FPL Best Picks: Writer’s Team of the Week for Gameweek 1 22/23

All season long, writers will bring you their best picks for the team of the week within budget, in the FPL.

We’ll also be including bench picks as an opportunity to earmark the best cheap, squad-filling options that we like, in the game. We’ll back up our picks with our reasoning behind each one. These are our best picks for the team of the week for the specific gameweek.

For Gameweek 1, we find that the “team of the week” is fairly similar to what our writers feel is a strong team to even start the season with. However, given that it’s a targetted team specific to this week, we have a few more high-upside picks than we’d have gone for in a “best team for Gameweeks 1 to 6″.

We’ve opted to go with a 4-4-2 formation for the Writer’s Team of the Week for Gameweek 1 in the FPL: Here we go!

Goalkeeper: We’ve opted to go with Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsdale (5.0) in goal

Away to Crystal Palace on a Friday night is admittedly not an easy fixture however Arsenal have looked very sharp in pre-season and appear up for the new Premier League campaign.

They’ve reinforced their defense with Zinchenko and the returning William Saliba; both are in line for starts on Friday night in view of fitness concerns for Kieran Tierney and Tomiyasu. Crystal Palace had a good season last year but couldn’t quite nail down their best striker and that seems to have continued in pre-season.

Ramsdale is in with a good chance of save points and while his chances of a clean sheet aren’t the highest, he has the ability to haul big in the event that he keeps one since he’d likely have banked save points too, and that would serve him well in terms of bonus points.

We strongly considered Nick Pope, home to Nottingham Forest but decided we didn’t want to take a risk on a new signing who may or may start right from the get-go, in the goalkeeper position.

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We’ve opted to go for 4 defenders, given their value and point potential at both ends of the pitch.

Trent Alexander-Arnold (7.5) of Liverpool is an auto pick most weeks

Liverpool open their campaign away to a promoted Fulham side who’ve lost one of their key creators in Harry Wilson, to injury. He was last year’s top-scoring defender and warmed up for this season with a goal against Manchester City in the Community Shield.

Next, we go for Joao Cancelo (7.0) of Manchester City

Cancelo has had consistent and predictable minutes in a City defense who were the league’s best for xG conceded last season. He had a huge 11 FPL assists last season and scored 1 goal from an xG roundabout 4. His fixture looks tough on paper with an away trip to West Ham but faith in City’s defense and Cancelo’s attacking prowess make him a strong pick for us.

Reece James (6.0) of Chelsea comes in ahead of an away trip to Everton

The Chelsea man can play right center-back but did play right wing-back in all his pre-season outings, suggesting he’s likely to get the nod in that attacking role once again. He was sensational when he was on the pitch last season, scoring 5 goals and bagging 9 assists.

Chelsea were third best for expected goals conceded last season. Everton struggled offensively and defensively last season and have lost Richarlison to a transfer and potentially Calvert-Lewin to injury, boosting Chelsea’s chances of a clean sheet.

For our final pick in defense, we’ve gone with a high-upside risky pick in Ivan Perisic (5.5) of Tottenham.

The Croat, who recently moved from Inter Milan, did start and play the majority of minutes at left wing-back in Spurs’ last pre-season friendly, suggesting he should be fit enough to start Gameweek 1.

He took up good attacking positions in the box and is home to a Southampton side likely to go with a 3-man defense, a setup that might allow an opponent’s fullback some joy, given their center-backs could be occupied by 3 forward players from Spurs. If he starts, Perisic has the potential to bag a monster haul.

Mo Salah (13.0) of Liverpool gets the armband for our FPL team of the week.

Salah was the joint leader of the league for both goals and assists last season. The top scorer in terms of FPL points and expected goals and is up against a promoted Fulham team, who are short in numbers and quality at the back. He looked sharp in the Community Shield outing against Manchester City and is also on penalties. Our captain.

Luis Diaz (8.0) of Liverpool

While it’s close between Andy Robertson and Luis Diaz as the third Liverpool option for FPL teams going into the season, we’ve opted to go with the latter from a purely GW1 perspective. Luis Diaz of Liverpool slotted into the team seamlessly after a January move last year. He’s producing at 0.59 xGI per 90 mins, which is excellent.

With Mane leaving and Jota injured, he’s made that left-wing spot his own and he could cause havoc against Fulham’s defense. He has the potential to haul in GW1 in the FPL.

Gabriel Martinelli (6.0) of Arsenal is our 3rd Midfielder pick.

