Newcastle United
St James' Park
Newcastle United FPL: Who To Own, Captain And Avoid
The call — Newcastle: buy in, and buy in at the back A £5.0m defender who takes the free kicks and the corners, in the league's second-meanest defence, with Bournemouth, Hull, Coventry and Aston Villa all coming to St James' Park in the next six. That's Lewis Hall, and fewer than 1 in 10 managers own him. That's the answer to the question…
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.
Your name and your FPL team name. That is all it takes, and we will have your answer before you have finished reading this sentence.
↓ Start here — your name, then your team.
No FPL password, ever. We only read what FPL already publishes.
Our model has Newcastle as one of the two best defences in the league and top-five for attack, and the run — BOU (H), LEE (A), HUL (H), COV (A), AVL (H), CRY (A) — is about as kind as fixture lists get at both ends. So yes, this is a squad worth buying into. The only real question is where the value sits, and it's unambiguously at the back.
Here's the dry maths of it. Hall is projected north of 30 points over the six, he's nailed, and the set-piece duty gives him a route to attacking returns on top of the clean sheets. A defender who never blanks on minutes and clears the extra-defending line most weeks is exactly what a £5.0m slot should buy. Thiaw and Botman sit at the same price with nearly the same clean-sheet case — Botman is owned by almost nobody — so if you're doubling up, that's your second body. Horníček at £5.0m is the same story in gloves.
Up front, Wissa at £6.1m actually projects the highest of the lot and he's third in the penalty queue, so he's a perfectly sensible buy if you need a cheap forward who starts. But be honest about what you're paying for: the attack has three men ahead of him for pens, and the productive minutes are shared around. Elanga and Barnes are fine, not urgent. The caveat across the board is sample size — everyone here has two starts, and early-season pecking orders can shift. If Hall loses the set pieces, he's just a very good £5.0m defender rather than a great one. That's the whole downside.
Cheap players who play, in a defence that doesn't concede, against teams that don't score much. It isn't romantic, but it funds a Haaland.
The call: buy Hall now, before that ownership number moves. Wissa if you need the forward slot filled too. Start both against Bournemouth.