<p><em>Welcome to the <strong>best FPL Players for Gameweek 18</strong> article which utilises the <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/fpl-player-comparision-tool/">Hub’s Comparison Tool</a> available on the website and in the app. </em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://twitter.com/CoysFPL"><strong>Dan</strong></a> compares sets of similarly positioned and priced players to help us determine which asset we should seek to have in our FPL teams.</em></p>
<p>Don&#8217;t forget to also check out the <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/best-fpl-team-for-gameweek-18-fantasy-premier-league-tips/">best FPL team for Gameweek 18</a> which utilises our <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/predictions/">FPL Points Prediction Tool</a>.</p>
<p><span class="ix4katuFN2bempgvlTmF4E7HdXn5Zor1ORMD5nEjgM3UarYKtxG8zI1VefUqcjyNPWoSDhcKdYALPp3Cfw"></p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2>Lacazette vs Watkins: Best FPL Players for Gameweek 18</h2>
<p>Following <strong>COVID outbreaks across several of Premier League teams</strong> this week, FPL Gameweek 18 will be a small one with just five games currently scheduled.</p>
<p>With all six of the most heavily owned forwards all not playing this week, it&#8217;s time for reinforcements, and I&#8217;ve picked <strong>Alexandre Lacazette and Ollie Watkins</strong> as potential replacements.</p>
<p>Lacazette is back into Arteta&#8217;s thinking following a difficult spell, whilst Ollie Watkins has began to pick up form under Steven Gerrard and has a nice run of fixtures in the forthcoming gameweeks.</p>
<p>Both have favourable fixtures this gameweeks, with Villa hosting strugglers Burnley and Arsenal travelling to Elland Road.</p>
<h3><em><strong><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-41684 size-full" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/FFStuffImage-6-1.jpg" alt="" width="997" height="812" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/FFStuffImage-6-1.jpg 997w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/FFStuffImage-6-1-300x244.jpg 300w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/FFStuffImage-6-1-768x625.jpg 768w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/FFStuffImage-6-1-610x497.jpg 610w" sizes="(max-width: 997px) 100vw, 997px" /></strong></em></h3>
<p>Watkins is comfortably beating Lacazette in nearly every metric so far this season, but that is due to the fact he has played around double the minutes of the Arsenal man.</p>
<p><span class="jmXMiJ3BFVUN51Hw6Qn4Pb7AxTs"></p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><strong>Price: Best FPL Players for Gameweek 16</strong></h2>
<p><strong>Lacazette comes in at £8.3m</strong> at the time of writing, £0.6m more than Watkins. This is quite a substantial amount, although given the ceiling of both it won&#8217;t play into my thinking too much.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><strong>Position: Best FPL Players for Gameweek 18</strong></h2>
<h3><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-41686 size-full" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/FFStuffImage-8-1.jpg" alt="" width="997" height="812" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/FFStuffImage-8-1.jpg 997w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/FFStuffImage-8-1-300x244.jpg 300w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/FFStuffImage-8-1-768x625.jpg 768w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/FFStuffImage-8-1-610x497.jpg 610w" sizes="(max-width: 997px) 100vw, 997px" /></h3>
<p>Very little separates the pair&#8217;s heatmaps, although Lacazette stays central far more the Watkins; unsurprising given Watkins&#8217; wide duty when Danny Ings is on the pitch.</p>
<p>Watkins is slightly more lively in the penalty area, putting himself in more dangerous central areas compared to Lacazette who seems to find himself between the oppositions centre back and left back a lot.</p>
<p>Watkins&#8217; red area around the semi-circle looks promising, as he&#8217;ll be able to get a clear sight of goals in that area, particuarly compared to Lacazette&#8217;s most prominent touch area.</p>
<p>So overall, Watkins&#8217; touch output looks very slightly more promising, although with Ings coming back from injury, he could move out to the left as an inside forward. This isn&#8217;t necessarily a bad thing.</p>
<p>Throughout his whole career he&#8217;s managed 0.28 goals per game on the left, compared to 0.38 down the middle. Watkins has played 69 career games down the left, so it&#8217;s a large enough sample size to conclude that he is capable there, and with Gerrard keen on the inside forward role, playing as out wide might actually benefit his goal output, with a record better than 0.28 goals per game to be expected.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><strong>Goal Threat: Best FPL Players for Gameweek 18</strong></h2>
<div id="attachment_41687" style="width: 372px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-41687" class="wp-image-41687 size-full" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-260.jpg" alt="" width="362" height="174" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-260.jpg 362w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-260-300x144.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 362px) 100vw, 362px" /><p id="caption-attachment-41687" class="wp-caption-text">Goal threat per start</p></div>
<p>Watkins (shown in top row) is currently beating Lacazette in each of the six goal threat metrics from our <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/opta/">OPTA stats tool</a> so far per start this season.</p>
<p>He is currently averaging over three times as many shots, (including in the box), around double the amount of big chances and approximately one and a half times more expected goals.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s worth noting that Lacazette is far more of a better finisher, hitting the target on every occasion compared to Watkins&#8217; 45% success rate. That hasn&#8217;t stopped Watkins&#8217; hitting the target less in total though, still averaging more shots on target on average.</p>
