FPL Pingreen Goes Heavy On Manchester City Picks in His Fantasy Gameweek 9 Tips

I’m now completely over FPL Towers adding a Son assist last week just to cruelly snatch it away again on Monday. I’m ready to share with you some Gameweek 9 picks who are so good there’s no way FPL will take any assists away from them. Okay, maybe I’m not over it.

Even that one friend who comes last in the mini-league every single season, so you make him do a stupid dance on TikTok, knows that you’d be insane not to put the armband on Erling Haaland this week. He scores a lot of goals—10 so far this campaign in only 8 appearances.

His opposition, Southampton, concede a lot of goals—a whopping 18 this season over the same time span.

You don’t need me to say any more on why you should be captaining the Norwegian, so here’s a completely useless Haaland fact: at the age of just five, he set a world record in his age group for the longest standing long jump. He recorded a distance of 1.63 meters.

Does that make him a better captain pick? Not really.

If you’re not a fan of xG and think football is played on grass, you may be alarmed by the fact City haven’t kept a single clean sheet since their Gameweek 1 opener against Chelsea.

However, if you are a fan of underlying stats, you should be a fan of Manchester City’s defense, with the Sky Blues only behind Liverpool on xG conceded so far this season.

Joško Gvardiol chipped in with multiple goals in the latter half of last season for Pep’s side and looks to have found his shooting boots again, with 2 goals in his last 3 Premier League games. Not that you’re awarded any more points for style, but most of his goals are incredibly easy on the eye, occasionally making you question how the man ended up playing as a left-back.

Facing a toothless Southampton side this weekend, you can’t do much better than getting the Croatian in your backline.

In the 2022-23 season, there was a spell in which it felt like Kaoru Mitoma was scoring every game.

I remember it well because I believed he was overperforming his underlying stats and opted out of owning the Japanese midfielder at my own peril.

By his own high standards, Mitoma has started the season a little slow, with just 1 goal for the Seagulls. However, this time around, I believe he’s underperforming and will soon make more of the 0.57 xG + xA per 90 he is averaging.

And there isn’t a much better fixture to begin converting those chances than this one. Wolves look like a side in absolute disarray this season and have conceded a shocking 23 goals in just 8 games, seeing them rock bottom of the league table. I could see Mitoma wreaking havoc on that shaky defense this weekend.

FPL assets don’t come much more reliable than Ollie Watkins, and he looks to be getting better with every passing season—ending last campaign with a huge 32 goal contributions.

The downside to this was an increased £9.0m price tag (now £9.1m) for the Villa forward, leading many managers to look elsewhere.

He’s continued where he left off this season, however, already with 7 goal contributions and averaging 0.7 xG + xA per 90. If you do have the budget to get him into your side, this could be the week to do it with a Villa facing Bournemouth at home.

UK betting sites have him as the 3rd highest anytime scorer this weekend, only behind Erling Haaland and Cole Palmer. Enough of the disappointing budget forwards, give me Watkins back.