Possible picks?? [Pt. 1]

Well, I said on here a few days ago that I will generally avoid giving direct recoomendations for or against any specific player (and I certainly won't be sharing anything about my own squad; not in advance, anyway; maybe occasionally retrospectively, just to share a few 'war stories' for general enlightenment - and acknowledge my fallibility), but.... since we're now on the eve of The Big Kick-Off, everyone is becoming obsessed with polishing up their opening squads.... and casting around for additional sources of advice.

So, I'll attempt a brief-ish rundown of who I think are the players most worthy of consideration, for each position and price category.

Goalkeepers

I don't think any of the 5.5 keepers justify their price-tag (although, if you can find the money in the kitty, Alisson might be a promising start-of-season pick, just because of how soft Liverpool's early run of fixtures is).

Pickford (last season's top keeper), Onana (who improved dramatically after a terrible start to the year, and ended up well out in front on number of saves; and might be playing behind a much more stable defence this year, with the arrival of De Ligt), and Leno (consistently one of the best-value keepers for the last two years at Fulham; but it's a pity his price has gone up this year) are as 'premium' as I would go between the sticks; they look like they'll offer very good value at 5.0.

But I think it's probably smarter to start with two 4.5-million-pound keepers, since there are so many strong options at that price-point: Henderson (appears to have the start at Palace now; and has good early fixtures), whoever starts at Chelsea (probably Jorgensen? the best early fixture run of all!), Areola (slightly daunting early fixture run, but was an outstanding keeper for most of last season: second only to Onana on saves, and would have finished higher in the overall points rankings if he hadn't missed a few games with a minor injury), and maybe Sels (I have little confidence in Forest, but... they also have fairly kind early fixtures, in five of the first six, anyway); Neto might also be worth considering (if he keeps his place), and Sa (once Wolves are past their, um, first eight games....); maybe Leicester's Hermanssen (outstanding with the ball at his feet; although I worry about how well any of the promoted sides will stand up defensively, especially in the early weeks).  And Aaron Ramsdale will be well worth a thought, if his touted move to Forest (or anywhere else he'll be the starter) comes off..   [I wouldn't touch Flekken with a bargepole; he's one of the weakest keepers at that price-point anyway, and he has absolutely the worst first 5 games of any of them! However, I'd keep an eye on Valdimarsson, as I think he might be promoted over Flekken to become Brentford's No.1 - making him the only starting 4.0 keeper this year.]

At this point, it still doesn't look like any of the 4.0 keepers will get a start; and I don't like to clog up my bench with non-playing players - even at the start of the season. (Especially at the start of the season: I want to find cheap bench players that will get starts and hopefully show a little form, so that other FPL managers will take notice of them - and push their price up, so I can sell for a profit. Non-playing bench-fillers sooner or later drop in price and erode your squad value.)

If you do choose to adopt this tactic of taking a non-playing 4.0 keeper to free up an extra half a million for another spot in the squad, the only sensible route to it is to take the club back-up to your first-choice keeper (that way, you have a guaranteed replacement if your starter ever goes AWOL). I would go for Fabianski, since we saw last season that he's still very capable (and might perhaps even still be good enough to displace Areola on merit, without him picking up another injury); Bentley seems to be the only other possibility. (I suppose Virginia at Everton or Benda at Fulham could also work; but if you're going to spend 9 million on a pair of keepers, you'll almost certainly be better off with two starters.)

Defenders

Arsenal's three (almost) ever-presents - White, Gabriel, and Saliba - were way out in front of everyone else last season. And that seems very likely to be repeated again this year (with Calafiori possibly joining them as a preferred regular starter at left-back), with no other sides approaching them in defensive solidity.  (Of course, there's a lot of uncertainty at the start of this season, with new managers bedding in at Liverpool, Chelsea, West Ham, and Brighton - but it seems unlikely any of them will quickly rival Arsenal as the league's clean-sheet masters.)

City have too much talent to choose from at the back: hence 'Pep Roulette' is an inescapable hazard - last year, none of their defenders got more than 28 starts. (Well, OK, Walker managed 30; but that seems unlikely to happen again, as he's never really been Pep's absolute first-choice at right-back when other options are fit - and he has started showing signs of aging.)  As their clean-sheet record hasn't been great in the last couple of seasons either, I can't see how any of them are 'worth' 5.5 for FPL, let alone 6.0!

Likewise at Liverpool, while you might expect Van Dijk, Alexander-Arnold and Robertson to be natural starters as long as they're fit... Robertson has often been injured over the past two seasons, and his attacking returns have trailed off a lot from his peak a few years back; Van Dijk has rarely come close to justifying his 6.0-million price-tag in value-for-money terms (he's a signal example of how being excellent in real-world football often has little relationship to how good you are for FPL); and Trent.... is just too much of an unknown: he really needs a 200+ points season to earn back his money, and while he does potentially have that in him, I can't see it happening this year. (There are the additional problems for TAA of having to adapt to a new manager and a new style of play, his oft-stated desire to become more of a deep creative midfielder than a defender.... and the uncomfortable fact that young Conor Bradley revealed himself in his brief spell last season to be simply much better than him as an outright right-back...)

I think it's probably worth taking one or two of the Arsenal defenders; but no-one at the 5.5 or 5.0 point really impresses me as a 'must-have'. (although Munoz or Mitchell, Maatsen, maybe Cucurella, and Branthwaite - and De Ligt, if his price is going to be somewhere around there - might be worth considering)... when there are so many strong options at 4.5 this year.

Full-backs almost always give better returns than central defenders (much more chance of attacking contributions, at least with the more progressive ones), so long as they're in a side with a decent defensive record, so I'd focus on options like:  Robinson, Ait-Nouri, Mykolenko, Burn (although he looks likely to play in central defence this year, at least iniitally), Tete, Castagne, Kerkez, Emerson, Roerslev, Toffolo, Aina (if he gets a regular-ish start this year), perhaps Semedo (when he's fit again), Livramento or Hall (if they get a regular start at Newcastle this year)... maybe Reguilon (if he gets a start anywhere this season).

Amongst the cheaper centre-backs, I like Andersen, Tosin, Van de Ven, Guehi and Richards, Senesi and Zabarnyi, Murillo,,... maybe Quansah or Chalobah (if they ever get a decent run of starts).

There are some starting defensive options at 4.0 in the 3 promoted clubs, notably the dependable Belgian international centre-back Wout Faes at Leicester and Southampton's youngster Taylor Harwood-Bellis (who picked up a moderately impressive 3 goals and 6 assists in the Championship last year; but is already dangerously over-owned in FPL - when he disappoints initial hopeful expectations of him, his price might plummet).  However, I'd be very wary of taking any defenders (or keepers) from these clubs until we've seen how they can stand up for themselves in the Premier League; in recent years most of the newly-promoted sides have been woefully off the pace and have just served as punching-bags for most teams - you don't want defenders (even as emergency back-up on the bench) who offer you hardly any points at all, because they're regularly taking a thrashing.  [There is one 4.0 defender, though, at an established Premier League side, who looks likely to get at least a few starts early on, because of injuries at the club. You can dig that out for yourselves. I don't want too many people piling in on him!]

So, that's about it for the defensive half of the equation....

I'll try to get around to a 'Part Two' on the more attacking options this afternoon... or tomorrow.