More BAD PICKS (some slightly less obvious ones!)

Following on from yesterday's post about some of the most egregious 'BAD Picks' I see a lot of FPL managers making at the moment, I present a few more examples.... that may seem more surprising or controversial to a lot of people.

Now, yesterday's examples weren't bad players (well, apart from Turner and Flekken!); but they were very conspicuously poor picks for their position and price-point.

This is how ruthless FPL rquires you to be. You only get 2, 3 or 5 picks in each position category; and across each of those positions, you probably have a particular amount of budget in mind, a range of just one or two price-points, for each individual selection. So, you're not just looking for 'one of the best' players for a certain position; you're looking for absolutely THE BEST, in FPL points potential, in that position, at that price-point - for every slot in your squad. (But you also have to consider filling each valuable squad slot not just in isolation, but in the global context of how many players you can take from each club, and how much more bang-for-your-buck you might get from taking a same-position player from another club, or perhaps a different-position player from the same club, or.... The combinations of factors you have to juggle are daunting.)

In order to achieve that, you have to look beyond merely superficial appeal (so many people are clearly just picking whoever happens to have scored the most points last season in each price/position category; that's so lazy - and deserves to be punished!).  You need to look deeper into the stats. 

In particular, you need to work out returns-per-game, not just look at the whole season numbers (a lot of players didn't play the whole season). It's also valuable to review the xG ('expected' goals), or xGC ('expected' goals conceded) for defenders and keepers, and to look at whether those numbers are lower or higher than the actual numbers of goals scored or conceded; this 'delta' factor (the difference between 'expected' and actual performance) is a key indicator of whether a player has been doing a good job.

You also need to try to recall the story of the season as a whole. Did a player play the whole season? Was he consistent across the whole season, or did he have peaks and troughs in form? Did he, overall, improve or decline across the course of the season? How did most of his points come about? What changes in tactics or personnel at the club contributed to his differing returns?  (If you don't watch much football, or can't remember, you should read up on some old match reports, or season summaries for the leading clubs - most clubs put out their own, and there are some good ones on Wikipedia too. And there are some good tactical analysts on Youtube who sometimes put together reviews of the season to explain how a top club achieved success. Adam Clery of FourFourTwo magazine had a particularly good one on Arsenal's so-near-and-yet-so-far-away season a couple of months ago.)

So, here are 5 players who look like very good picks - but AREN'T... for perhaps slightly non-obvious reasons.

Raya

Reason:  Arsenal were way ahead of the pack on clean sheets last season, and Raya conceded fewer goals than any other regular keeper. And he ended the season as the second-ranked FPL goalkeeper.

Yes, but... he was only a negligible amount ahead of Leno and Onana, and miles behind Pickford; so, not very convincingly one of the top few goalkeeper picks for FPL. (Onana, bouncing back after a dreadful start, looked the much better prospect in the latter stages of the season. And Leno has been consistently at the top end of the FPL goalkeeper rankings during his two seasons with Fulham.)

Moreover, his 24 goals conceded was actually slightly above his xGC - which suggests he is prone to the occasional lapse.

And he has a similar problem to Ederson at City over the last few seasons: the rest of the team dominates games so much, is so good defensively, that he rarely gets an opportunity to make a save. And saves - and the bonus points which can come from them when the keeper has a busy game - tend to be worth more than clean sheet points (that's why so many keepers from clubs at the lower end of the table manage to return decent FPL scores). His 'saves' total for the season of 46 was way the lowest of any keeper - barely a third of what Sa, Leno, Areola and Onana posted. And he managed a puny 6 Bonus Points for the entire season - compared to 15 for Leno and 22 for Pickford.

So, if you ponder the stats for a moment, Raya - despite his huge clean sheet potential - just isn't one of the more attractive goalkeeper options.

But that's NOT the reason you shouldn't have him in your squad. The key reason is the differential advantage offered by other Arsenal players. Raya probably won't be the top-scoring keeper this season; and even if he is, he won't significantly outscore a raft of other goalkeepers who cost 0.5 or 1.0 million less. But last year, White, Saliba, and Gabriel massively outscored every other defender; and they almost certainly will do so again.

