Here’s an excerpt from i’s Fantasy Football newsletter last week: “Not only is Erling Haaland the standout captaincy option this week, he’s also arguably a triple captaincy candidate.”
Those who followed that advice or their own gut instincts would have felt rather smug on Saturday evening after Haaland helped himself to a hat-trick in Manchester City’s 4-1 win over Ipswich Town. The Norwegian scored 17 points, or 34 if you captained him and 51 if you triple captained him. Big numbers.
The goals were satisfyingly timed too: two early ones to settle the nerves and a third in the 89th minute providing a cherry on top of an already delicious cake.
Several FPL favourites performed in Gameweek 2. Cole Palmer matched Haaland’s 17-point tally with a goal and a hat-trick of assists against Wolves, Son Heung-min scored twice against Everton to earn 16 points, Kevin De Bruyne managed 12 and Mo Salah also hit the double-digit mark with 10 in Liverpool’s win over Brentford.
But they were all outperformed by Noni Madueke who was the highest-scoring player of the gameweek with 20 points.
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The captaincy debate is more open this weekend with Bukayo Saka, Palmer and Salah all likely to rival Haaland for the armband.
The Gameweek 3 deadline is at 11am on Saturday 31 August:
This is an extract of i’s Fantasy Premier League tips. Sign up here to receive the newsletter every week this season for our full 11-player team, advice on the best captain and more!
Gameweek 3 fixtures
Saturday 31 August
*3pm unless otherwise stated
- Arsenal vs Brighton (12.30pm)
- Brentford vs Southampton
- Everton vs Bournemouth
- Ipswich Town vs Fulham
- Leicester City vs Aston Villa
- Nottingham Forest vs Wolves
- West Ham vs Manchester City (5.30pm)
Sunday 1 September
- Chelsea vs Crystal Palace (1.30pm)
- Newcastle vs Tottenham Hotspur (1.30pm)
- Manchester United vs Liverpool (4pm)
i’s top-scoring players in Gameweek 2
Before each deadline we’ll give a shoutout to our top-scoring players from the gameweek before, featuring those included in our free Fantasy Football newsletter.
- Erling Haaland – 17 points vs Ipswich: The big man delivered in big style with his 10th hat-trick for City in his 101st match for the club. Silly numbers, those. It could have been more too had Arijanet Muric not made a couple of inspired saves to deny him.
- Antonee Robinson – 7 points vs Leicester: A solid return from a differential defender. The USA left-back assisted Alex Iwobi’s winning goal and despite conceding a goal secured two bonus points for his work at both ends of the pitch.
- Kaoru Mitoma – 6 points vs Man Utd: The Japanese winger secured his second goal contribution of the campaign in the first-half with an accurate pass across goal for Danny Welbeck to tap in. Brighton have a tricky fixture this week but Mitoma is making a big case for inclusion in FPL.
Antoine Semenyo (Bournemouth)
Antoine Semenyo flew under the radar as a budget £4.5m option last season, largely because his ex-teammate Dominic Solanke hogged the limelight, but he impressed with eight goals and four assists.
Despite rising in value by £1m, he is arguably an even better option this campaign after being reclassified as a midfielder which means he earns extra points for every goal he scores.
Semenyo has registered back-to-back attacking returns in the opening two gameweeks with a goal against Nottingham Forest followed by an assist against Newcastle. He has also had 12 shots, which is more than any other midfielder bar Eberechi Eze (also 12).
Bournemouth’s next opponents Everton have conceded seven times in their opening two matches and have the third-worst expected goals against (xGa) total in the Premier League.
Price: £5.5m Points: 13 Gameweek 3 fixture: Everton (a)
Cole Palmer (Chelsea)
Noni Madueke is proving to be more popular among FPL managers than he is in Wolverhampton as he is currently the most bought player ahead of Saturday’s deadline following his monster haul at Molineux.
Madueke represents great value at £6.5m and while he looks a decent pick, it’s worth paying the extra £4m for Palmer given his greater security of starts and route to points.
Since the start of 2023-24, Palmer has provided more Premier League goal involvements (39: 23 goals and 16 assists) than he has appearances in the competition.
He’s an FPL machine and arguably essential for the next five gameweeks. Chelsea’s fixtures in that period are: Crystal Palace (h), Bournemouth (a), West Ham (a), Brighton (h), Nottingham Forest (h).
Price: £10.5m Points: 19 Gameweek 3 fixture: Crystal Palace (h)
Alexander Isak (Newcastle)
Plenty of FPL managers are trading Alexander Isak for Ollie Watkins with the Swede paying the price for a slow start to the season. Aston Villa also have a promising run of fixtures coming up.
Isak is currently the most sold player in FPL at the time of writing and is, therefore, likely to drop in price by Saturday’s deadline. Offloading Isak now is premature ahead of what promises to be an open, end-to-end game against Tottenham on Sunday.
The Magpies have thrashed Spurs at St James’ Park in the last two seasons, winning 6-1 in 2022-23 and 4-0 in 23-24. Isak netted twice in each game and utilised his pace to great effect against their high line in the previous meeting between the clubs.
Price: £8.5m Points: 7 Gameweek 3 fixture: Tottenham (h)
Leif Davis (Ipswich)
Ipswich’s season starts on Saturday now that they have got two tough fixtures out of the way. The Tractor Boys’ schedule begins to ease up from Gameweek 3 onwards.
Portman Road will be rocking ahead of their game against Fulham and Leif Davis could be a nice differential option in defence if you fancy Ipswich to register their first Premier League victory in 22 years.
Davis has racked up a remarkable 32 assists and five goals in 88 league appearances for the club and is a regular set-piece taker from corners and free-kicks.
Price: £4.5m Points: 1 Gameweek 3 fixture: Fulham (h)
Morgan Rogers (Aston Villa)
Morgan Rogers hasn’t yet registered a goal or assist this season, but an inspired performance against Arsenal (allied to a budget-busting price tag) has certainly got FPL managers interested. Plenty of bosses are bringing him ahead of Villa’s short trip to Leicester.
The 22-year-old was electric in Gameweek 2 and hugely unfortunate to end up on the losing side. Rogers should have had an assist when teeing up Watkins to score, only for the England striker to fluff his lines in front of goal and ranked top for both shots and chances created for Villa in that match.
FPL have generally done a good job with their pricing of players this season, by making it harder for managers to squeeze as many elite assets into their team as last year. However, Rogers is £1m or so undervalued and is an excellent investment as a result.
Price: £5m Points: 4 Gameweek 3 fixture: Leicester (a)
