FPL Gameweek 1 Scout Picks: West Ham, Liverpool, Villa and United double-ups

Liverpool, Manchester United, West Ham United and Aston Villa are the four clubs with double-ups in the Gameweek 1 Scout Picks.

After Sam, Az, Neale and Tom submitted their Scout Squad selections earlier today, we have chosen our best players ahead of Friday’s deadline.

We line up in the Mike Bassett-approved 4-4-2 formation and come in at £82.5m, half a million inside our budget of £83.0m.

GOALKEEPER

While £4.5m goalkeepers are the go-to, long-term options for many of us, Emiliano Martinez (£5.5m) has both the FPL pedigree and appealing fixtures in his favour before the September international break (starting with Aston Villa’s trip to newly-promoted Watford) to warrant immediate interest.

The Villa shot-stopper blended save and bonus points with clean sheets in 2020/21 and the defence in front of him were certainly allowing him to be busy this calendar year.

Watford’s attack seems like the bluntest of the three promoted clubs. They boasted only the sixth-best attacking record in the second tier of English football last season and created the ninth-fewest chances across the division.

DEFENDERS

Despite registering 50 fewer FPL points in 2020/21 than he did in his previous year, Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.5m) remains the priciest defender in the game but his so-so last campaign is no deterrent for his inclusion here.

A late-season surge saw him average 7.5 points per match over the final 10 Gameweeks and return to the kind of form that saw him rack up 19 attacking returns in 2019/20.

A full pre-season for the Liverpool right-back and a decimated one for Saturday’s Covid-hit opponents, Norwich City, boosts his appeal – as perhaps does the absence of Andrew Robertson (£7.0m), which could see Alexander-Arnold inherit even more set-piece taking duties at Carrow Road.

Luke Shaw (£5.5m) and Lucas Digne (£5.5m) come in at the same price and carry significant assist potential to offset any misgivings we might have about the defences they play for: Manchester United conceded to every team in the division ranked fifth or below in 2020/21, while Everton were blown away by the Red Devils in their final pre-season match.

The pair should boast a share of set-piece duties at their respective clubs and created a combined 116 chances between them last season.

No Premier League player supplied more key passes against Leeds in 2020/21 than Shaw (eight), with the Whites struggling at dead-ball situations for much of the campaign.

Digne, meanwhile, carved out more big chances (seven) against bottom-half sides than any other defender.

It’s a bit of a ‘template’ selection so far but we’ve gone for a riskier punt for our fourth defender in the shape of Marcos Alonso (£5.5m). It’s a selection that could backfire given Thomas Tuchel’s predilection for rotation and the 120 minutes that the Spaniard racked up on Wednesday.

However, Chelsea have arranged a post-Gameweek 1 pre-season friendly on Sunday in order to give game-time to the players who were late back from their summer breaks. One of those players is Ben Chilwell (£6.0m), who hasn’t played a single minute of football since May. With that in mind, we’ve gambled on arguably the most attacking route into the division’s best defence on form: no club conceded fewer goals than Chelsea since Tuchel’s appointment, while Alonso averaged more shots per 90 minutes than any other first-team defender in FPL last season.

MIDFIELDERS

We won’t waste much time in justifying the selection of the two premium assets in our midfield.

As if you didn’t know, Bruno Fernandes (£12.0m) is FPL’s top points-scorer since he moved to England, while Mohamed Salah (£12.5m) has plundered over 230 points in each of the last four campaigns – and, incidentally, has scored in every opening-day fixture since he joined Liverpool, including against Saturday’s opponents Norwich City in 2019/20.

Fernandes registered two goals and an assist the last time an admittedly very different Leeds side visited Old Trafford, meanwhile.

The pair have mopped up a combined 76% of the vote in our captaincy poll and even Rate My Team can’t argue against including the pair.

Our other two midfielders are slightly less obvious selections but nevertheless attracting plenty of wider FPL interest thanks to their pre-season displays.

Said Benrahma (£6.0m) has turned in some excellent performances over the summer and registered five attacking returns in West Ham’s warm-up games, although it’s more the confidence and growing maturity that prompt his selection than the pre-season numbers we’ll soon forget about. That upturn in form will almost certainly see him start against Newcastle United, even though longer-term concerns about David Moyes’ mistrust of the winger still exist.

The Magpies’ change to a more attacking shape in Gameweek 30 of last season has left them looking vulnerable at the back, too.

Harvey Barnes (£7.0m) has made a swift return to the Leicester City starting XI, meanwhile, starting – and starring – in each of the last three matches that the Foxes have played.

The winger was in electric form before his 2020/21 season was curtailed, registering six goals and four assists in the 11 appearances before his Gameweek 26 injury against Arsenal.

A Wolves side who are out to attack and likely to leave space in the full-back areas could be ideal opponents.

FORWARDS

The aforementioned defensive weaknesses of Newcastle are one reason for Michail Antonio‘s (£7.5m) inclusion.

Antonio’s track record with muscle problems is a downside to the mid-price FPL forward but he’s a force to be reckoned with when fit and a player with an enviable knack for getting into threatening positions: over a quarter of his shots last season came from inside the six-yard box.

As a result of that close-to-goal proximity, Antonio was the fourth-best forward for minutes per expected goal involvement (xGI) in 2020/21.

With Ollie Watkins (£7.5m) an injury doubt at the time of writing, we’ve plumped for Danny Ings (£8.0m) as our Villa attacker up top.

Ings scored on his Villa debut last weekend and will be up against a Watford defence who, despite coming up from the Championship with a mean reputation, shipped 10 goals in their three meetings with Premier League sides in pre-season and may require time to adjust.

Ings is the only current forward whose shot-to-goal conversion rate was in excess of 20% in each of the last two Premier League seasons.

SUBSTITUTES

• Robert Sanchez (£4.5m) – Brighton’s defence was one of the strongest in the division outside of the top six last season, with Sanchez registering more clean sheets per 90 minutes (0.35) than all bar three first-choice goalkeepers.
• Kostas Tsimikas (£4.0m) – Robertson’s injury opens up a short-term space at left-back for the budget-enabling defender.
• Demarai Gray (£5.5m) – A strong pre-season for the new Everton winger, who could be on penalties and may even get a run-out as an ‘out of position’ striker depending on the fitness of Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£8.0m) and Richarlison (£7.5m).
• Ivan Toney (£6.5m) – Brenford’s talisman, a prolific penalty taker and FPL’s most-owned forward, who was responsible for over 50% of the goals that the Bees scored last season – whether that be scoring or assisting them.

THE CAPTAIN

We choose the Scout Picks captain using a four-way vote between our Scout Squad pundits.

Because we use Fantasy Football Scout data so heavily in this process, the skipper we choose each Gameweek is known only to those with a Fantasy Football Scout subscription and revealed to the public only when the deadline has passed.

Here is how we voted for Gameweek 1:

COMMUNITY CHAMPION

Each week, one of the Fantasy Football Scout community takes on the Scout Picks by pitting their chosen XI against ours.

The Community Member who beats our team by the largest margin will win a £100 Amazon Voucher and a place in our Moderators and Contributors League for the following season.

Yankee Toffee takes on the Scout Picks this week with a 3-5-2 team of: Sanchez, Digne, Alexander-Arnold, Tsmikas, Salah, Fernandes (c), Barnes, Benrahma, Gray, Ings, Vardy.

AA33 was the winner of this last season’s Community Champion challenge.