Eight of the ten Gameweek 9 matches are done. Manchester City lost 1-0 at home to Brighton, their second league defeat in a row. Haaland, who is owned by 78.9% of managers and carried the armband for a large majority of them, scored 2 points. The top scorer of the week so far is Tottenham’s Van Hecke: a £5.0m defender with a goal and 15 points.
The overall average after Saturday is 31 points and the highest score is 122. Both numbers are provisional: Liverpool host Arsenal on Sunday at 16:30 UK, and Newcastle play Everton on Monday at 20:00.
Saturday’s results
| Match | Score | Goals and cards |
|---|---|---|
| Chelsea v Manchester United | 2-0 | Rogers 50′, Palmer 64′ (pen); red card: L. Martínez 63′ |
| Bournemouth v Leeds | 2-0 | Evanilson 31′, Adli 90+4′ |
| Brentford v Nottingham Forest | 2-0 | Milenković 30′ (og), Igor Thiago 76′ |
| Coventry v Sunderland | 3-1 | Sakamoto 17′, Awoniyi 37′, Rudoni 52′; Le Fée 67′ (pen); red card: Alderete 90+9′ |
| Hull v Ipswich | 2-2 | Iroegbunam 58′, McBurnie 68′ (free kick); Florentino 22′, Enciso 74′ |
| Manchester City v Brighton | 0-1 | Ayari 11′ |
| Tottenham v Crystal Palace | 2-0 | Gray 25′, Van Hecke 73′; red card: Mateta 13′ |
| Aston Villa v Fulham | 1-1 | N. Jackson 39′; Suzuki 64′ (og); McGinn missed a penalty |
Brighton win in Manchester, Maresca benches Guéhi and Cherki
On Wednesday the same two teams met at the same stadium in the League Cup, and City won on penalties. Brighton stayed in Manchester after that game and got their revenge on Saturday. Ayari, who missed his penalty in Wednesday’s shoot-out, scored after 11 minutes. Diego Gómez’s cross got past Matheus Nunes and came to him off De Cuyper. City pushed until the end, and Ndiaye hit the post after a save from Verbruggen, but the score did not change.
It is City’s second straight league defeat after seven wins to open the season. Brighton are now only two points behind City, and Arsenal can go above both with a win at Anfield on Sunday.
For FPL managers, City’s team sheet matters more than the result. According to ESPN and PA, Enzo Maresca dropped Guéhi (16.4% owned) after some poor performances and put Cherki (36.6%) and Foden on the bench. Anderson, Bouaddi and Enzo Fernández played in midfield. Guéhi did not come on at all, and Cherki played 35 minutes for 1 point. Neither is injured, so the game will not show a flag next to them, but the rotation risk is real.
Brighton’s players scored well: Verbruggen 11 (clean sheet and 3 bonus points), Ayari 10, De Cuyper 9 (assist, 44.1% owned). Groß (46.8%) has 2 points and a yellow card.
Chelsea 2-0 United: Rogers beats half a team, Martínez is sent off
Manchester United were the better side in the first half. Cunha had a goal ruled out by VAR for offside, and good chances were missed by Amad and by Bruno Fernandes, who was back in the team and captain again. In the 50th minute Rogers picked up the ball in midfield and ran through the United defence on his own. Soon after, Lisandro Martínez was booked twice within four minutes. The second booking, for a foul with his arm on Fofana, also gave away a penalty, which Palmer scored.
According to ESPN, it is United’s third defeat in a row and their ninth game without a win in all competitions, the first such run since 1988-89. Chelsea fans sang to Michael Carrick that he would be sacked in the morning. United are 17th with 7 points.
In FPL: Rogers (51.6% owned) has 9 points and Palmer 8 (he served his red-card ban in the cup on Wednesday). The clean sheet paid off for Chelsea’s cheap players: Fofana has 11 points and Acheampong 9, both priced around £5.0m and owned by under 0.5%. Bruno has 2 points, Mbeumo 1 and a yellow card. Martínez is suspended until 22 November.
Tottenham 2-0 Palace: a red card after 13 minutes
Mateta went in studs-up on van de Ven’s Achilles. Referee Michael Oliver first showed a yellow card and upgraded it to red after a VAR review. From then on it was mostly Tottenham. Gray headed in Kudus’s corner after 25 minutes, and Van Hecke scored another header in the 73rd minute. According to ESPN, it is the first time in 20 months that Spurs have won three league games in a row.
