Greetings all, and welcome back after yet another thrilling international break. Our last one for four months, actually - what a shame!

Did you forget your masterplan for GW 12 onwards? Haven't a clue who's actually playing each other this week?

Fear not! Our Gameweek 12 preview (plus links to a few other articles, within) will get you up to speed in no time:
full90fpl.com/fpl-gameweek-12-preview-2024/

As always, there's also a TLDR below.

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Wildcard Chat

If you've still got your wildcard... firstly, I hate you, after wasting mine. But secondly, this is a great time to play it.

You can get all our current wildcard thoughts in this article.

Just a few highlights:

• If you're not doing 1-2 premium defenders, you can easily rotate cheaper Chelsea defenders with Brighton, Newcastle, or Villa for... ages, basically
• Semenyo remains the best midfield enabler
• Isak, then Jackson are the best mid-priced forwards. Evanilson is our pick for the cheap ones

You can also check our Reddit post on the wildcard piece here, where James answered loads of questions people had (I - Joe - willed him on from afar. A valuable contribution).

Underlying Stats

My (Joe's) co-conspirator, James, went full mad-scientist this international break. The result was an extremely in-depth look at the underlying stats for both teams and players, across this season and last season... basically to work out who's actually any good!

You can check out the full thing here.

Some of the more interesting takeways are that:

• City's defence is actually good (even though they don't keep cleans). West Ham and Brentfords' defence are rubbish
• Notts Forest are for real defensively
• You can get 5/6 of the best players from the last 49 games if you don't have Haaland
• Madison is generally flying under the radar, and should probably be more highly-owned

And lots of other good stuff!

Upcoming FPL Fixtures

These are our five favourite fixture runs, in order:

• Wolves - Probably not as bad as we think, since they've had tough fixtures. Quite like them defensively
• Brighton - Fine for a 4.5 defender, excellent for a forward (Welbeck>JP right now)
• Villa - Fine for a defender. Don't love any of the midfield/attacking options (though Rogers remains good value)
• Arsenal - Have had tough fixtures so far. Now might be a nice time to buy back in to the defence. Don't want their attackers yet, until we see them actually... scoring goals again
• Bournemouth - Have done well, with tough fixtures. Semenyo and Evanilson are two of the best-value assets in the game

Should I Buy?

These are very quick-hitters, on the most-bought players in FPL this week. There's much more detail in the post, or feel free to ask here!

• Yes: Salah, Isak, Palmer, Welbeck
• Maybe: Bruno, ESR, Wissa, Konate
• No: Cunha, Van Dijk, J Pedro, Mazraoui, Wood

Should I Sell?

As above, these are just very quick-hitters. You know the drill.

• Yes: Vardy, Wood, Trent (if injured)
• Maybe: Haaland, Solanke, McNeil, B Johnson
• No: Trent (if fit), Mbeumo, Luis Diaz

Captaincy Corner

It's Haaland or Salah. Yep, they don't call us the top FPL analysts for nothing.

Salah has a higher floor, Haaland has a higher ceiling.

They're the two best players in the game, and both have nice matchups. Let's not overthink it!

That's It

If you've got any questions, or other feedback, please just fire away.

In the meantime, cheers for reading everybody, and best of luck shaking off that international break rust!