FPL gameweek 11 tips: Captain Joao Pedro, Arsenal’s double defense and Morgan Gibbs-White’s kick

Alphonse Areola, West Ham, goalkeeper, £4.3m – Burnley (h)

This team needs two budget options and Frenchman Areola is a good option in net.

Nuno Espirito Santo earned his first home win as Hammers manager last week and his plan has always been to fix the defense first, so you’ll have to hope they stick together against Burnley.

Gabriel, £6.6m, and Jorren Temper, £6.1m, both Arsenal – Sunderland (A)

We don’t really need to say much here. Arsenal kept an eighth consecutive clean sheet in the Champions League on Tuesday. The ninth would be an outright club record.

If you can only afford one of their defencemen, go for Gabriel, who seems to make an assist or score a goal from a corner kick every game.

The key question is whether it is worth tripling Arsenal’s defense – our expert Holly Shand will discuss this point in Friday’s Talking Point article.

Reece James, Chelsea, £5.5m – Wolverhampton (h)

James appears as an interesting defensive option – especially since Enzo Maresca uses him frequently as a midfielder.

This match against Wooful Wolves is a home-banking game and you don’t need to be a stats geek to know that James loves assists and loves scoring long-range goals.

But here’s a statistic anyway – James has started his past six games and in that time no defender has created more than his nine chances.

Brentford’s Michael Kayode did so (11), but I think Opta counts long throws among that number.

James Tarkowski, Everton, £5.5m – Fulham (h)

Tarkowski has defensive contribution points (defcon) in seven of 10 games this season, and was fairly close in the other three.

This should be a tightly contested, all-conquering match, and Fulham have only scored four goals away from home this season, picking up one point in five games.