So, you probably want at least 1, more likely 2 players from the Arsenal defence. You also probably want 1 of their very potent attacking midfielders, Odegaard or Saka. You might even fancy Declan Rice as a more budget option for your 5th midfield spot. And you might also be interested in Gyokeres up front, if that transfer comes off. Or you might just want to keep one of your three Arsenal slots open for another player who might get a run of starts and hit some rich scoring form for a spell - Martinelli or Trossard or Havertz or Jesus, perhaps.

David Raya might be a 'Top 5' goalkeeper option -  but he's not a 'Top 5' pick from Arsenal.

If you don't consider the full range of relevant goalkeeper stats (saves, bonus points, and delta xGC) - you'll make bad choices. If you don't pay attention to the relative value that other players in other positions at the same club offer - you'll make bad choices.

Saliba

Reason:  He's the best defender in the League. And Arsenal were way the best defence in the League last year (miles ahead on clean sheets), and are almost certain to be so again.

Absolutely. But.... being 'the best' in your position in real life means very little for your value in FPL 

All members of the Arsenal defence get the same 4-pt bonus for the many, many clean sheets William Saliba helps them to earn; but they all offer more than him in the potential for further points. Gabriel presents a more consistent threat at attacking set-pieces (it's a fairly marginal advantage, and might not always translate to an actual points lift; but it is worth paying attention to); and Ben White, when he pushes forward to link up with Saka, provides a regular possibility of assists and even a few goals over the season. Calafiori - if he starts immediately, if he beds in well and lives up to his potential - should also become a major attacking force down the other flank this season, and could conceivably even out-score White.

(Also, there might be just a little bit of a worry about Saliba's physical resilience, because he did end up missing about a third of his debut season at The Emirates - with what had initially seemed to be a fairly innocuous back strain.)

So, paradoxical as it might seem, while Saliba is, by common consent, the best defender at Arsenal, he's the worst defender pick from Arsenal for FPL.

The exact same thing happened last year. Almost everyone went for Saliba, rather than White and Gabriel, at the start of the season. And the season started weirdly: Gabriel mysteriously out of favour and dropped for a few games, White moved back into central defence (where he's much less productive in FPL terms),... and then Saliba nabbing a couple of - extremely untypical - headed goals. So, the sheep who'd gone for Saliba because everyone else had gone for Saliba, felt smugly vindicated: Saliba was miles ahead of those other two after the opening handful of games. And his owners then felt it wasn't worth using a transfer to switch to one of his rivals later on, even when that started to change. But once things had settled down at Arsenal, Saliba's two clubmates did indeed outscore him during the remaining portion of the season, Gabriel fairly narrowly, but White very substantially. Saliba wasn't the best pick from the Arsenal defence last year either.

Ben White costs 0.5 million more than Saliba this year. Last year, despite missing a few starts at right-back, and having a fairly subdued opening phase to the season, he still ended up with nearly 20 pts more than him. And Saliba might not get on the scoresheet again this season so,.... there's a strong chance that White's advantage over him this year could be in the 30-50 pts range (and Calafiori's haul perhaps similar!). You look to earn, ideally, around 30 or so points for every million spent on your starting 11 (realistically, a little less than that for defenders); and there aren't actually many differential picks where you find that kind of potential advantage for an extra half-million or million spent. But Ben White is absolutely worth the extra half-million he costs this year - if you can afford it; he will almost certainly score quite a lot more points than Gabriel or Saliba.

If you focus on real world status rather than Fantasy points value - you'll make bad choices. If you don't properly consider the rival choices in the same position at the same club - you'll make bad choices.

Gvardiol

Reason:  He scored 4 goals in a handful of games at the end of last season!

Yes - but, as I remarked somewhere on this blog just a few days ago, when defenders score a few goals in quick succession, it's almost always a fleeting streak, not an emerging trend. A lot of the FPL managers piling in for Gvardiol are absolutely expecting this to to be a consistent trend, they think he's going to be rivalling Haaland's scoring figures. That won't happen. He might well not score a goal all season.  [We see the same thing, a little less strongly, with the popularity of Pedro Porro this season (see below). And we saw it with Pervis Estupinan, one of the great 'sheep picks' from the start of last season, who had likewise bagged a couple of spectacular - but extremely untypical (I don't think he'd ever scored in his career before; other than from the penalty spot for Ecuador) - goals towards the end of the previous campaign.... Remember how that worked out?]

