FPL Roundup gameweek 5 – Fantasy Premier League winners and losers

With gameweek five of FPL now behind us, the Premier League table is starting to take shape – as are everyone’s FPL leagues. How is your team getting on?

This has been a tough gameweek for even the most experienced of FPL players – plenty of consistent points scorers failed to deliver, but those who were willing to take gambles may have been richly rewarded. Let’s take a look at who the biggest winners and losers were this weekend.

Goalkeepers

This wasn’t a particularly strong week for goalkeepers in FPL. Only two ‘keepers were able to keep clean sheets – Djordje Petrovic and Nick Pope – and neither of them had many saves to make. Pope made two, while Petrovic just made the one.

Caoimhin Kelleher and Jose Sa were among the poorest performers between the sticks this weekend. Both let in three goals against Fulham and Leeds United, respectively.

Nevertheless, the worst goalkeeping display of the weekend has to go to Robert Sanchez, who was sent off early in Chelsea’s game against Manchester United for a wild challenge on Bryan Mbeumo. It was a costly error for Chelsea and anyone who had him in their FPL team – he ended the gameweek on -3 points.

Defenders

Like the goalkeepers before them, this wasn’t a brilliant week for defenders in FPL due to the lack of clean sheets. Nevertheless, Harry Maguire was able to collect his clean sheet bonus – despite United conceding late on.

However, as Maguire was brought off after the 60th minute, but before United conceded, he was still eligible for the bonus. He ended the gameweek on 11 points, making him this weekend’s top defender.

Sunderland’s Reinildo Mandava is our pick for the worst defender of the weekend. He’s cheap, at 4.0, but proved to be more trouble than his meagre worth when he was sent off for kicking out at Matty Cash for Sunderland on Sunday afternoon. The Black Cats put in a mammoth effort to rescue a draw, but it was made much harder by Reinildo’s moment of madness.

Midfielders

This week’s prize for top FPL performer is a dead heat between two defensive midfielders – Leeds United’s Anton Stach and Liverpool’s Ryan Gravenberch. Both put in excellent displays from the heart of midfield and did enough to accumulate a healthy points total of 15.

Elsewhere, players such as Jaidon Anthony, Bruno Fernandes and Alex Iwobi all picked up a lion’s share of this week’s points distribution for their performances.

No one stood out this week in terms of poor performers – nevertheless, players with Cole Palmer in their squad will have been dismayed when he was hooked (for tactical reasons) after just 21 minutes in response to Robert Sanchez’s dismissal.

Forwards

Dominic Calvert-Lewin finally shook off the cobwebs and found the back of the net when Leeds defeat Wolves by a score of 3-1. He scored the first of Leeds’ goals and set up another to bag himself a tidy 11 points.

We feel like we’re beating a dead horse at this point, but once again, Ollie Watkins failed to muster a goal contribution this week. It really has been an abysmal start to the season for England’s backup striker – he missed a couple of gilt-edged chances against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light.

Arsenal’s Viktor Gyokeres deserves a bit of criticism as well, for his turgid display against Manchester City – he failed to rattle off a single shot against the Sky Blues, let alone a goal or an assist. Once again, FPL’s most expensive players are not hitting their expected targets.