Penalty specialist Janssen gets the green light

We may have had a disappointing start to the new FPL season but an 84 point haul in Gameweek 5 was enough to see our squad shoot up over 1 million places, in the official Fantasy Premier League rankings.

However, we appreciate that much more is needed so we are going to make two transfers ahead of Gameweek 6.

Olivier Giroud has been causing us headaches. An injury to his big toe saw him sit out the win at Hull City in GW5, while the Frenchman, a fixture on Arsenal’s ever-increasing list of penalty takers, is now far from certain to be first-choice on spot-kicks.

Lucas Pérez became the fourth Arsenal player to take a penalty in the new season, when he converted one in Tuesday’s League cup tie against Nottingham Forest, which is some accomplishment for a side that only won three penalties throughout the course of their whole 2015/16 campaign.

The worrying thing from a Gunners’ perspective is that manager Arsène Wenger seems to have no control over who is actually taking penalties on the pitch.

The sensible thing to do is to transfer him out, so step forward Vincent Janssen. Spur’s Dutch striker is set for a prolonged run in the starting line-up, following Harry Kane’s ankle ligament injury and a successfully-taken penalty in Wednesday’s League Cup tie against Gillingham, suggests that he will be first choice on spot-kicks in Kane’s absence as well. He has now scored all 13 of the penalties he has taken in his career to date, including one at Wembley, in an International friendly against England.

It will be interesting to see how quickly other FPL managers jump on the Janssen bandwagon.

This move also frees up some additional funds, allowing us to bring in Philippe Coutinho at the expense of Dusan Tadic and we’ve no hesitation in handing the arm-band to Liverpool’s Brazilian winger, with the Reds having the highest goal expectancy in Gameweek 6.

We’re expecting N’Golo Kanté to be swarming all over Mesut Özil in Saturday’s London derby, so Arsenal’s German midfielder will have to make do with a  spot on the bench.

Burnley duo Michael Keane and Tom Heaton are recalled to the starting XI, while Étienne Capoue, who we’ve tipped to be fantasy football’s breakthrough player of the season, is also included.

Let us know what you think of our GW6 FPL line-up.

Updated list of 2016/17 English Premier League penalty takers