Cherki (14 pts): The first-start gamble worked. He scored twice after his 27-minute GW1 cameo.
• Haaland (13 pts) / Calafiori (11 pts): Both followed positive net movement with double-digit returns.

Bad buys:

• De Cuyper (0 pts): +31.4k chased a 17-point opener and got the sharpest defender drop of the week.
• Kayode (2 pts): +19.2k buyers followed his GW1 goal into a two-point return.
• Gonzalo (2 pts): +17.0k bought the centre-forward minutes. Three shots produced nothing.

Good sells:

• Pedro Porro (1 pt): -95.1k sellers were not punished. He returned to a 90-minute role and still scored one.
• Van de Ven (0 pts): -38.7k moved on and avoided another zero.
• Doku (0 pts): -19.9k sellers got out before a second straight zero-minute game. He remains flagged with a calf injury.

Bad sells:

• Bruno Fernandes (23 pts): Selling after one blank was the week's worst call. A small -4.8k net sell-off came before three goals, an assist and maximum bonus.
• Groß (13 pts) / Gibbs-White (13 pts): Sellers moved on after opening two-pointers and watched both return a goal and an assist.
• Mbeumo (11 pts): Another secure 90-minute attacking role punished the early exit.

Other results:

• Saka (11 pts): Only +2.4k net movement, then a goal, clean-sheet point and maximum bonus.
• Palmer (7 pts) / Rogers (5 pts): Neither exploded, but both rewarded positive movement.
• Tzolakis (10 pts): He was only 0.7% owned in the source snapshot, yet recorded 97,295 transfers in and 11,602 out. He kept a second straight clean sheet and took maximum bonus.
• Verbruggen (0 pts): At 21.7% ownership, he had 80,053 transfers in and 42,189 out. Brighton conceded four. Tzolakis drew more buyers from an ownership base roughly 30 times smaller and scored 10 more points.
• Calafiori again: An assist, clean sheet and two bonus made him the defender exception.

What's the funniest team name you've seen in your mini-league so far?

Was wondering what are some of the funniest fantasy team names you've seen this year

Enciso showed so much raw talent as a teenager at Brighton years ago, and looked super impressive at the World Cup recently

Returning to the premier league, he has 2 assists in as many games against somewhat difficult opposition in Man United and Sunderland with avg xGI of 0.67

Enciso managed 9 goal involvements in 27 matches last season in Ligue 1, and the fixtures are extremely decent long term, with Ipswich already managing 7 goals from their 3 competitive games so far this season

(Edit: 12 goals and 9 assists in 42 games across all competitions for Strasbourg in 25/26 Season)

There is the potential that he is on penalties - some publications have him listed 1st in the pecking order and he is Paraguay's primary penalty taker

At £5.5mil, he could be an alternative to Gross/Sangare, or easily paired together to afford the likes of Palmer+Bruno+Haaland

I think he can better his 9 goal involvements from last season and I'm personally going to take the risk at 0.6% ownership, regardless if it is Ipswich, I still believe he's worth is it an enabler at that price

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