One more round before AFCON and Asian Cup start and the last gameweek before which you activate your first wildcard – the Fantasy Premier League Gameweek 20 is here.
Let’s jump to our FPL GW20 Tips with the best picks, fixtures, transfer targets, odds, captain picks, and team selection.
1. Fantasy Premier League Gameweek 20 Tips
- Haaland will not play in the GW20 against Sheffield. And the quote from Guardiola (“Hopefully in January he can come back with us”) does not sound very positive, so actually Haaland could be a doubt for GW21 as well. He is a sell for us. Read more: What to do with Haaland.
🚨 Pep Guardiola: “Haaland feels better but he hasn’t made one training session with us. Hopefully in January he can come back with us”.
🇧🇪 “De Bruyne last week he trained with us, today he had a little bit of fatigue because he’s training hard” — quotes via @SamLee. pic.twitter.com/SccSvFfAYs
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) December 27, 2023
- Even if you are on a wildcard, we would go without Haaland (you could pick Haaland for your GW20 wildcard, bench him for GW20, and then hope he will be back for GW21). However, we would go without Haaland for the GW20 wildcard and rather have a backup plan with -4 point hit for getting Haaland back in GW21 for Salah and Alvarez. And, the GW21 fixture against Newcastle is not so appealing, so you could just wait until GW22 (Burnley fixture) to get him back.
- Alvarez is the Haaland replacement to target
- If you can (for example if you have 2 free transfers), try to roll one transfer for GW21 in which you will have to sell players who go to AFCON and Asian Cup (Salah, Son, Kudus..)
- Prepare, how you will deal with GW21 absentees of Salah, Son, Kudus, Hwang…
- Read more about which players will miss PL due to AFCON and Asian Cup in our article: Which players go to AFCON and Asian Cup? (+Impact on FPL)
- There is a case for selling Gordon for Bowen, but only if you have totally nothing else to do with your team
- If you have Areola, you could play him ahead of Dubravka in GW20.
Areola hauls: Two hauls after 3 missing gameweeks when everyone benched Areola for Dubravka – now there are nice 3 fixtures on the horizon for West Ham, but do not have unrealistic expectations – Areola could easily have 3 blanks in easy games after having 2 hauls in tough games.
That would not be uncommon from “FPL gods”. It just shows, how unpredictable FPL is and that we cannot predict how points will be distributed.
Sometimes we just have to have more patience with the players we pick.
Read more about it in our article: The Law of Large Numbers and its role in FPL
- Keep Saka. Find our reasoning here: Saka: Keep or sell
- You could play Charlie Taylor ahead of your Newcastle defender in GW20
- Bowen is the top transfer target for GW20
- Joao Pedro could get more game time in the Brighton good fixture run
Roberto De Zerbi on João Pedro: “He was the best player on the pitch. It was another incredible performance. He defended for 90 minutes like a centre-back. I hope to work with him for another year but I think it will be very tough.” 👀 #BHAFC
— Ryan Taylor (@RyanTaylorSport) December 28, 2023
2. FPL Gameweek 20 Transfer Tips and Key Players to pick
Key players to pick
- Salah – great form
- Saka, Odegaard – aim to have at least one Arsenal midfielder – you could even double up on their midfield once the AFCON starts (as you will be looking for Son and Salah replacement)
- Gabriel/Saliba/Raya – have at least one Arsenal defensive player
- Palmer – back from suspension, good stats, on penalties
- Bowen – you will want him for the run in GW20 – GW22
- Watkins
- Pedro Porro – attacking threat, on set pieces while Maddison is out
Transfer targets
- Alvarez
- Gross
- Gusto – great budget enabler, but have a solid backup on your bench
- Estupinan – back from injury, great fixture run
- TAA/VVD
- Walker/Dias
- Richarlison
- Foden
- Bowen, Ward Prowse, Souček
Who to transfer out
- Haaland
- Mitoma
- Livramento
- Lascelles
- Gibbs-White
- Diaby
- Senesi
- Tavernier
- Darwin
3. Fixtures to target in FPL GW20
In which fixtures we could expect a lot of fantasy points? These are the fixtures to target in Gameweek 20 according to bookies odds.
