Manchester City might be the dominant reigning Premier League champions, but they hardly have the easiest bunch of players to choose from for Fantasy Premier League (FPL) users.
That is mostly because of Pep Guardiola’s notorious rotational methods, making it tough to presume which players are nailed-on starters.
Erling Haaland (picked by over 70% of FPL users) is the obvious go-to option as he keeps scoring games and being the difference-maker. But when it comes to other departments, a recent revelation from Guardiola has caught FPL managers in a bit of a pickle.
After their recent 2-1 loss to Tottenham Hotspur in the Carabao Cup, Guardiola revealed a major injury crisis tormenting his side.
He stated: “We have 13 players (available) so we are in real difficulty. Tomorrow we have two keepers and Erling Haaland for the training session, the rest, so we don’t have anything else.”
The Cityzens are already struggling with key players like Rodri, Kevin de Bruyne and Kyle Walker out with injuries.
On top of that, the likes of Savinho, Manuel Akanji, Ruben Dias, Jack Grealish and Jeremy Doku have all picked up knocks.
Even Josko Gvardiol picked up a knock in the second half against Tottenham.
The Croatian defender is currently given a 75% chance of playing, but the uncertainty has made many users nervous. Well, there are quite a lot of quality options to choose from his £6.2m range.
A very like-for-like replacement can be Liverpool skipper Virgil van Dijk, who is around 6.1m. The Reds have a favourable schedule ahead with matches against Brighton, Aston Villa and Southampton up next. They have the best defensive record and Van Dijk has helped them keep five clean sheets already in nine games.
Manchester United full-back Diogo Dalot (5.1m) is another enticing option. The Red Devils are on a ‘new manager bounce’ and have four home games in their next league outings. They’ve already kept four clean sheets, giving Dalot a 37-point return.
There is also a chance of picking a defender in the £4m-£5m range in place of Gvardiol, which can enable a user to potentially upgrade a midfielder or forward.
Aston Villa full-back Lucas Digne (£4.7m) is a solid pick at his range and already attained 35 points.
Wolves have a delightful schedule until Christmas, which includes no games against top-6 sides, so their defender Rayan Ait-Nouri can be tempting.
The strange upside to this ongoing Manchester City crisis might be the emergence of Matheus Nunes.
Because of all the issues, he’s now become a regular starter for Pep Guardiola’s side. Not just that, but Nunes has actually put in some solid performances over the last few weeks.
He has three goals and four assists in 10 matches (barring the Community Shield). At just £4.9m, he can be a bargain pick for FPL.
Nunes is getting more attacking freedom at Manchester City right now, being allowing to make energetic forward runs to contribute more in the final third.
He delivered the assist for Erling Haaland’s winner against Southampton and scored against Spurs too.
The Portuguese midfielder is creating a lot of chances and is also on corner duty, giving him that added creative threat.
In the range of £4.5m-£5m midfielder, he’s arguably the best option in terms of G/A threat.
Other similar options in £5m are the likes of Aston Villa’s Amadou Onana, West Ham United midfielder Thomas Soucek and Ryan Yates from Nottingham Forest.
Neither are responsible for set-piece duty or get the kind of attacking freedom that Nunes is currently at Manchester City. Another big plus-side to picking Nunes is that he can be chosen as a short-term option.
An FPL manager can get him in for the next few weeks before swapping him for another cheap option.
He can even be picked as that economical fourth midfielder prospect, and any goal contributions Nunes has only gives an FPL manager some bonus points.