FPL Scout: Gameweek 18 hints, tips and advice | OneFootball

Brentford have teamed up with Fantasy Football Scout to help bring you hints, tips and advice during the 2024/25 Fantasy Premier League (FPL) season.

Scout will be using their expertise to provide info, advice and Gameweek tips which may prove useful in ensuring you sit on top of your mini-leagues.

Best of the Bees

Despite not returning in Gameweek 17, Bryan Mbeumo (£7.6m) still had excellent underlying stats and his owners were unlucky not to see him register more FPL points.

The Cameroon international fired in a cross that narrowly missed some point-blank contact. He also set up a couple of chances for defender Kristoffer Ajer (£4.4m): one was a headed knock-down which forced a superb stop from Matz Sels (£4.7m), before his threatening in-swinging cross would’ve brought a tap-in had the defender not intervened.

In the fourth minute, an Mbeumo pass played Yoane Wissa (£6.3m) down the right, assisting Mikkel Damsgaard’s (£5.0m) well-placed effort inside the penalty area.

Meanwhile, Mark Flekken’s (£4.5m) 1.28 million owners gained one save point, from his four stops in this match. These took him to a league-leading 82 saves so far this season.

The Spotlight

With recent injuries to Ethan Pinnock (£4.5m) and Sepp van den Berg (£4.1m) worsened by news of an Ajer ankle problem, this condensed schedule should see centre-back Mee continue to start.

At such a low price - considering he began 2023/24 at £5.0m - the 35-year-old’s eye for goal might make him an intriguing differential over the coming weeks.

Each of his previous four Premier League campaigns have brought at least two goals, peaking in 2022/23 when he racked up 143 points. Just four other defenders bettered this, as he netted three times, assisted two others and was the third-best in his position for penalty area attempts (28).

Over the Christmas period, he adds some cheap squad depth for upcoming clashes with Brighton, Arsenal and Southampton.

Best of the Rest

Alexander Isak’s (£8.9m) hat-trick brought 17 points to a massively increasing ownership. He was, however, outscored by Mohamed Salah’s (£13.5m) two goals, two assists and 21 points. In fact, 27.1% of overall FPL managers had both.

It means Salah is on 11 double-digit hauls from 16 outings, when nobody exceeded 10 throughout the whole of last season. Team-mate Dominik Szoboszlai (£6.3m) was another to provide a score of 17.

Meanwhile, Arsenal’s Gabriel Jesus (£6.8m) has chosen a fitting time of year to get amongst the goals. He followed a midweek cup hat-trick against Crystal Palace with two league strikes and an assist past the same side.

A second 15-point tally of 2024/25 ensures that Ola Aina (£5.0m) is now the game’s No.1 defender.

In Demand

Isak is becoming almost essential and, at the time of writing, has been purchased over 650,000 times since Gameweek 17. That’s far ahead of second-placed Jesus’ 285,000.

Yet for many, the main festive dilemma will be deciding how to replace Bukayo Saka’s (£10.5m) hamstring injury. It could keep him sidelined for approximately two months, so expect midfielders like James Maddison (£7.6m), Luis Díaz (£7.4m) and Bruno Fernandes (£8.4m) to increase in ownership.

Captaincy

The unfortunate setback robs Saka of armbands for when Arsenal host Ipswich on Friday.

However, there’s still the enticing prospect of captaining Salah versus Leicester. He’s the one, alongside Mbeumo, on 10 home attacking returns.

Some may pick the form of Isak against tricky Aston Villa, who looks like a good option for the armband. Meanwhile, Cole Palmer (£11.2m) and Jarrod Bowen (£7.5m) both have nice fixtures and could be differential captains.