BAD PICKS - revisited

 

I'd been thinking for a while that I should return to some of the likely 'Bad Picks' I highlighted in pre-season to see just how they're panning out so far. The first-quarter milestone in the season seems like an appropriate juncture to do that. But I was given an additional push towards this a week or so ago, when someone on a Facebook forum where I hang out quite a lot (too much) suddenly resurrected a pre-season post of mine from there - apparently mocking some of these predictions (in fact, he concurred that they'd been fairly prescient, and was just goading a response out of me...). On re-examining those selections, and my reasons for them - although some of them have proven particularly challenging cases, and the jury may still be out on one or two of them - I was pleasantly surprised to find that my comments had been well borne out so far.

So.... the really BAD picks I highlighted in this post were:

Matt Turner - He was dreadful last season, and had dropped down to third (possibly fourth...) choice at Forest at the start of this. He might perhaps be a bit nearer to a possible start now that he's been loaned out to Palace (though I imagine Remi Mathews is first back-up there). But even if you're taking the risk of having a non-playing second keeper to save a bit of money in your initial squad, it is so wasteful to go for someone as poor - and as far from any chance of starting - as Turner. There were some good reserve keepers priced at 4.0; and some of them, notably Fabianski (possibly also Valdimarsson - and maybe someone at Chelsea??), who had some prospect of being promoted to the start on merit, because of doubts about the form or fitness of the original No. 1 at their club. At least most of those who were dumb enough to get Turner in the first place have also been dumb enough not to get rid of him - so, his price hasn't yet dropped (god knows how: he's shed over 400,000 owners since the start of the season, including nearly 120,000 in a single week; but that somehow wasn't quite enough to trigger a price change?!); but that could still happen any day now. And the point is that he's a complete waste of a squad place, he brings ZERO value.

Mark Flekken - I think FPL's 'The Scout' bizarrely tipped him at the start of the season, and that may have got The Sheep stampeding... But it made absolutely no sense. Brentford's defensive form fell apart last year; and Flekken is one of the weakest keepers in the League. (And they had a horrible early fixture run, with at least three games they were bound to lose, probably heavily.)  A lot of people have stoically stuck with him, because at least he's doing rather well on 'saves' points! But that's just a measure of how bad Brentford's defence has been this season. He has zero clean sheets, zero bonus points, and has conceded more goals than any other keeper so far; and, most damningly, his goals conceded - as last year - is significantly exceeding his 'expected' number, which suggests that quite a few of these goals are his fault.  He's only third or fourth ranked keeper at his price point (and there are a number of others who look likely to do much better, after making up for injury absences or a short run of poor results early in the season), and doesn't make the top 10 overall. Just a horrible, horrible GK pick.

Ezri Konsa - Villa over-performed last season; they didn't do much to strengthen their squad over the summer, and were obviously going to struggle with the strains of a debut Champions League campaign. Their defensive record was fairly poor last year; it's looking even worse this time - with 15 goals conceded (and, as with Flekken and Brentford, that's significantly worse than their xGC - which suggests their defence is really bad), and only 1 clean sheet so far. There might have been some additional optimism for Konsa because he might have been starting some games at right-back, while Cash had a string of injury problems (though that's not his natural position, and he doesn't offer any attacking threat when he plays there); but he is a centre-back, and centre-backs rarely offer anywhere near as many points as attacking full-backs or wing-backs. There were several - 15 or 20! - potentially good defensive picks at 4.5 million this season; Konsa wasn't one of them. The Sheep got briefly excited about him again, after he picked up a goal against Wolves in Gameweek 5; but for a player like Konsa, that is a once-in-a-blue-moon event. With Villa's present form, he offers nothing for FPL. His ownership has been crashing for the last four weeks, and he must be due a price-drop.

Kobbie Mainoo - People got excited about him because he'd made such an eye-catching debut for England over the summer. But with Ten Hag's perennially fumbling, floundering United, he has usually been having to fight fires in the middle of the pitch, and very, very, very seldom gets the chance to push forward for a sniff of a goal. The lad looks set to be out with an injury for a while now. But he was never anywhere near an FPL pick; people were just getting him out of patriotic pride or something....