- Manchester City vs. Sheffield: The Citizens 92 % to win, 64 % to score 2.5+ goal
- Aston Villa vs. Burnley: The Villans 71 % to win, 40 % to score 2.5+ goal
- Liverpool vs. Newcastle: The Reds 66 % to win, 40 % to score 2.5+ goal
- Fulham vs. Arsenal: The Gunners 63 % to win, 30 % to score 2.5+ goals
Find 2.5+ goals odds for all teams in our article: Premier League Over 2.5 Goals Odds.
4. Updated watchlists: Best players to pick in Gameweek 20 and beyond
We also looked at players from each position: goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders, and forwards and updated our watchlists.
We examine which players are best picks in each price bracket: budget enablers, midpriced picks, and premium options. Check our watchlists with our ratings and comments here:
- Best FPL goalkeepers to pick in Gameweek 20 (Watchlist)
- Best FPL defenders to pick in Gameweek 20 (Watchlist)
- Best FPL midfielders to pick in Gameweek 20 (Watchlist)
- Best FPL forwards to pick in Gameweek 20 (Watchlist)
- FPL Differential Picks for Gameweek 20 and Beyond
5. Best captain pick in Gameweek 20
We will keep the captaincy section short once again.
According to our captaincy index, Son is the best captain in FPL Gameweek 20 with a captaincy index score of 1.8.
However, if you do not own him, consider our pick 2 and 3:
Salah (captaincy index score 1.61) is the number 2 captaincy pick and Foden (1.52) is number 3.
If you are looking for a differential captain, you could consider Alvarez. Palmer, Saka and Odegaard should not be overlooked as captaincy candidates either.
6. What bookies odds say about Gameweek 20
As usual, we converted bookies odds into probabilities using our Odds to probability calculator, to assess the potential of gameweek 20.
Clean sheet odds for GW20
Manchester City (64 %) is the most likely team to keep a clean sheet in GW20. Bookies also favor Aston Villa (44 %) and Arsenal (40 %) to potentially keep a clean sheet in GW20
Bookies expect 4.95 clean sheets in gameweek 20 in the last season, we were used to a rate of 5.45 per clean sheets gameweek. This season we have seen clean sheets at the rate of 4.26 clean sheets per gameweek.
Expected clean sheets
Due to correction in the number of clean sheets: Everton, Bournemouth
Everton overperformed their defensive expectations the most of all teams. They should have kept 4.29 clean sheets instead of 6 according to our expected clean sheets table.
Due to an improvement in the number of clean sheets: Brighton, Manchester City
Brighton underperformed their defensive expectations the most from all teams. They should have kept 4.83 clean sheets instead of 0 according to our expected clean sheets table.
You can see the expected clean sheets table and clean sheet odds for all Premier League teams here.
Goalscoring odds for GW20
Check who leads any time goalscoring odds for GW20 here: Premier League Goalsocring Odds.
7. FPL GW20 Team selection: Scout Picks
Now let’s look at our FPL team selection for Gameweek 20. Salah is our captain (as we left Son out of our GW20 team selection).
8. Fantasy Premier League Tips
Find more tips, strategies and picks for Fantasy Premier League in these articles:
- Beginner? Read our guide: How to play Fantasy Premier League
- Confused about the rules? Read the Official rules of the game or check our FAQs
- Want to beat your mini-league rivals? This article is for you: 7 Key Tips for Fantasy Premier League Success
- Interested in improving your decision-making process when picking players to your fantasy team? Check out Books that will help you to improve your FPL skills
We hope our FPL GW20 tips with the best picks, fixtures, transfer targets, odds, captain picks, and team selection helped you to gather some useful information before the Gameweek 20 deadline.
Feel free to JOIN our Fantasy Football Reports mini-league by clicking this link or using our league code ti56kl.
Good luck in FPL GW20!
