Gabriel Jesus comes into the mix for Gameweek 8

The international break seems to have dragged on forever but we’re now much closer to knowing which 32 nations will be in Russia next summer, with the play-offs in November set to determine those outstanding World Cup spots. This means we can now get back to the nitty gritty of the Fantasy Premier League and it is the attacking options that have been hogging the limelight ahead of GW8.

The injuries to Sergio Agüero and Álvaro Morata are not as bad as first feared and it now looks like both players will be back in actiion much earlier than anticipated. This was something that we figured might happen when we decided to bring in Gabriel Jesus to replace the stricken Morata, a decision that wasn’t taken lighlly, bearing in mind that we had abandoned Manchester City coverage in a previous gameweek.

However, with Romelu Luksku set to face off with Roberto Firmino, in what could be a very tight affair when Liverpool host arch rivals Manchester United in the Saturday lunch time kick-off, we didn’t want to leave ourselves too light up front and bringing in Harry Kane simply wasn’t an option with his inflated price tag. So, we’ve gone for Jesus and have handed him the armband, with Lukaku relinquishing it for the first time.

Elsewhere, we have one big issue with the ineffective Gylfi Sigurdsson and were tempted to replace him with Raheeem Sterling but the Iceman gets a stay of execution as we save our other transfer for next week.

Last season, we made a huge mistake when we binned Alexis Sánchez following an injury scare while the Chilean was away with his national side. The Arsenal man never made it back into our line-up and we paid for it in the long run. We don’t want to suffer the same fate again with Morata, so, by preserving the extra transfer we will be able to assess our striking options ahead of GW9, once his and the Agüero situation become a bit clearer and then take the appropriate action.

It’s a tough gameweek on paper and we wouldn’t be at all surprised to see some shock starting line-ups revealed over the course of the weekend, with those crunch Champions League games scheduled for next Tuesday and Wednesday.

We’ve put our faith in Jesus – can the Brazilian justify his selection?