Kai Havertz - OK, this one is perhaps a little more equivocal, as he has started the season in fantastic form. But 4 goals, 1 assist, and 7 bonus points from 10 games is not a huge haul; he's only been around the fringes of the top 10 strikers for most of the season. Being essential to Arsenal doesn't make you essential for FPL!  In my original post, I argued that: it will be difficult for him to replicate last season's Fantasy points haul, because he's been reclassified as a 'forward' this year (YES); he is likely to get started in midfield rather than up front a lot of the time (YES); Arteta obviously doesn't fancy him as a full-time forward, since he's been looking to acquire someone like Gyokeres over the summer (YES); and none of the upper mid-price forwards really looked worthwhile this year, because the cheaper options were so many and so strong (YES!! - though I did not anticipate that Wood, Welbeck, Raul, Cunha, Delap, Wissa, Evanilson, Strand Larsen and Vardy would all be close to or ahead of all of them... except Jackson!). At least that transfer target failed to materialise, which may have boosted Havertz's prospects to continue mostly in the 'false 9' role; although Trossard's strong form is another reason why he's sometimes been withdrawn into midfield; and it does seem likely that they will again try to sign a striker in the winter window. Havertz is a great player, but not a great FPL pick.

Ah, but then I really tempted Fate... by nominating 5 more candidates - much better and much more popular players, who were bound to incite some controversy. Let's see how I got on with those...

David Raya - Well, he was for a while up at the top of the goalkeeper rankings - with 3 clean sheets in the first 4 games; but NONE since, as Arsenal have suffered a bit of a wobble. But even at the start of the season, Arsenal were not playing that well: the reason for Raya's ephemeral dominance of the goalkeepers chart was that he was also getting a lot of 'saves' points (last year, he hardly had to make any saves at all!). My argument, anyway, was not about his ability or his expected FPL points performance (though I did think it was unlikely that he could repeat last year's remarkable clean sheets tally, while he would probably continue to produce a fairly low number of saves); it was about value-for-money (I couldn't see him greatly out-performing the best 4.5 keeper options), and about the competition for Fantasy attention from his club (his defenders usually offer a bigger points differential advantage over other top defenders than he does over other top goalkeepers; and you might want to reserve some of your quota of three Arsenal slots for attacking assets like Saka, Odegaard, Havertz, Trossard...). I stand by that. I think Alisson, when he's fit again, will bring significantly better points at the same price-point; and Onana (or perhaps Pickford, Pope, or Leno) might do even better for only 5 million. But there are so many strong 4.5 goalkeeper options this year, I really don't think you need a premium keeper at all. I never said Raya was a bad player, or that he wouldn't bring good FPL points this year; I just don't think he's worth his fee.

William Saliba - I began my comments on the French phenomenon by acknowledging that he is Arsenal's - and perhaps the League's - 'best' defender... but pointing out that you don't get Fantasy points just for that. The argument here was that Gabriel is just as good for Fantasy points, probably just a little bit better, because he has quite a strong record for scoring from set pieces (YES). I also suggested that any of Arsenal's full-backs who got a regular run of starts were likely to substantially outscore him (YES - White, Timber, and Calafiori have all demonstrated their potential for attacking contributions; though they're all competing for a place, and have all had a string of fitness issues so far). And that, as with David Raya, above, you might actually want to keep one or two spots open for attacking players from Arsenal. You don't really want to double up on defence from one club, certainly not central defence; and Gabriel was clearly - if only fairly marginally - a better pick than Saliba from the Arsenal defence. Of course, the sending-off against Bournemouth has sent him crashing down the defender rankings now (a rare misfortune which I do not claim to have anticipated, nor do I rely on it in justifying my original prediction); but I don't think he's ever been ahead of Gabriel, or 4 or 5 others of this season's top performers. And I have to say, I don't think he's been playing quite as well for much of this season: he looks to be getting stressed by being so often the last line of defence when Arsenal lose the ball high up the pitch and fail to stifle the development of a quick counter (last year, this was very rarely happening to them; this year, it's becoming quite a common occurrence), and that's sometimes leading him to commit impetuous, over-anxious, unncessary fouls - like the one on Evanilson that got him the red card.

