Gameweek 9: the projections point at Anfield, the fixtures do not

Start with the caveat, because it governs everything below. Every one of the 383 available players with minutes on the clock carries an ep_next value identical to their form figure — all 383, without a single exception. The projection column is not a forecast of this afternoon, it is an average of what each player has already returned. Read it as momentum. It matters this week because the two highest projections on the board outside Manchester City belong to Arsenal defenders travelling to Anfield at difficulty 4, and the deadline is at 11:00 with Liverpool against Arsenal not kicking off until Sunday.

The captain call

Erling Haaland (Manchester City, £15.8m) is projected 9.0 at home to Brighton, his side's fixture rated difficulty 3. He has 9 goals in 709 minutes, 6.86 expected goal involvements, 8.2 points per game and 303 bonus points, all competition-leading figures, on 78.8 per cent ownership.

Evanilson (Bournemouth, £6.3m) reads 8.3 at home to Leeds at difficulty 3, with 3 goals and 4 assists, 4.09 expected goal involvements and 13.4 per cent ownership. Nicolas Jackson (Aston Villa, £6.9m) reads 8.0 at home to Fulham at difficulty 2 — the softest fixture of the three — on 4 goals, 2.70 expected goal involvements and 21.5 per cent ownership. He is also this week's most transferred-in player by a distance, with 1,766,899 moves in.

The recommendation is Haaland. He leads the projection table, the underlying numbers and the bonus-point table at once, and difficulty 3 at home demands no courage.

What would make it wrong: Brighton's half of that fixture is rated difficulty 5, which is FPL's way of saying it expects a defensive game, and Brighton arrive with 5 clean sheets registered across their squad this season — as many as any side in the data. At 78.8 per cent ownership a Haaland blank costs you almost nothing relative to the field, but it also means a Haaland haul gains you almost nothing. Jackson at 21.5 per cent against difficulty 2 is where separation actually lives.

The differentials

Pedro Neto (Chelsea, £6.6m, 4.8 per cent owned) is projected 7.7 at home to Manchester United, difficulty 4. Three goals, one assist and 2.30 expected goal involvements in 591 minutes. The fixture is the hard part; the price and the ownership are the reward.

Benjamin White (Arsenal, £5.4m, 4.7 per cent owned) reads 7.0 with 3 assists, 4 clean sheets and 159 bonus points from 532 minutes, away at Liverpool at difficulty 4. His teammate Calafiori is owned by 47.7 per cent and projected 4.0 in the same fixture.

Alex Iwobi (Fulham, £5.4m, 1.4 per cent owned) is projected 6.0 away at Villa, difficulty 3, carrying 3.32 expected goal involvements and 180 bonus points from 657 minutes. That involvement figure is higher than Palmer's, Rogers' and Jackson's, at roughly a tenth of their combined ownership.

Also on the board: James Hill (Bournemouth, £5.5m, 2.6 per cent) at 6.7 from a full 720 minutes played.

The traps

Pascal Groß (Brighton, £6.2m) is owned by 45.6 per cent and projected 3.7 away at Manchester City, where Brighton's side of the fixture is rated difficulty 5 — the only 5 in the gameweek. He has 58 total points and 7.2 points per game, which is why he sits in 45.6 per cent of squads and what the projection has stopped reflecting. His teammate Maxim De Cuyper (£5.3m, 42.4 per cent) faces the same difficulty 5 but still reads 7.3, so the trap is not Brighton as a block.

Morgan Rogers (Chelsea, £8.1m) is owned by 50.7 per cent — the highest of any outfielder in the game — and projected 4.0 at home to Manchester United at difficulty 4. Cole Palmer (£9.8m, 27.4 per cent) sits at 3.0 in the same fixture and has had 243,869 managers leave this week.

Team news

João Pedro (Chelsea, 49.7 per cent owned) is listed with a thigh injury, unknown return date, chance of playing next round 0 per cent. He has been transferred out 2,483,474 times, by far the heaviest movement in the game.

Riccardo Calafiori (Arsenal, 47.7 per cent) is a hip injury at 75 per cent, with 609,711 already gone. Declan Rice (11.9 per cent) is an unspecified injury at 75 per cent. Bukayo Saka (7.1 per cent) is a thigh injury at 0 per cent and will not feature.

Dominik Szoboszlai (Liverpool, 13.8 per cent) is a hamstring injury at 50 per cent, projected 0.1. Antoine Semenyo (Manchester City, 6.8 per cent) is a knee injury at 0 per cent. Bobby Thomas (Coventry, 8.6 per cent) is a calf injury at 50 per cent.

The one thing

Half the game is holding a certain zero. João Pedro's chance of playing reads 0 per cent with no return date attached, and his ownership still reads 49.7 per cent on the morning of the deadline. Nearly 2.5 million managers have moved him on; roughly the same number have not. That is the only decision on this page with no judgement in it. The harder errors are the ones dressed as information: Groß at 45.6 per cent facing the gameweek's only difficulty 5, and two Arsenal defenders projected 9.0 for a trip to Anfield on the strength of games that have already been played.