Chelsea FPL: Who To Own, Captain And Avoid — 1 Aug

Chelsea come into this run as one of the league's five sharpest attacks, and the fixtures are kind: FUL (A), BHA (H), ARS (A), HUL (H), BRE (A), BOU (H). Take out the Emirates trip and that's five games you'd expect this attack to score in. João Pedro at £7.5m is the sensible way in — he's projected for a steady 3-4 points a week with genuine haul potential when the easier fixtures land, and the ownership tells you the template has already decided. If you don't own him, you're carrying risk every time he scores.

Palmer is the more interesting call. £9.5m is proper money, but the projected returns are the best at the club by a distance, and 1 in 10 ownership means he actually wins you places when he goes off. The honest caveat: two pounds is two pounds, and if your budget's tight the gap between him and João Pedro doesn't justify wrecking the rest of your side.

At the back, be careful. Chelsea rank among the meanest five defences in our numbers, but the clean-sheet fixtures are genuinely tough — Fulham, Arsenal and Brentford away is not a run you bank shutouts through. Colwill at £5.0m is the value play if you must — practically nobody owns him, he plays every week, and £5.0m for a top-five defence is fair. Sánchez at the same price is the same argument in gloves. Just don't expect three clean sheets from the first six.

The call: buy João Pedro — he's the price, the minutes and the fixtures in one package, and being without a 6-in-10 owned forward in a top-five attack is a hole in your team, not a stance. If you've got the budget after that, Palmer is the upgrade worth planning towards. The defenders can wait until the fixtures turn.