Community Team Reveal Gameweek 1 – Bakchod

Each Gameweek brings an FPL community team reveal. As a result, that person gives insight into their transfers, captaincy and future plans.

Ahead of Gameweek 1, it’s the turn of Bakchod to tell us what is happening to their team.

Hi Bakchod and thanks for the team reveal. So how did last season go?

Firstly a bit about us. We are two Engineer-MBAs from Bangalore who watch a lot of football. We also love analyzing the numbers around the game and applying that data to FPL. I ended last season at a 44k rank and my co-contributor finished at 290k.

What does your defence look like?

I have settled on Chilwell, Estupinan and Gabriel as my back three, with Pau Torres and Bell on the bench. Although Chilwell faces Liverpool in the first fixture, he looked excellent in pre-season, is very advanced and takes corners. Only four defenders had over 50% of last season’s returns be attacking – Alexander-Arnold, Perisic, Porro and Chilwell.

Estupinan has also been picked because of his attacking stats. He averaged over 1.5 chances created and 1.0 goal attempt per 90. Meanwhile, Gabriel is more for Arsenal clean sheet coverage. They had a home record of 14 wins and two losses, with 19.20 being the third-lowest expected goals conceded (xGC).

Initially, I had the very attacking Porro instead of Gabriel but he didn’t start in what looked like Tottenham’s first XI vs Shakhtar Donetsk. He’ll remain on my watchlist, as will Alexander-Arnold, whose attacking output looked lower in pre-season. I haven’t considered Trippier because of Newcastle’s tough fixtures.

In goal, it’s Onana with Areola on the bench. Man United kept 17 clean sheets last season, despite David De Gea’s save percentage only being 71.1%. Their initial fixtures look good, at least until Gameweek 8, which can be considered for Wildcard.

Meanwhile, what about your midfield and attack?

Saka, Martinelli, Rashford and Mitoma were obvious picks to me, whilst my fifth pick is Fernandes. The latter seems to be playing more advanced than Mount and, with Hojlund coming in, there is an increase in his assist threat. He offers security of minutes, is on corners and has penalties. Last season, all five midfielders had an expected goal involvement (xGI) per 90 of over 0.50 or higher.

Meanwhile, some other names are under consideration. Foden and Jota are rotation risks, whilst Odegaard’s attacking output is bettered by team-mate Martinelli.

	Gakpo	Darwin	Jesus	Watkins	Nkunku
22/23 minutes:	1465	1727	2055	3109	1897
xGI per 90:	0.42	0.78	0.73	0.55	0.89
xG per 90:	0.32	0.63	0.61	0.47	0.68
Shots per 90:	2.40	4.30	3.40	2.50	3.32
Chances created per 90:	1.41	1.46	1.36	0.90	1.80
Minutes in friendlies:	197	180	266	227	245
Goals/assists in friendlies:	2g/1a	4g/1a	1g/2a	2g/0a	3g/0a

Up front, Haaland is the obvious first pick. Beyond that, I compared the minutes, xGI per 90, shots per 90 and chances created per 90 of Gakpo, Darwin, Watkins, Jesus and Nkunku. The latter two got injured, which then affects Jackson’s attacking output.

Darwin’s numbers are better than Watkins but, with the Aston Villa forward having better fixtures and game time, it’s tilted me towards Watkins. Furthermore, based on last season’s data, his output increases with a second forward alongside him.

Watkins’ share of expected goals (xG) in Emery’s 4-4-2 was 52%, taking 28% of team shots. When it was 4-2-3-1, it was down to 34% and 22%.

One major reason for this is that Emery likes to create artificial spaces and Watkins has a good eye for exploiting them. So this could be even better now that Diaby has arrived.

So what are your transfer plans for Gameweek 2 and beyond?

I can soon move Watkins to a Liverpool forward, once their line-ups and general performances are assessed.

Also, Spurs have good fixtures from Gameweeks 3 to 5, so I’ll be keeping an eye on Maddison and Son, In defence, Stones and Porro are under observation.