FPL Pras Delivers His ‘Head’ And ‘Heart’ Picks For GW8 With Straight Toss Up Between Erling Haaland And Brennan Johnson For Captain

FPL Pras provides his tips for FPL GW8, including his ‘head’ and ‘heart’ picks for the weekend’s games and who to captain.

I’m Pras and welcome to my weekly series for SportsCasting. I will be providing my thoughts and feelings on my FPL GW8 tips.

For context, over the last 12 seasons of FPL I have achieved four top 10k finishes, including two top 5k finishes. My seasonal average over the last seven seasons is around 21k.

Every week, I’ll be talking about the captaincy, and 2 picks per position. One the sensible pick, the head if you will. The other is the maverick pick, or the heart.

The idea is to give you two options per position to either chance it and go different or be safe and sensible.

Pras’ FPL GW8 Tips

        Captaincy

• Head – Two blanks in a row now for Erling Haaland, but this isn’t the time to go against him. With Liverpool and Chelsea facing each other and Arsenal with a trickier away fixture to Bournemouth, Haaland has the best fixture on paper. Haaland leads the way for big chances (nine) over his last six league outings. He was back amongst the goals for Norway in the international break as well and I think it’s a no-brainer captaincy this and next week. If you own him, of course!
• Heart – Best differential captain this week is Brennan Johnson. It is quite a left field shout, but the Welshman is on a streak of 7 goals in 7 games across all competitions. He’s also attempted more shots in the box (21) than any other midfielder except Salah this season. In the last 6 games, Spurs have the highest shots in the box (76) and non-penalty xG (13.86). I expect them to score at least a couple past the struggling Hammers team.
  

  Defender

• Head – With the joint-third for shots in the box (eight) among defenders, Josko Gvardiol is the upside pick this week for me. With the highest clean sheet odds and potential for some attacking returns, if he is afforded the license to attack.
• Heart – Pedro Porro makes his debut on this article. While I am not a big fan of Spurs’ defence, good fixture with attacking threat is always a recipe for a huge haul.
  

  Midfielder

• Head – See captaincy section on Brennan Johnson above.
• Heart – Phil Foden got his first league start in Gameweek 7, suggesting he is ready to get going for 2024/25. At some point, he’ll remind FPL managers just how devastating he can be. With Kevin De Bruyne also out this weekend, the stage is set for the Player of the Year from last season to announce himself to FPL 24/25.

         Forwards

• Head – See captaincy section on Erling Haaland above.
• Heart – Dominic Solanke is my heart pick, having scored two goals and provided one assist in his last three starts. With Son likely back in the side, I also think Solanke benefits from the South Korean’s creativity and prior understanding with Kane. As mentioned in the Johnson section that despite some up and down results, Spurs remain one of the most attacking teams in the league.

For a detailed review, I co-host a podcast called theFPLWire, and you can follow @Pras_FPL to find full analysis courtesy of one of the best FPL Twitter accounts.