FPL GW3 Preview: Nine of Our Top 40 Are Man City

Gameweek 3 deadline is 18:30 on Friday, and the round has an unusually simple shape. One fixture is doing most of the work, and the mistake almost everyone will make is treating that as a captaincy question when it is a squad-structure question. All projections below are The Algorithm's, as of 4 September.

Gameweek 3 is one fixture wearing a whole round

Man City host Coventry. The Algorithm has City at 3.02 expected goals, the highest in the round, and a 49.9 per cent chance of a clean sheet, also the highest in the round.

Coventry project 0.696 expected goals and a 4.9 per cent clean sheet. Both are the lowest of any club in the league this week. No other side is bottom at both ends.

Which is why nine of the 40 highest-projected players for Gameweek 3 wear the same shirt: Haaland, Semenyo, O'Reilly, Foden, Cherki, Rúben, Guéhi, Donnarumma and Gvardiol.

That is not an argument for captaincy. It is an argument for how many City players you should be fielding, and specifically which ones.

The captain: Haaland, and it is not close

Erling Haaland (£15.5m) - Man City

Fixtures: Coventry (H)

Haaland projects 7.393 for Gameweek 3. The next man on the board is Semenyo at 5.930, a gap of 1.46. He has 15 points and 1.42 expected goal involvement in 180 minutes, and a 3.6 per cent chance of not playing.

We called the armband settled earlier this week in our GW3 captain piece, and nothing since has narrowed it. A 1.46 gap is not a decision, it is an instruction.

He is 71.9 per cent owned, so captaining him wins you nothing on the field. Not captaining him is the risk.

The transfer where The Algorithm disagrees with you

Rúben (£5.5m) - Man City

Fixtures: Coventry (H), Man Utd (A), Sunderland (H)

Here is the week's genuinely awkward call. Rúben projects 4.612 for Gameweek 3. Gvardiol, at £5.6m, projects 4.186.

Gvardiol is owned by 18.7 per cent of the game and has 14 points from 164 minutes. Rúben is owned by 1.8 per cent and has 4 points from 180 minutes, having played every available minute.

Two points already banked have moved the crowd onto the more expensive of two defenders in the same back line, and our model has the cheaper one ahead this week. The minutes case points the same way: Gvardiol carries a 12.3 per cent chance of not playing, Rúben 4.2 per cent.

Verdict: if you are buying into the City defence tonight rather than holding one, Rúben is the better route, and fewer than one manager in fifty owns him. If you already have Gvardiol, this is not worth a hit.

The 69.4 per cent player who misses our top 40

João Pedro (£7.7m) - Chelsea

Fixtures: Arsenal (A), Hull (H)

The second-most-owned player in the game does not appear in our top 40 for Gameweek 3. He has 20 points, form of 10 and 1.96 expected goal involvement in 180 minutes, so this is a fixture problem rather than a player problem.

Chelsea go to the Emirates. We have Chelsea at 0.98 expected goals, the third lowest attacking projection in the round, and a 14.9 per cent clean sheet. Arsenal at home read 1.903 and 37.5 per cent, the third best clean sheet in the round.

Verdict: hold. He is back at home to Hull next week, where Chelsea project 2.457 expected goals and a 56.4 per cent clean sheet, their best number in the next eight rounds. Selling a 69.4 per cent asset for one fixture is how you spend two transfers to end up where you started.

The differential: Foden at 5.8 per cent

Phil Foden (£7.0m) - Man City

Fixtures: Coventry (H)

Foden projects 4.870, tenth in the round, and is owned by 5.8 per cent of the game. He has 10 points and 1.84 expected goal involvement in 171 minutes, which is the highest at City, ahead of Haaland's 1.42 and Cherki's 1.40.

He is the cheapest way into the round's best attack that the crowd has not already taken.

Verdict: buy, and accept a 6.8 per cent chance of no minutes as the price of getting a City attacker at that ownership.

The minutes risk that actually matters

Cherki is the one to think hardest about. He is £7.7m, 29.7 per cent owned, and has 22 points from 108 minutes, which is a returns rate and not a starting guarantee. Our model puts his chance of not playing at 12.3 per cent, the highest of anyone in our top 15 this week.

Beyond that, none of the 40 most-owned players in the game carries an availability flag as of this morning. Team news for the late fixtures will land after this publishes, so check your own app before 18:30.

Where else to load in, and where to stay out

Best clean sheets this week: Man City 49.9 per cent, Brentford 41.6 at home to Sunderland, Arsenal 37.5, Aston Villa 34.8 at Hull, Brighton 34.5.

Worst: Coventry 4.9, Ipswich 9.9 at home to Liverpool, Chelsea 14.9, Sunderland 15.0, Hull 18.8.

The other attack worth loading is Liverpool, at 2.315 expected goals away at Ipswich. Four Liverpool players sit in our top 12 for the week: Szoboszlai 5.340, Isak 5.249, Wirtz 4.924 and Van Dijk 4.745.

FAQ

Who should I captain in FPL GW3? Haaland. He projects 7.393, 1.46 clear of Semenyo, in the round's best fixture, with a 3.6 per cent chance of not playing.

Is João Pedro a sell for Gameweek 3? No. He misses our top 40 this week purely on the Arsenal away fixture, and Chelsea's number recovers to 2.457 expected goals at home the following week.

Who is the best FPL differential for GW3? Foden at 5.8 per cent ownership, projecting 4.870 with the highest expected goal involvement of any City player so far this season.

Every number above is on the free predicted points table, updated daily, no signup. If you want a score on your actual squad before the deadline, rate my team is free too. And if you want to see how last week's calls landed, the GW2 review includes the two we got wrong.