<p>Despite Watkins obvious extra threat across the whole season, during Lacazette&#8217;s three successive starts in the last three gameweeks, the Frenchman has posted an xG of just 0.02 smaller than Watkins, so his poor underlying <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/opta/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="1" title="FPL Stats by OPTA - Player and Team Stats">stats</a> across the season are improving. Due to that, I think his underlying <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/opta/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="1" title="FPL Stats by OPTA - Player and Team Stats">stats</a> can be taken with a bit of a pinch of salt, and signs suggest there is more to come.</p>
<p>Lacazette does have penalties on his side though, and despite having his effort well saved by Lukas Fabianski last time out I can&#8217;t see him being removed off them completely. Meanwhile, Watkins is at least third in line, behind attackers Anwar El Ghazi and Danny Ings.</p>
<p><span class="lVa9"></p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><strong>Creativity: Best FPL Players for Gameweek 18</strong></h2>
<div id="attachment_41689" style="width: 249px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-41689" class="wp-image-41689 size-full" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-263.jpg" alt="" width="239" height="170" /><p id="caption-attachment-41689" class="wp-caption-text">Creativity per 90</p></div>
<p>Represented by the top row, Lacazette is marginally beating Watkins in each creative metric, creating 0.33 more key passes per 90 and 0.15 more big chances according to our <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/opta/">OPTA stats tool</a>. That being said the expected assist difference is just 0.03 per 90, a margin which is so small it isn&#8217;t worth comparing.</p>
<p>Lacazette is very marginally more likely to assist, but not by enough to make him a better asset.</p>
<h2></h2>
<h2><strong>Fixtures: Best FPL Players for Gameweek 18</strong></h2>
<div id="attachment_41690" style="width: 1295px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-41690" class="wp-image-41690 size-full" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-266.jpg" alt="" width="1285" height="137" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-266.jpg 1285w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-266-300x32.jpg 300w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-266-1024x109.jpg 1024w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-266-768x82.jpg 768w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-266-610x65.jpg 610w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-266-1080x115.jpg 1080w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-266-1280x137.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 1285px) 100vw, 1285px" /><p id="caption-attachment-41690" class="wp-caption-text">Fixtures: Arsenal vs Aston Villa</p></div>
<p>According to the <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/fixture-ticker/">Hub&#8217;s fixture ticker</a>, Arsenal have marginally the better attacking fixtures over the next six. They face Leeds, Norwich and Burnley in that time, whilst Villa face the likes of Burnley, Leeds and Brentford.</p>
<p>That being said, I prefer Watkins&#8217; fixtures, with Lacazette set to face the toughest defence in the league in Man City on New Years Day, and Antonio Conte&#8217;s rejuvenated Spurs side two weeks later. Watkins&#8217; toughest fixtures are at home to Chelsea and Man Utd.</p>
<p>Chelsea are currently undergoing a blip in their title challenge and have conceded in each of their last five games. In that time, they&#8217;ve actually conceded more big chances per game than the likes of Burnley and Norwich, so they&#8217;re definitely a team to be got at.</p>
<p>In Ralf Rangnick&#8217;s short tenure at Man Utd, David de Gea has been called into action quite regularly, coming to United&#8217;s rescue particularly against Norwich, making five saves including some outstanding ones.</p>
<h2></h2>
<h2><strong>Points Prediction: Best FPL Players for Gameweek 18</strong></h2>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-41696 size-full aligncenter" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-268.jpg" alt="" width="1277" height="452" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-268.jpg 1277w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-268-300x106.jpg 300w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-268-1024x362.jpg 1024w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-268-768x272.jpg 768w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-268-610x216.jpg 610w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-268-1080x382.jpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 1277px) 100vw, 1277px" /></p>
<p>The Hub&#8217;s <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/predictions/">Points Prediction Tool</a> projects Watkins to outscore Lacazette quite comfortably across the next six. However, if Lacazette gets near 90 minutes in these games it&#8217;ll be a close run contest, with Lacazette projected 5.7 points per game should he get the full ninety of each of the next six.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m not suggesting he will, but he has played more than 80 minutes in the last three games and after being selected as captain following Pierre Emerick Aubameyang&#8217;s captaincy withdrawal. I&#8217;d also like to point that Lacazette is far more likely to be rested during this period, with Arsenal&#8217;s greater squad depth.</p>
<p><span class="71ZDq2ct9"></p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><strong>Conclusion: Best FPL Players for Gameweek 18</strong></h2>
<p>Ultimately, I prefer <b>Watkins </b>as the pick going into Villa&#8217;s next few fixtures.</p>
<p>He not only beats Lacazette in terms of goal threat, but is more likely to last <strong>ninety minutes</strong>. That being said, I think Lacazette is a great option for the next couple of gameweeks and cannot argue if you opt for him over the Villa forward for the next two gameweeks.</p>
<h2></h2>
<h2><b>Check out our Fantasy Premier League 2021/22 Ultimate Guide</b></h2>
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Best FPL Players for Gameweek 18 | Lacazette vs Watkins

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