Gameweek 6: a 5.9m midfielder outranks a 15.6m captain

Ten fixtures, no blanks, and one of them towers over the rest: Liverpool against Manchester City, rated difficulty 4 for both sides, the only match this week where neither team gets an easy read. The deadline is 11:00 BST and Arsenal host Leeds at 12:30, so the Arsenal fitness picture is the one you cannot defer. And the week's highest projection does not belong to a premium at all — it belongs to a midfielder costing £5.9m.

One thing worth knowing before you read any number below: FPL's projection for the next round currently matches a player's form figure exactly for 624 of the 667 players in the game. Treat every projection here as a readout of recent returns, not a forecast.

The captain call

Groß (Brighton, £5.9m) is projected 15.5 points, the highest in the game this week, on 34.6 per cent ownership. He has 47 points from 450 minutes — three goals, four assists, 9.4 points per game — and travels to Sunderland at difficulty 3. He has also been bought by 1,380,557 managers this week, more than any other player.

Haaland (Manchester City, £15.6m) is projected 7.5 on 74.2 per cent ownership, with five goals and 39 points. His fixture is Liverpool away at difficulty 4 — the joint-hardest rating on the board.

João Pedro (Chelsea, £7.7m) is projected 6.0 on 64.8 per cent ownership, with three goals, three assists and 8.2 points per game, at home to Bournemouth at difficulty 3. He has been sold by 589,929 managers this week, more than anyone.

The armband goes on Groß. He has double Haaland's projection at roughly a third of the price, and the softer fixture by one difficulty band. What makes it wrong: his projection is his form score, and a form score of 15.5 is a reading taken at a peak rather than a baseline. Brighton are also away, and at 34.6 per cent ownership he is no longer a point of difference — if he blanks and Haaland returns at Anfield, 74.2 per cent of the field gains on you twice over.

The differentials

Kostoulas (Brighton, £5.6m) sits at 7.5 per cent ownership with a projection of 10.0 — two goals and three assists in 353 minutes — in the same Sunderland fixture at difficulty 3. He is the cheaper route into the Brighton attack, and 662,778 managers have already taken it.

Belloumi (Hull City, £5.1m) is 5.9 per cent owned, projected 8.5, with 31 points from 394 minutes and a home fixture against Everton at difficulty 3.

Davis (Ipswich Town, £4.0m) is 7.6 per cent owned and projected 8.0, having played all 450 available minutes with two goals and two assists. Ipswich host Fulham in the week's softest match: difficulty 2 for both sides.

Honourable mention to Bogle (Leeds, £4.6m), 8.1 per cent owned and projected 10.0 from 42 points — but his fixture is Arsenal away at difficulty 5, the single hardest rating this gameweek. The projection and the fixture point in opposite directions.

The traps

Szoboszlai (Liverpool, £6.9m) is owned by 30.7 per cent and projected 2.5 points against Manchester City at difficulty 4. He has one goal, 20 points and 4.0 points per game from 440 minutes. That is the week's clearest mismatch between how many people own a player and what the data expects of him.

Cherki (Manchester City, £7.8m) is 28.6 per cent owned and projected 4.5 at Liverpool, also difficulty 4. Three goals and two assists in 302 minutes make him the more productive of the two, but the fixture is the same wall.

Team news

Isak (Liverpool, 18.2 per cent owned) is the most-owned casualty: status injured, nought per cent chance of playing, "Thigh injury - Unknown return date". He has been sold 498,490 times.

Arsenal carry three names into a 12:30 kick-off. Konsa (17.6 per cent) and Rice (10.7 per cent) are both 75 per cent to play with "Unspecified injury", Havertz (7.0 per cent) is 75 per cent with a hamstring injury, and Tzolis (8.9 per cent) is out at nought per cent, "Hamstring injury - Expected back 24 Oct".

Manchester City have Semenyo (13.8 per cent) at 75 per cent with an ankle injury and a projection of 7.5, O'Reilly (9.9 per cent) at 75 per cent, and Foden "Suspended until 17 Oct". Gakpo (Liverpool, 10.1 per cent) is at nought per cent with an ankle injury, and N.Williams (Nottingham Forest, 7.8 per cent) is the week's coin flip at 50 per cent with illness.

The one thing

The decision most managers will get wrong is the one they are making by default. Of the two most-owned forwards, the one with the better fixture is the one being sold: João Pedro faces difficulty 3 at home and has been shipped out 589,929 times, while Haaland faces difficulty 4 away and keeps the armband in roughly three-quarters of teams. The projections say 6.0 against 7.5 — close enough that the fixture difference, one band in João Pedro's favour, is doing more work than either figure. If you are selling one premium forward to fund a move for Groß, the data does not say the Chelsea one is the obvious exit.