Arsenal
Emirates Stadium
Arsenal FPL: Who To Own, Captain And Avoid
The call — Four in 10 managers own Calafiori at £5.5m. About 1 in 10 own Ben White at exactly the same price — and our model has White scoring more points over the next six. That's the sort of gap this column exists for.
What has not being with FFIQ cost you this season?
One squad, picked before a ball was kicked and run for six gameweeks on three transfers — no hits taken. Scored on FPL’s own results.
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The wider question first: is Arsenal worth buying into? Yes, and it's not close. This is one of the meanest defences in the league and one of its sharpest attacks, and the opening run — Coventry at home, Sunderland away, Leeds at home, with trips to Villa and Brighton and a home Chelsea game the hard bits — is about as kind as you'll get. Three promoted sides in six weeks is where clean sheets and hauls come from.
So who carries your money? Saka is the headline and deserves to be. On penalties, on free kicks, on corners, nailed to start, and our projections have him as comfortably Arsenal's best asset — solid returns most weeks with the fixtures to go massive. At £9.5m he's priced for what he is, and with only about 1 in 10 owning him, he's a genuine way to gain ground. If the budget stretches, he's the buy.
If it doesn't, Rice at £7.5m is the quiet value in midfield — nailed, on set pieces, and projected not far off players costing two million more. That's points-per-million you can build a squad around.
At the back, the herd has picked the wrong £5.5m defender. Calafiori is the popular one; White is the better one, per our numbers, and nobody owns him. Both start, both sit behind a defence with a favourable clean-sheet run. Take the one that costs the same and scores more. Raya at £6.0m is the premium keeper route if you'd rather pay for the same clean sheets with save points on top — fine, but the defender is cheaper.
The caveat: Villa away and Chelsea at home sit in weeks two and three, so this isn't six free hits, and Havertz down at 7 in 10 unowned is tempting but the striker slot at Arsenal is the most crowded part of the team — I'd leave him.
The call: buy into Arsenal now. Saka if you can afford him, Rice if you can't, and White over Calafiori at the back every day of the week.