Gameweek 9 – Brad Mayor’s FPL Buy, Sell or Hold

Gameweek 8 saw another points-filled weekend with players like Haaland, Mukiele, and James scoring big. We’ll look at the most pressing dilemmas ahead of Gameweek 9. Who to buy, who to sell, and who to hold.

Micky Van de Ven

At the time of writing this, Micky Van de Ven is the most sold defender ahead of Gameweek 9. Spurs started the season looking really strong in defence with 3 clean sheets in their first 4 games. However, they have failed to keep a clean sheet in all of their last 4 games. Those 4 games were favourable matchups too, as they played Brighton, Wolves, Leeds and Aston Villa.

The issue with Van de Ven is that he is only averaging 5.25 defensive contributions per game, which is not even close to the threshold of 10. Therefore, he is relying on clean sheets as his only route to points. The Spurs defence is not performing well enough to warrant keeping the Dutch defender, so I would be looking to sell him this week.

Conclusion: Sell

Mohamed Salah

If you’ve held Mo Salah in your team for this long, then I applaud you because you’ve had a tough run. Blanks in all of the last 3 games and just 2 goals and 2 assists for the season is not good enough for £14.4m. In general, Salah is a definite sell because those funds can be better spent elsewhere, but this might not be the week to make the move.

The only reason I say this is that the midfielder you’d be looking to bring in is Bukayo Saka and he plays Crystal Palace this week. Whilst that isn’t the worst fixture, it’s also not great. Meanwhile, Salah plays against Brentford this week. So if you’re looking to sell Salah to anyone but Saka, then I’d go ahead and do it but if it’s for Saka, then maybe wait a week.

Conclusion: Hold/Sell

Bryan Mbeumo

Bryan Mbeumo is going under the radar this season because Man United have been so bad, but individually, he has had a very good start. United’s summer signing is 2nd for non-penalty expected goal involvement among all midfielders this season, behind only Gakpo. The fixtures also look nice for United right up until Gameweek 22, so at £8.0m, Mbeumo is someone that you should be looking to buy and hold for a while.

Conclusion: Buy

João Pedro

Another frustrating week for João Pedro owners as he failed to register a goal or an assist in Chelsea’s 3-0 victory against Nottingham Forest. He did register a shot this week though, which means he has now had two shots in the last four Gameweeks. Of course, these numbers are very bad, but there is one reason to be encouraged if you own the Brazilian. Marc Guiu came on at half-time, which meant that João Pedro could play in his more natural position, as a number 10. This should continue, and given Chelsea play two promoted teams and Wolves at home in the next four Gameweeks, it’s worth holding on to him for now.

Conclusion: Hold

Tijjani Reijnders

Tijjani Reijnders started his eighth Premier League game in a row at the weekend against Everton. He was, however, substituted off after just 58 minutes, which is something that we hadn’t seen up to this point. With players like Cherki and Marmoush coming back from injury now and Man City’s hectic fixture schedule, we may see reduced minutes going forward from Reijnders so I would be looking to sell him now.

Conclusion: Sell

 

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