GW 2 Points	62 (66 – 4)
GW 2 Rank	21.75 lacs
Overall rank after GW 2	32.22 lacs – up from 35.70 lacs

I believe GW 2 was a successful game week for my team. Even though I did not see dramatic improvement in my FPL rank, but the fact that I managed to score 62 points, which happens to be my target for my weekly average score (based on my OKR objectives). Although I am still 20 points off my targeted score, thanks to disastrous GW 1, managing to meet this week’s target is a positive result for me.

Positives

• Big hauls from Dominic Calvert Lewin and Sadio Mane laid the foundation of a decent GW for me. My decision to continue with Sadio Mane paid off and DCL looks to go going from strength to strength under Ancelotti.
• Foden – I had taken a big punt by not including KDB in my team last week, as I did not want to transfer out either Mane or Aubameyang. So I decided to get Foden in and he delivered with a 9 point haul. In fact, at the start of injury time of Manchester City’s match Foden was outscoring KDB.

Negatives

• Playing with 10 men – As I was deciding last GW’s team I had anticipated possible challenges with Alphonse Areola’s signing at Fulham, and that is what came to haunt me. Only saving grace is that I don’t think it would have difference to the overall score.
• Mason Mount – I usually do not panic with 2 blanks for a low to medium-priced midfielder in my FPL team, but Mason Mount does not seem to be impressing at all. With new signings now slowly integrating in the team, his game time could be in reduced, which can prove to be troublesome for me
• Bench – My bench scored a combined total of -4. Thankfully, I had all my first XI starting otherwise I would have lost points thanks to Gibbs’ red card. Dale Stephens has just joined Burnley and I am not sure of his game time. Kilman was always a cheap defender to fill the spot (I can possibly look at replacing him with Burnley’s Jimmy Dunne)

Near-Misses

• Ings was my main striker in GW 1, but I decided to transfer him out for Martial. In long term this might prove to be a decent decision, but FPL is all about having the right team for the GW and this change cost me 9 points, which can make a huge difference to the rank, specially in early weeks. As Manchester United gets into the groove, I hope Martial would prove to be a better choice.

Team for GW 3

I am extremely tempted to Wildcard already, it will help me address the major problems in my team. But with transfer season underway and teams still getting into the groove, I will most likely hold onto it till the international break between GW4 and GW 5. I have listed the issues with my team:

• Goalkeeper – No playing goalkeeper in my team. Ideally, I do not want to take a hit for a Goalkeeper in my team, thus I am exploring the option of going with 10 players for GW 3 and 4, post which I will wildcard.

• Kevin De Bruyne – Aubameyang to KDB can be a straight swap for me. Auba’s fixtures are difficult in the near term as well and he has dropped in price to 11.9 as well. But the conundrum is that across the season Aubameyang is consistent and now that he is classified as a midfielder, overall FPL score could go up. So, if I ship him out from my team, I will need to know the right time to get him back.

• Spurs coverage and Mason Mount – Chelsea have decent fixtures for next few GWs and with Ziyech and Pulisic still out, Mount might continue to start for Chelsea. Maybe I can keep Mount for another GW. Spurs have decent fixtures (except for tricky game against Manchester United at Old Trafford in GW 4), have brought in new signings namely Bale and Reguilon and won big last week – the team is expected to be bolstering with positivity. Son and Kane seem to be the best options to me.

• Bench – None of bench is expected to play, leaving me weak in case any of my playing XI players are out. Add to this the fact that I don’t have a goalkeeper, I really need to strengthen my bench.

I briefly flirted with the idea of Wildcarding and was excited about the team that I was able to put together. It had a good mix of long-term players, differentials and in form players. After being able to arrive at this team I was in a quandary to wildcard or not. At the point of publishing this, my decision is to not wildcard and hold it for a little longer, will update the post in case I change my mind. Here is the team I thought of wildcarding :

Transfers

After giving thoughts to all the issues with my team and the possible choices, I have decided to play it safe and just make 1 change, Aubameyang to Kevin De Bruyne. Last week it turned out to be a fair decision to not get KDB for Mane, but I don’t think I should hold off getting KDB any longer.

Arsenal’s fixtures slightly difficult for next couple of weeks I decided to let go of Aubameyang. In hindsight, had I made this change earlier in the week, it would have saved 0.2M on my team value, Nevertheless points matter in FPL and not the team value, hope KDB gets me those points and propels me up the rankings.

Aubameyang —> Kevin De Bruyne

Captain Pick

Captaincy options for me are KDB (home vs Leicester), Mane (Home vs Arsenal), DCL (Away vs Crystal Palace) and Martial (Away vs Brighton).

Arsenal seem to have started well under this season Arteta, and while they are expected to concede away at Liverpool I don’t think Mane will be my highest scorer for week. Similarly, Crystal palace are in good form, and DCL is yet to prove his consistency, thus I leave them out of consideration.

On one hand, after couple of games under their belts, I expect Manchester United to come out strong against Brighton and Martial could be key to their win and scoring big in FPL.

On other hand, I think KDB will be a safe pick. Probably, will be the highest captaincy % for the game week and at this stage I am looking to for a safe captain pick to continuously push my ranking up.

Thus I decide to go with Kevin De Bruyne as my captain.

Team for GW 3

Hope you enjoyed reading, best of luck for Game week 3 everyone!