Should you triple up on Arsenal defenders? The FPL talking point
Premier League leaders Arsenal have become masters in the art of defending this season, keeping eight clean sheets in a row in all competitions to equal a 122-year club record.
The last goal the Gunners backline conceded was more than five weeks ago on 28 September, when Newcastle United striker Nick Woltemade scored before Arsenal's dramatic late fightback brought victory at St James' Park.
Overall, from 16 games in all competitions, Mikel Arteta's side have conceded just three goals - all in the Premier League.
There are now some whispers around whether this Arsenal defence can be the one to break the seemingly unbreakable Chelsea record from 2004-05, when Jose Mourinho's stubborn defence conceded only 15 goals in the league as they ran away with the title.
At their current rate, Gabriel and co are on course to concede fewer than 12 league goals this season.
The question now is this: do Fantasy Premier League managers load up on Arsenal defenders as their impenetrable defence shows no sign of weakness, or is it a risky move in case a wobble in form does occur?
This week's FPL expert Holly Shand and the guys from The FPL Podcast by BBC Sport debate the latest FPL talking point.
Is it time to triple up on Arsenal's defence?
Holly Shand: There's a solid case for having multiple investments into Arsenal's defence this season, given that they have kept seven clean sheets in 10 games. They've conceded just three goals, with only six big chances conceded on their goal.
Their defenders have multiple routes to points, with Gabriel and Riccardo Calafiori on three goal involvements, and Jurrien Timber on four. Gabriel leads the way among defenders for big chances on goal with three, while Timber has had five shots on target.
Set-pieces, and corners in particular, are a key route to goals for this Gunners side, which is why we are seeing a high volume of attacking returns from their defenders. Then we have the introduction of defensive contribution points for this campaign to further bolster the routes to points for Arsenal's centre-backs, with Gabriel averaging 9.5 per game. He has outscored Erling Haaland over the past five gameweeks.
However, stacking defenders from the same club is always a risky business in season-long fantasy games. Having all of your eggs in one basket means that if Arsenal concede, it's then incredibly difficult to post a big score in a given gameweek.
Arsenal's fixtures stiffen following gameweek 11, with a home game against Spurs in gameweek 12 and then a trip to Chelsea in gameweek 13.
While Gabriel has a high base for both bonus and defensive contributions, you'd be relying on goal involvements from Calafiori or Timber to redeem a score when conceding, with William Saliba's routes to points even more diminished.
Goalkeeper David Raya has a ceiling of six points this season, with a bonus on one occasion and very few save points, so he would need to extend his run of consecutive clean sheets to justify his price tag.
Julien Laurens: I would not do it. If you don't want to spend the money on Bukayo Saka - which I can understand, he should have had two goals at Burnley and is not in his best goalscoring form right now - I would go for Declan Rice every single day. I would go for two Arsenal defenders and then Declan Rice.
Who's the better captain pick, Gabriel or Haaland?
Julien Laurens: I captained Gabriel for the last gameweek, which was great on Saturday. Then I was very stressed between the end of the Arsenal game and the end of the Man City game because of Erling Haaland. In the end, Gabriel got 12 points and Haaland got 13.
A lot of people captained Haaland and rightly so. I was still very proud of my Gabriel pick, but it got very tense, and I was scared of Haaland's points.
The fact that Arsenal are so good at defending, not conceding, not giving anything away to the opponent... the fact that he is so good at set-pieces.
At least you get some points off the clean sheet and points for the 90 minutes, because he never comes off.
On top of that, you can have an assist, a goal or maybe more on a set-piece. I thought it made sense. To be fair, I might even do it again against Sunderland if I don't feel like Haaland against Liverpool.
Statman Dave: Gabriel got booked, so if he hadn't been booked, it would have been 13 points for the match, then an extra bonus point as well, so it would have been 13-14 points in favour of Gabriel.
I think the big thing I would recommend is that it would be a very stressful thing [to captain Gabriel].
I would say go Haaland for your sanity.
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