Possible Picks?? [Pt. 2]

Following on from this morning's post on the most promising goalkeeper and defender picks for the season ahead, I'll now try to provide a survey of the best prospects in midfield and attack. [I hope it won't take too long.... But it probably will!]

Midfielders

I'm wary of Salah and Son, at least at the start of the season, because both their sides are going through a little bit of upheaval,... and they both ended last season in rather subdued form. Salah is one of those players who, like Haaland (as I discussed a couple of days ago) could produce another stunning season and be - by a good margin - FPL's top points producer of the year; but for a star passing his prime rather than just entering it, that is a much more uncertain hope to cling to. My hunch is that Salah will end up having a pretty good season, but not reattain the 250+ totals he managed in his two best recent years (much less the 303 pts he got in his remarkable debut season with Liverpool).  It's a fine call as to whether a relatively 'modest' 220-230 from him is worth 12.5 million. I think it probably is.

Son I'm less sold on. I think he's far too 'streaky' to justify a 10.0 million price-tag. While he has generally looked capable of matching Salah over the last four seasons (except in 22-23, when he was noticeably inhibited by an injury for much of the season), he has tended to get his points in short runs of games (indeed, largely in just a handful of individual games, where he produces huge hauls!), with long, long, long dry spells in between. It's great if you manage to catch him in one of his brief scoring surges; but he's deadweight in your squad for extended periods - and I just don't think you can afford that from such an expensive player. It's better to gamble that you can rotate a number of in-form players into his position who will produce more consistently across the whole season,... and, hopefully, end up giving you more points overall as well. (I fancy there are a number of other players at Spurs who might produce more than him this season, anyway, or at least offer much better points-per-pound value.)

Palmer is probably a must-have after last season. I am not a super-optimist about him, though. I think last season was so extraordinary that he can't possibly repeat it, let alone improve on it; changes under the new manager will be unsettling, and may take a while to start working; and he might not be quite so productive under the new system. There are already signs in pre-season that he might be sharing creative duties with Nkunku this year, rather than being a sole provider almost all the time. And probably defences will give him closer attention now, trying to aggressively man-mark him to stop him getting on the ball in the final third so much. So, I can see him perhaps only managing 180-200 pts this season - which still isn't bad, but might not quite justify his new 10.5-milliion asking-price. However, I'd say that this is his minimum likely output; he could do a lot better. And I'm more confident of him at least getting near 200 points than I am of any other midfielder (except Salah).

My personal preference would be for DeBruyne over Foden (Pep often plays Foden in a variety of different roles, some of which really don't suit him; and KDB is likely to take the more prominent creative role most of the time when they start together), and Odegaard over Saka (Odegaard had a slightly erratic and disappointing season, by his standards; where Saka had an extremely successful one, though only really - in FPL terms - in a couple of fairly brief spells where he scored points like a maniac... for most of the season, his returns were disappointingly below what they had been in previous years, and I fear that's going to be a growing trend, as Arteta's tactics increasingly demand a more disciplined and 'controlling' style of play from him; so, I foresee their points tallies being much closer this season, or perhaps even swapping around - and Odegaard is 1.5 milliont cheaper).

It's hard not to like the outright forwards generously classed as 'midfielders' by the FPL gnomes (players like this tend to be the highest producers in the game, certainly for polnts-per-pound, and often overall as well): Mbeumo, Bowen, Diaz, Nkunku (admittedly, looking like he might play more like a creative midfielder or No.10 rather than an attacker much of the time, but still a major goal-threat), Jota (if only he could stay fit!), and maybe Hwang Hee-Chan (although he has tended to blow hot and cold; and Wolves have a tough start to the season); and not forgetting Bournemouth's Antoine Semenyo, who's a 'midfielder' for the first time this year, only costs 5.5 million, and might now be taking a more prominent attacking role after Solanke's departure.