Priced very nicely, boasting plenty of goal threat from the left wing for an Arsenal attack looking invigorated by the arrival of Gabriel Jesus, Martinelli looks well-placed to start away to Crystal Palace on Friday night. Martinelli has taken up positions in and around the penalty box in Arsenal’s pre-season friendlies and provides strong value.

Leon Bailey (5.0) of Aston Villa

Again, our fourth pick is a flair punt. We were set on going with Pedro Neto of Wolves but ultimately picked the higher-risk-reward option with Leon Bailey of Aston Villa. Bailey has scored 3 goals and grabbed an assist in as many pre-season appearances. From comments by Steven Gerrard, he sounds likely to start GW1.

He comes up against a Bournemouth team who’ve stuttered in the transfer market and noise coming out from the team doesn’t appear confident heading into the season. Bailey had an 18 G/A season at Leverkusen before he made the move to Villa, so he certainly has an end-product.

He currently has momentum on his side and has the best GW1 fixture of any team, in my opinion, hence I’m willing to punt on him.

No big surprises up top: Harry Kane (11.5)

Harry Kane of Spurs comes in over Haaland in the same price range, given a juicy GW1 fixture home to Southampton. Kane racked up elite xG and xA numbers after Conte’s arrival and is on penalties up against a leaky Southampton side with new defenders and a new goalkeeper.

Ultimately, he was the safe and sensible pick over Haaland, who will undoubtedly come good but a tough away fixture at West Ham was enough to sway us to Kane for this week.

Gabriel Jesus (8.0): The highest-owned player in FPL before GW1

Gabriel Jesus of Arsenal is the highest-owned player in the game approaching an outrageous 70% ownership on Fantasy Premier League.

He’s looked full of confidence since his move from City to Arsenal this summer, he’s played well in pre-season and appears to have been made central to their attacking plans. Arsenal look in good form and fitness in pre-season and Jesus is well placed to capitalize.

Having picked a team of 82.5 million in value, we have 17.5 million for 4 bench players, which is 0.5 million higher than the cheapest and most popular bench for GW1 teams on FPL.

We’ve gone with Ward (4.0) of Leicester City in goal

Kasper Schmeichel is on his way out and Leicester hasn’t made moves to replace him as their no1 goalkeeper yet. While Ward has competition from Iversen for the starting spot at Leicester, both keepers are priced at 4.0 million and we’d go with whichever sounds more likely to get the nod for the Brentford game, based on Brendan Rodger’s press conference before the game. We currently think Ward holds the edge.

Diogo Dalot (4.5) over Neco Williams (4.0)

While most benches will have the incredible value of Neco Williams as a starter for Nottingham Forest, we have the budget to go to Diogo Dalot of Manchester United as our fifth defender and first outfield player on the bench. He’s made the right-back spot his own and looks like he’s taking up good offensive positions for United under new manager Ten Hag.

He’s up against a Brighton team that plays good front-foot football but his potential for points at both ends of the pitch makes him the best option at this price for GW1 in our team. He also provides that bit of quality off the bench, given that we’ve taken a few risky punts in our team like Perisic and Bailey.

Second on the bench is Andreas Pereira (4.5) of Fulham

He’s got a very difficult fixture in Liverpool but is a basement-priced 4.5 million midfielder that’s starting in the number 10 position for Fulham and is on some set-pieces. He’s already bagged 2 assists from corners in pre-season and is far and away the best value midfield option in the 4.5m category at the moment.

We’ve opted to go with Cameron Archer (4.5)

There are no starting forwards at 4.5m, so we’ve opted to go with Cameron Archer (4.5) of Aston Villa. The talented youngster was retained with the Aston Villa team and not sent out on loan to be given minutes.

Both Ollie Watkins and Danny Ings haven’t impressed in pre-season, meaning there’s a chance Archer could see minutes off the bench against Bournemouth. given that there are now 5-substitutes. We’re not likely to have to need our third bench player but we give ourselves the best chance of points if we should.

Our picks for the Writer’s Team of the week for GW1 are as follows:
4-4-2:

Ramsdale; Alexander-Arnold, Joao Cancelo, Reece James, Ivan Perisic; Mohamed Salah, Luis Diaz, Gabriel Martinelli, Leon Bailey; Harry Kane, Gabriel Jesus.

Bench: Ward, Dalot, Andreas, Archer

Good luck!

(Team graphic made from fpl.team)

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