He is primarily a central defender, and is likely to be used there rather than at left-back at least some of the time. And when he does play at left-back, it's extremely unlikely that the ultra-conservative Pep is going to sanction him playing in such a marauding style very often. (And if he does, it's likely that opponents will be much more alert to the danger now, and will try to make sure they don't allow him time and space with the ball around the edge of their penalty area.)  The prospects of him repeating last season's goal-spurt are, alas, very, very slim.

There's such squad depth in the defensive positions at City that no-one is likely to start every game. Despite his outstanding form at the end of last season, Gvardiol is not even a guaranteed starter for the beginning of this season - and he certainly won't be an invariable starter for the whole campaign. 6.0 million is a lot to pay for someone who might only get 25-30 starts. (And City haven't even been keeping that many clean sheets over the past season or two!)

Gvardiol, again, is not an outright terrible choice: he's obviously one of the strongest defensive options for the year. But he is a very extravagant choice, a profligate use of funds. There is little need to take any of the defenders priced at 6.0 million or more; and if you do, there are probably better picks at the premium price level than Gvardiol.

If you think 'black swan' events will start happening every week - you'll make bad choices. If you ignore the reality of 'Pep Roulette' - you'll make bad choices.

Porro

Reason:  He got 3 goals and 7 assists last season

Indeed he did. And he is a very talented player, with some good potential for attacking returns. However, it's probably wildly over-optimistic to think that he might equal or better last season's tally - because he doesn't play that high up the pitch most of the time. The majority of those attacking contributions came in a handful of games, where he was playing as a very advanced wingback... because all of the right-sided creative mdfielders were out with injury.

And Spurs have a pretty terrible defensive record. With Postecoglou insisting on a suicidally high line, and a keeper who's very flakey and ridiculously easy to bully at set-pieces, they are always likely to leak a lot of goals. Moreover, the BPS tweak this year, with defenders and keepers now being more heavily penalised for conceding a goal, means that Spurs defenders are much less likely to pick up many bonus points in games in which they don't keep a clean sheet. Thus, even if Porro does get some good attacking points over the year, he's still fairly unlikely to get near his last season's points total again.

Porro's not a terrible pick; but he is a bit of a 'sheep pick' - and that collective enthusiasm for him derives from unrealistic expectations. With so many very strong defensive options this year priced at only 4.5 and 5.0 million, it's very difficult to justify paying 5.5 million for someone with such doubtful clean-sheet potential.

If you allow yourself to be swayed by headline numbers, without looking at the pattern of the whole season - you'll make bad choices. If you go along with the sheep too easily - you'll make bad choices.

Gakpo

Reason:  He always impresses for the Netherlands; he was brilliant at the Euros.

Indeed, he's been great for the Dutch in the last three big tournaments. But club and country are completely different worlds. For the national team, he enjoys the confidence of being a guaranteed starter in his favoured position down the left side of attack; and, in the absence of an established central goalscorer, he's been free to cut inside as much as he likes... and take on the mantle of being the team's primary goal-threat. He'd love to be able to play like that at Liverpool as well - but it ain't going to happen.

Gakpo's never really staked his claim at Anfield yet. Diaz (and Jota, when fit; and now maybe Carvalho too) has clearly been claiming priority on the left side of 'the trident', and both he and Jota can also usefully fill in through the middle, when Nunez is missing the sticks too often. Yes, Gakpo can play deeper in midfield as well, though that's not the best use of his talents; and there's probably even more competition for places there. 

He's more of a support player than an outright stiker anyway, so not a super-prolific source of goals. And it's difficult to see how he's ever going to become more than a handy utility player at Liverpool. There are so many forward options 1-2 million pounds cheaper who are primary goalscorers for their club and start every week.

If you let yourself be dazzled by someone's 'potential' rather than their likely prospects at their club - you'll make bad choices. If you get too impressed by someone's international form - you'll make bad choices.

How many of these guys do you have?  Maybe you should think about switching them out....

Not that any of these guys are dreadful picks, of course. They're all excellent players, and they will all very probably return very strong results in FPL this year. People who own them probably won't feel much remorse. But the objections I've raised above are mainly based on the context of the overall selection: to me, they look severely non-optimal when compared to other players you might pick instead - whether that's in their position category, their price category, or just across the range of choices at their club.

I'll try to remember to return to these guys a few times over the season to check how they're doing.