Five Must Own FPL Assets for the First Four GW’s of the FPL Season

There’s certainly no player in FPL that is absolutely essential to have. Though there are a few players who make a very compelling case of being “unmissable” from your team.

FPL Insights shares his thoughts below on who he thinks should be a constant in all your pre GW1 drafts!

Five Must Own FPL Assets

Must own FPL Mid-fielders for the opening four FPL game weeks

Mo Salah | Cost – 12.5m | TSB – 49%

Salah has been a Fantasy Premier League fan favorite for seasons now and rightly so. He was one of the top 3 players for FPL points, in each of the last 3 seasons.

It is no surprise that his stellar consistency was a result of his fast start in all three seasons!

Season	Rank	Total Points	GW 1 to 4 Points
2020-21	3rd	232	41
2019-20	2nd	233	36
2018-19	1st	259	27

While a player like Salah and his team Liverpool do not need a good fixture to bang, it’s still encouraging to see some lovely fixtures ahead of him in the first four-game weeks!

This makes him “captainable” in three out of his first four fixtures, justifying the premium cost demand.

Liverpool and Salah – opening four fixtures

With some key players back to their fitness, Liverpool (and Salah) should have a great start to the season.

Though Salah has shown last season, he is almost immune to his team’s performance scoring 20+ goals while his team managed just 68 (as compared to 85+ goals in each of their last two outings)

Further Read: Check out our FPL Premium Midfielders (£10 Mil+) Analysis For 2021/22 Season

Bruno Fernandes | Cost – 12m | TSB – 41%

He more than justified his Fantasy hype at the beginning of the last edition of FPL by scoring a whopping 244 points in his first full season, becoming the top points scorer of the 2020-21 season in the process.

Like any other top-scoring player, he too had a fast start scoring 31 points in his first 4 starts between game weeks 2 to 5

It won’t be an exaggeration to say he is the talisman of the present United side, whose 18 goals and 12 assists meant he contributed directly to 30 (41%) of United’s 73 goals.

He also is their primary set-piece taker who took the most number of penalties last season (10) and 3rd most direct free-kicks (16).

The last 3 seasons’ stats show United got 2.4 times the average number of penalties and 1.5 times the average number of direct free kicks.

United’s first four fixtures average an FDR of 2.25, where he can easily be captained for three if not all four fixtures.

Further Read: Check out FPL 2021-22: Our own Fixture Difficulty Rating (FDR) for the managers

Bruno and Man United – opening four fixtures

If there ever was a “best” time to own Bruno, it is most certainly NOW!!!

Further Read: Check out our FPL Premium Midfielders (£10 Mil+) Analysis For 2021/22 Season

Watch the video below to see options that can fit well with Salah and Bruno

Must own FPL Defenders for the opening four FPL game weeks

Trent Alexander-Arnold | Cost – 7.5m | TSB – 28%

TAA has established himself as one of the giants on FPL defenders since the last few seasons. His 210 points in the 2019-20 season blown the charts away making him the 2nd highest scoring defender in the history of FPL!!!

Last season, however, was not as fruitful for him as we would have expected from him and there are some obvious reasons for that.

Liverpool’s goals dropped significantly from 85 to 68 between the two seasons (2019-20 vs 2020-21). They also saw a decrease in clean sheets from 15 to 12 during the same time.

Despite the overall shortcomings of the team, Trent managed,

Now that most of their senior squad is fit, they would be expected to resume their normal high standards, and that in turn would help Trent to increase his output even further.

And like I touched upon earlier with Salah, Liverpool have great fixtures in the first four-game weeks to make Trent an absolute no-brainer for the time period.

Liverpool and TAA – opening four fixtures

Further Read: Best Premium Defenders(6.0 Mil+) To Target For The 2021/22 FPL Season

Luke Shaw | Cost – 5.5m | TSB – 48%

Yes, second appearance for a defender!

Luke Shaw is currently the second most owned player in the game just 0.7% behind Salah. His meager 124 points do not do any justice to his brilliant last season.

Below are his stats compared to the top 3 point scorers among defenders. He is close to at least one of them for almost all stats whiles playing considerably lesser minutes.

Name	Points	Clean Sheets	Corners – S’ful	Crosses S’ful	Key Passes	Pen. Ar. Touches	Time Played
Robertson	161	12	19	36	59	99	3,385
TAA	160	10	27	37	70	84	3,033
Shaw	124	10	29	20	67	66	2,655
Cresswell	153	11	26	20	50	14	3,172

With the addition of Raphaël Varane in United’s defensive ranks, there is no doubt United’s defense will improve considerably.

With brilliant first for fixtures, Shaw looks set to award half of the FPL managers with some points to start with.

Shaw and Man United – opening four fixtures

Further Read: Best Mid-Priced Defenders(5 to 5.5 Mil) To Target For The 2021/2022 FPL Season

Watch the video below to see options that can fit well with TAA and Shaw

Must own FPL Forward for the opening four FPL game weeks

Dominic Calvert-Lewin | Cost – 8m | TSB – 27%

DCL upped his game big time under Ancelotti last season scoring 165 points overall and 37 points in the first four game weeks!

While Everton did not achieve the heights they promised at the start of the season, DCL still ended up with 16 goals and 5 assists. His 21 goal involvements account for 45% of Everton’s 47 goals.

It is a testament to his importance in goals Everton score and in Rafa Benitez he has got a manager whose tactics rely on the target man to score goals.

His ability of a quick-start, coupled with some great run of fixtures makes him almost unmissable to start with. He has already made his way to more than a quarter of teams!

DCL and Everton – opening four fixtures

Further Read: FPL Mid-Priced Strikers (£7.0 – £8.5 Mil) Analysis For 21/22 Season

These are the 5 picks that I think are very close to being "must haves" due to there Fantasy pedigree, Fixtures and high ownership. Though I have also suggested an additional option below that has the "potential" to become a must have asset.

Heung-Min Son | Cost – 10m | TSB – 17%

According to me, he is one player who can make an absolute mockery of his price tag despite being 10m to start with. However, the above statement and his case below hinge on the potential transfer of Harry Kane (let’s see what I mean)

He was the 4th highest point scorer overall on 228 points, only behind Bruno, Kane, and Salah. Below are some stats comparison between the 3 top scoring midfielders:

• Son has significantly worse shot attempts compared to both and less than half the shots in the box compared to Salah
• His is ahead for key passes compared to Salah but again falls way short of Bruno’s tally of 83
• His penalty area touches is similar to Bruno while technically he winger like Salah, who has more than twice the number of touches

Despite falling behind on underlying stats, he has almost the same number of goals and assists as Bruno and exactly the same number of goal involvements as Salah. Did I mention he only took one penalty and 0 direct free-kicks?

Now imagine if Kane moves out of Spurs! There’s a decent chance Son plays as a number 9 for Spurs, takes penalties, stays in the box longer, and shoots more often.

Apply these increased stats in the above table and try a rough projection of points. Even if the stats convert to half of the projected returns, 10m in reality, is a bargain!

He does not start the campaign with the best of the fixture in GW1, but the following three fixtures should bring great returns!

Son and Spurs – opening four fixtures

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