Arsenal
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Arsenal FPL: Who To Own, Captain And Avoid
The call — Arsenal: buy the back door, not the front Here's the shape of it: our model has Arsenal as the fourth-meanest defence in the league heading into a run of fixtures that reads like a clean-sheet shopping list — Leeds and Hull at the Emirates, Everton at home too, Forest away. Meanwhile the attack sits mid-table, eighth, staring at a run…
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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 way in is Raya. Six million, about 4 in 10 managers already have him, and he's projected to be one of the better point-scorers in the squad over the next six — which for a keeper means clean sheets stacking up week after week. That's the definition of a floor. Gabriel actually tops our Arsenal projections and adds the goal threat from set pieces, but he costs eight million for a defender, and at that price you're paying for the good weeks rather than the guaranteed ones. Calafiori splits the difference — half the game owns him already, so he's the template pick, not the edge.
Then there's Konsa at £4.6m, projecting almost identically to Calafiori for £1.2m less. Lovely on paper. The catch, as ever with the cheap ones: he's started three of the last five, and the others have started all five. A budget defender who watches from the bench is a £4.6m paperweight. Until he's starting every week, he's a watch, not a buy.
The attackers? Saka takes the penalties and leads the midfield projections, but with Liverpool and Newcastle away in this run and the attack only middling in our model, £9.5m buys you more hope than certainty. Ødegaard and Havertz project less for not much less money. This isn't the window to fund an Arsenal forward.
Honest caveat: none of these are stone-cold nailed in our data, and a couple of rotated back lines would sour the whole thesis. But five starts from five for Raya, Gabriel and Calafiori is as close to a lock as this squad offers.
The call: buy Raya at £6.0m and let the fixtures do the work. If you've got the budget and want the upside, Gabriel over Calafiori. Leave the attack alone until the run turns.