In our Fantasy Premier League newsletter you will find lots of our essential articles in the lead up to the deadline. We also share our ‘Q and A’ EXCLUSIVE from @FPLReaction

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Is Joao Pedro Essential?

This isn’t a straight forward question, and there are lots to factor involved when considering if Joao Pedro is essential.

Brighton aren’t exactly the most consistent side in the league in terms of results, but they sure are scoring a lot of goals - two or more in five of their last seven games in fact.

The Seagulls are in great scoring form, and they have excellent fixtures ahead:

We can see that Brighton face some of the worst defences in the league, in their next five matches.

Strikers have come to the fold a lot more this season, but recently, many of them have either not been performing, or are coming into an awkward fixture run, some of these players include, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Yoane Wissa, Raul Jimenez and even Chris Wood (although I wouldn’t sell the latter this week).

The above could give us a brilliant opportunity to buy Joao Pedro. The Brighton penalty taker has been a hit since returning from injury - with two back-to-back double-digit hauls in his last two games.

Is Joao Pedro essential? …No he isn’t, but I think he could be one of the best value for money assets in the game over the next several weeks, so if you want to keep up with some of the best managers out there, I would prioritise a move for him this week.

When Should we Buy Haaland back?

Erling Haaland has raised concern amongst owners recently - scoring just two goals in his last six league matches. This is obviously not good enough for a striker who costs around £15m, especially if you have been relying on him with captaincy.

The above has forced a lot of managers into selling. This has also been helped by the relentless form of Mohamed Salah, because owning both him and Haaland in the same team, does significantly limit budget to be used elsewhere.

Owning both Haaland and Salah could be problematic, in fact it would be very difficult to squeeze in other great assets, players like Cole Palmer and Bukayo Saka, two of the best assets in the game, who also have great fixtures ahead.

Manchester City have also been poor recently. Pep Guardiola’s men have lost their last three matches on the bounce, which goes hand in hand with the Norwegian’s form.

Below we can see Haaland’s upcoming fixtures, many will point out that Haaland has lovely fixtures around Gameweek 18 and onwards. All five matches from that point could be seen as very good captaincy opportunities.

However, the counter argument for that could be, that Salah has a great fixture for captaincy in Gameweek 18, Palmer could take the armband in Gameweek 19, Liverpool then face a Manchester United side in which Salah usually thrives in during Gameweek 20, and Salah could then be a great captaincy pick in Gameweek 21, 22, 23 and 24.

Taking the above into account, we may not need Haaland at all, not even for captaincy, but, if he recaptures his previous relentless form, and Salah falls off in terms of output, the that could quickly change.

Best Defenders

Defenders been largely poor since the start of the season, but there are some out there I think you could go for.

Arsenal are coming into a very good period of fixtures, and the return of Martin Odegaard seems to have worked wonders from both an attacking and a defensive perspective. With that in mind Gabriel stand out massively. Those on a budget could opt for Jurrien Timber, who is £0.7m cheaper.

Some may even decide to double up on the Arsenal defence, which could well work, I don’t think it’s a bad move at all.

I still also really like Pedro Porro, Tottenham have kept more or the same amount of clean sheets than 14 other sides this season, so their not exactly massively underperforming when compared to other sides. Porro is a constant threat, and the fact he ranks top amongst all defenders for total attempt on goal reinforces that. He also has come good fixtures ahead.

There are cheaper picks like Rayan Ait Nouri and Paul van Hecke. Both Wolves and Brighton have good fixtures and whilst Ait Nouri could offer good attacking threat for Wolves, Van Hecke offers up a cheap route into the Brighton backline.

@FPLReaction shares his team reveal for the round ahead, find out who he is captaining:

We look at which players are a buy sell and keep for Gameweek 13 here:

You can also find the top 10 predicted player points for the round ahead here:

We highlighted the best teams and players to invest in for the rounds ahead:

It’s Fouls week in FPL Challenge, so here are our top tips and an expert team reveal to help you come out on top:

Be sure to check out all of our latest articles over at Fantasy Football Community.