Van Hecke’s goal, clean sheet and 3 bonus points give him 15 points, the best score of the week. He was in our Thursday guide and in our Recommended Squad. Robertson scored 8 points and Kinský 6. Pedro Porro, back from injury, came on at half-time. Mateta is suspended until 2 December.
The rest of Saturday
- Aston Villa 1-1 Fulham. Early on, McGinn hit the crossbar with a penalty. Nicolas Jackson scored his fifth league goal in five games and has 9 points. By Thursday 954,000 managers had bought him, and this time the crowd was right. Fulham equalised after a mistake by Suzuki, who dropped a corner over his own line. Matty Cash picked up a yellow card and is suspended until 21 November.
- Bournemouth 2-0 Leeds. Evanilson scored and took 3 bonus points, 9 in total. Adli scored in stoppage time, moments after coming off the bench. Tavernier, bought by 675,000 managers by Thursday, has 3 points.
- Brentford 2-0 Forest. A Milenković own goal and a goal from Igor Thiago (9 points). Gibbs-White played the full game for 2 points.
- Coventry 3-1 Sunderland. Goals from Sakamoto, Awoniyi and Rudoni. Le Fée scored a penalty for Sunderland (8 points). Alderete was sent off in stoppage time.
- Hull 2-2 Ipswich. McBurnie scored a free kick and added an assist: 12 points at 1.7% ownership. Matt Crooks picked up a yellow card and is suspended until 22 November.
How our picks did
| Pick | What we said | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Haaland | no. 1 captain pick | 2 pts (4 as captain) |
| Tavernier | no. 2 captain pick | 3 pts |
| Mbeumo | no. 3 captain pick | 1 pt |
| Gibbs-White | no. 4 captain pick | 2 pts |
| Le Fée | no. 5 captain pick | 8 pts |
| Van Hecke | cheap defender, £4.9m, rating 89 | 15 pts, best of the week |
| Evanilson | highest-rated forward in the game | 9 pts |
| Bruno Fernandes | do not sell just because he was benched, but do not buy | 2 pts |
| Recommended Squad (Haaland C) | XI from the archive, frozen at the deadline | 72 pts |
First, what did not work. Our captain picks had a poor week: the top five scored 3.2 points on average. On Tuesday we changed the way we pick the captain, because for eight gameweeks our no. 1 pick had been beaten by Haaland. In the first gameweek after the change, Haaland scored 2 points. One gameweek settles nothing, for the old method or the new one. We will compare the results after a few more rounds.
Now what did. Our Gameweek 9 Recommended Squad scored 72 points against an average of 31. That is its best score since we started tracking it in these reviews. On Thursday we warned that it had three Brighton players for a trip to the Etihad, a difficulty-5 fixture. The three of them scored 22 points between them, so the caution was not needed this time. On top of that, Van Hecke delivered 15 points.
Our league after Saturday
There are 73 teams in our league. The average after Saturday is 41 points, against 31 across the whole game. 59 teams are above the game’s average (live numbers, before Sunday’s games and automatic substitutions).
- Haaland was captain in 54 of the 73 teams (74%). Four teams gave the armband to N. Jackson, and each has 18 points from it.
- The best gameweek so far belongs to MegatroN-: 77 points with a Free Hit and a jump from 45th to 22nd. Next are MARTINEZ (76, also a Free Hit) and Stretford Enders (69, Wildcard).
- Pogoń Bydło lead the table (663 pts), ahead of AVERAGEJOE (644) and Wojciech’s Team (628).
- This gameweek 5 teams played a Wildcard and 4 a Free Hit.
- A lot depends on Sunday. Calafiori is in 71% of our squads (47.8% across the game), Konsa in 48% and Raya in 44%.
The full table is on the Mini League page. You can join at any time with the league code 3ix1cw.
Today and next
- Sunday, 16:30 UK: Liverpool v Arsenal. Calafiori has a 75% chance of playing, Szoboszlai 50%, and Saka is out.
- Monday, 20:00: Newcastle v Everton, a rematch of Thursday’s League Cup tie.
- Suspended: Mateta until 2 December, L. Martínez and Crooks until 22 November, Cash until 21 November. All updates are in our Injury Centre.
- Gameweek 10 deadline: Friday 6 November, 18:30 UK. First match: Everton v Coventry at 20:00. Then comes the international break, and the Gameweek 11 deadline is Saturday 21 November at 11:00. Our Gameweek 10 picks will be on the Who to Buy page.
We will publish the full Gameweek 9 review after Monday’s game.
Data: the official Fantasy Premier League API (as of Sunday 1 November, midday) and ratings from our AI model. Gameweek averages are provisional until the game confirms the points. Match details: ESPN and PA reports.