Fantasy Premier League: Get some Arsenal defenders & Saints’ midfielders + Isak up top

Nathon Woodhead breaks down Gameweek 16 with some sage advice.

Mikel Arteta

By / Football Tips, Premier League / 2 hours ago

Gameweek 15 saw Chelsea closing the gap on Liverpool to four points. The Reds had a unexpected rest weekend as the Merseyside derby was postponed.

Arsenal were held to a 1-1 draw with Fulham while Man City were also held to an away draw with Crystal Palace.

At the other end of the table, the bottom three, Ipswich, Wolves and Southampton all lost their games.

PP football tipster Nathon Woodhead is back again with more Fantasy Premier League picks.

Gameweek 15 served up some real Christmas crackers with Chelsea beating Spurs 4-3, Brentford beating Newcastle 4-2, and Nottingham Forest winning 3-2 at Old Trafford, and this meant attacking returns galore.

Cole Palmer topped the round scoring with 18 points, with familiar face Bryan Mbeumo delivering 13 to his owners. Unfamiliar faces in the double-digit returns were Morgan Gibbs-White (13), who managed this for the first time since GW2, Jorrod Bowen (12), who surprisingly hadn’t scored double digits until this points, and Dango Ouattaro (12), who had 0% ownership, meaning his 12 points benefitted almost nobody. What a glorious waste.

Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s Leicester also added a bit of spice to the festive fixtures with two very late goals against Brighton, earning the side a 2-2 draw and putting Vardy (12) and De Cordova-Reid (11) in the double digits club in GW15.

Sadly for owners of Liverpool and Everton players, the Merseyside derby was postponed, meaning many players came off the bench. This is where the depth of an FPL squad really pays dividends.

For GW16 all eyes turn to the Manchester derby.

Has there ever been a derby in which both Manchester sides are playing as badly as they are?

Since GW10, Erling Haaland’s value as dropped from £15.3m to £14.9m and his ownership has plummeted from 61% to 41.5%.

As for Marcus Rashford, he has less than 5% ownership (4.8%) and looks completely out of sorts under the new manager.

It’s tough deciding where the points will be won in this fixture, but we expect attack will prevail over defence, and there’s more chance of a 2-2 draw than a 0-0 draw.

Elsewhere ahead of GW16, it should be business as usual for the top three of the overall leaderboard, with Mo Salah, Palmer, and Bukayo Saka all having favourable home fixtures.

Isak is back

It has been an inconsistent season not only for Isak, but for Newcastle as a whole, however with back to back attacking returns in two fixtures Newcastle didn’t win, we expect the £8.6m forward to continue his form and lead his side to victory.

Paddy’s Pro Tip

Isak to score and grab some bonus points against a Leicester side who continue to leak goals despite playing better under the new boss. (As if a man like Van Nistelrooy wants to focus on defending anyway, right?)

Southampton to stun Spurs

Every week, we talk about Southampton negatively, yet in their only win of the season, we actually called it our GW10 preview. Guess what, we are calling it again.

Paddy’s Pro Tip

You just don’t know what you will get with Spurs, and we think Southampton could nick this one. We’d recommend backing your Saints midfielders in this clash.

Clean sheet to the Arsenal

Arsenal are really ramping up the pressure on Liverpool now. Having found that form of last season, they must be a contender to win the title, and how are titles won? With clean sheets.

Paddy’s Pro Tip

Back your Arsenal defenders, as the boys don’t just keep clean sheets but are an incredible goal threat, too. William Salbia, Jurrien Timber, and Gabriel are as good as any forward line in the Premier League right now. Their set-piece coach deserves a big Christmas bonus.

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