Then there's a welter of attacking wingers who might also pick up a lot of goals and assists: Mitoma, Adingra, Gordon, Barnes, Martinelli, Hudson-Odoi, Elanga, Garnacho, Diallo, Neto, Madueke, Kulusevski, Johnson, Doku, Savinho, Carvalho, Iwobi, Sarabia, Rodrigo Gomes, Summerville, Sinisterra, Kluivert... and probably a few more too.

There are a few very creative midfielders who also pose a significant goal-threat as well as providing lots of assists: Bernardo Silva, Eze, Maddison, Kudus, Gibbs-White, Smith Rowe, Emi Buendia (if he's back to his best, after a long injury absence), and, of course, Bruno Fernandes,... and perhaps even Harvey Elliott (who seems to have been staking a strong claim to a start as a sort of No. 10 for Arne Slot in some of the friendlies).

And then there are some midfielders who might be seen primarily in a more defensive light, yet do also have a strong attacking element to their game: Bruno Guimaraes, Gross, Rice, Rodri, Wharton, McGinn, Macallister, Andreas Perreira,... and perhaps Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.

I can't give you any more help than that, sorry. You just have to pick the ones you have the best feeling about - given their price, and their opening 5 or 6 fixtures. Any of them might start out the season in blazing form.... or be a complete dud. There is no way to tell. 

At least I've pared the choices down to about 50 or so, from the getting on for 400 available in this category.  If you're finding it really difficult to choose,...you might as well just write all the names on Post-It notes, stick 'em to a wall, and throw darts at them blindfold.

Forwards

This category is rather easier, as you only have to pick three, and there are considerably fewer options to choose from.

As I said yesterday, it's become a 50/50 whether to risk going without Haaland or not, because of his exorbitant price this year. Going without him will be hard work, but I think it could succeed; in fact, I suspect that on average, the two approaches may work out just about the same.

I already outlined in this post on 'How to choose the initial squad' that I would recommend (and I think most draft squads I've seen so far are following this approach)  picking two  from Haaland, Watkins, and Isak - since these are very obviously the three best options up front this year. Some people are getting very excited about Solanke's move to Spurs, and are suggesting that he might now be worth considering in that category of the very top picks who can be seen as alternatives to Haaland (if you feel you can't afford him). I think he could do well at Spurs, and would rate him him now as the fourth best FPL forward prospect for the year - but still quite a long way short of the top three.

For me, all the forwards priced at 8.0 or 7.5 fail to be interesting this year, purely because of their price. And the ones available at 7.0 don't look very impressive. I am intrigued by Zirkzee and Fullkrug at 7.0 - but, since they're new imports from Europe, I probably wouldn't take a chance on them from the start of the season; but I think they have great potential, and are worth watching.... to pounce on if they do start showing some form. And Gyokeres would be tempting, if his rumoured move to Arsenal should go through.

However, given that you rarely want to play all 3 forwards (because you can almost always get more points, or at least a much better points-per-pound return, from a reasonably-priced attacking player in your 5th midfield slot), you can afford to go pretty cheap on your 3rd forward place. 

A lot of the less expensive forwards this year look like they could actually produce some decent points, and not serve merely as a cut-price squad-filler: Cunha at 6.5, Awoniyi and Wood, Muniz and Raul, Thiago and Wissa, and maybe Duran (if he moves somewhere he can get a start) at 6.0; Joao Pedro and Evan Ferguson (when he gets fit again), and perhaps Delap, Vardy, or Armstrong at only 5.5; and maybe even someone like Kalajdzic, Vinicius, Deivid, Archer, or Jebbison, at just 5.0 million, might have a chance of graduating to a regular start at some point.

Again, you might as well just throw a dart.....

So, that's it: my take on how the choices break down this year.  I think there's a wider range of choices this time than there has been for quite a few years (a lot of players coming back from long injuries, a lot of interesting new players joining the league; many of the recent high-flyers coming off slightly disappointing or injury-restricted seasons, or suffering big hikes in their price which could restrict their appeal); and more general uncertainty about the likely course of the season, with four top-half clubs adapting to new managers and four of the top six mired in major makeovers.

It's going to be a great season: anything could happen!