Free FPL transfer preserved amid ongoing transfer speculation

GW23 summed up our Fantasy Premier League season perfectly. It highlighted one of the key areas where we have consistently lost ground on the field this season – poor captaincy choices. Simply put, we have captained Romelu Lukaku too frequently and haven’t really collected enough points when the armband has been allocated elsewhere.

Lukaku remains the 3rd most expensive forward in the game but his returns compared with the likes of Harry Kane since the end of August make for grim reading. The Spurs striker has scored a brace on 6 occasions while also plundering 2 hat-tricks since the Manchester United striker last found the net twice in the same Premier League game.

The simple solution is to remove Lukaku from the firing line by taking him out but having said that, perhaps it is wise to see how the January transfer window unfolds over the weekend before making any moves.

We’re therefore going to keep our free transfer in our pocket for one more week at least.

Of the actual real-life transfers to have taken place so far, Theo Walcott’s move to Everton catches the eye. However, the connotations surrounding this one probably deserve more column inches than we can afford here, so we will save that one for another day.

We also already have 2 Everton players in our current squad and they are not the type of team that we would feel too comfortable tripling up on.

So who makes our GW24 line-up?

Mo Salah was pictured back in training on Friday so he should be good to go on Monday if he has shaken off the bug that has been affecting a number of Liverpool’s players.

A match-up against bottom club Swansea City looks about as good as it gets, so Salah takes the armband off Lukaku.

We’ve opted for a 3-5-2 with Everton duo Jonjoe Kenny and Jordan Pickford returning to the starting XI in the hope that Sam Allardyce can start working his ‘clean sheet’ magic again. They are joined in defence by Chelsea’s Andreas Christensen who just missed out on bonus points last week after failing to play sufficient minutes.

We’re expecting transfer activity to intensify over the weekend – let’s hope that our watching brief pays off so that we can unearth a gem or two next week!