Josko Gvardiol - Another anti-recommendation that might still be up for argument...  Well, damn, he's just notched his third goal of the season, which has boosted him back up to the top of the defender rankings. But... he's only got 2 clean sheets, while conceding 10 goals, which must be far worse than almost anyone anticipated from City (even though their defensive record wasn't that good last season either). And he's produced NO ASSISTS yet. My arguments against Gvardiol were based on the unreliability of depending on points from goals from a defender (he is a much better finisher than most defenders; but goals are still a rare and unpredictable event from him - just because he's got 3 in the last 5 or 6 games doesn't necessarily mean that he'll bag any more over the rest of the season), and on the ever-present spectre of Pep Roulette. Now, Gvardiol has missed to start 1 game already this season. And I think the reasons why he's so far been just about an ever-present are the absence of competition for a start on the left of defence: Pep really likes what Rico Lewis can offer in an attacking midfield role, and in the past had generally started him as a nominal 'left-back', but this year has switched him over to the right; Ake is the only other natural left-sided defender they have, has played as a full-back occasionally, and is arguably a little better than Gvardiol in some of the defensive aspects of the role - but he's only just returning from injury. If Pep now decides to give Ake a run of games to get his match-sharpness up, or switches Lewis back over the left side in order to give some minutes to Walker, Gvardiol could yet be spending some time on the bench. (And with City's escalating injury woes in defence, there is a likelihood that he could be playing some games as a centre-back, where his prospect of decent points will be much reduced.)  I also think Gvardiol is bound to need a rest soon, as his pace means that he's generally being relied upon as the emergency cover when City suffer a counter-attack (which is becoming a very, very frequent occurence this season). In fact, as he's usually being required to play quite narrow, tucking into the base of midfield, he's not only often having to run back more than half the length of the pitch, but also often having to try to make up 15 or 20 yards out to the flank to close down a flying winger. That's leaving him often looking at fault for goals they concede (but he's not really to blame; Pep's just playing him in an 'impossible' position); and knackered from the amount of sprinting he's having to do in almost every game. Even if he was going to remain an invariable starter (and I'd bet good money that he'll be rotated a lot during the later stages of the Champions League - and possibly during the upcoming Christmas logjam), he is - as I predicted in that original post - not getting forward nearly as much.... because he needs to hang back to provide cover against the counter-attack, and because Rico Lewis is usually being preferred as the defender to push into advanced midfield positions. So, yes, Gvardiol has done outstandingly well so far; but I suspect we've already seen his peak points-per-game, there'll likely be a big tailing-off in his returns over the rest of the season.

[Now, if Gvardiol does end up playing nearly every game, and manages to bag another 2 or 3 goals for the season - which, on his showing so far, might seem like a fairly conservative aspiration - he could end up with 170-180 points. That would probably put him at the top of the defender rankings, or pretty near, and would thus justify his hefty 6-million price tag. However, given City's shaky form this season, I think that prospect is rather touch-and-go.]

Pedro Porro - Well, he has got 1 goal (a header?! VERY untypical!!); but that's probably much less than his owners were delusionally hoping for. Only 2 clean sheets so far, and quite a lot of goals conceded; and NO ASSISTS! That goal in the opening game against Leicester gave his owners much encouragement, and kept him up around the top of the defender rankings for quite a while; but he's fallen out of the top 20 now - and I don't see him getting back up there, with Spurs's flakey form this season. Spurs's keeper has a lot of weaknesses; Spurs's high-line tactic has a lot of weaknesses (they rely very, very heavily on Van de Ven's pace to provide emergency cover when they get caught on the break; while he's missing, they might concede a lot...); thus, none of their players look like very reliable sources of defensive points. But people were buying Porro because they thought he was an attacking powerhouse. Not so much. I pointed out that most of his attacking contributions last season had come during a fairly short spell when he was playing as an outright wing-back - almost a winger - because all of their usual wide creative players were injured; he doesn't actually get far forward in the attack very often. This year, in fact, even less so, as he's tending to hang a bit deeper (while Udogie is often the more advanced full-back), and invert into a central midfield box rather than push up the flank. A good player, certainly; but not worth 5.5 million.

Cody Gakpo - This one wasn't really that controversial. Some people (myself included!) might think it a shame that such an outstanding player can't get a regular start for his club. And some people (myself not included!) might feel that Luis Diaz is too inconsistent to be the invariable starter on Liverpool's left flank. Gakpo has replaced him a few times recently; but I still don't see any indication that that's likely to become a lasting change. 1 goal and 1 assist from 3 starts and 7 (mostly quite substantial) substitute appearances isn't that inspiring.

And I'll throw in a 'bonus' one, a player I omitted in these two early posts on 'Bad Picks', but have referred to a number of times since, notably here....

Morgan Rogers - Well, he's just surged back up the midfielder rankings, after bagging another goal against Spurs. But I don't think he's ever quite cracked the top 10; or indeed the top 3 - mostly, not even the top 5 or 6 - for the 5.0-6.0 price category in midfield. And although 3 goals in 10 games sounds moderately impressive, they have ALL been extremely untypical of his usual play. The first was set up for him on a plate by Watkins; and he'd only been drawn into a central attacking position at the edge of the box because Watkins had pulled out so wide to the left, dragging most of the defenders with him (neither of these things happens very often). His second against Fulham was a hopeful hit from outside the box that needed a huge deflection off a defender to wrong-foot the keeper (I'm not sure it should even be credited to him, as it looked as if his original shot might have been bound just outside the left post). And this week, the set-piece coach had come up with a special routine to exploit the eminently bullyable Vicario at a corner; when a goalkeeper stumbles backwards into his own goal, then muffs a clearance with his legs so that the ball falls at your feet barely a foot from the goal-line.... of course. you're going to score (but again, I haven't seen Rogers take up that kind of position on any other set piece so far).  Now, I actually rate Rogers really highly, I think he's a tremendous prospect. But he doesn't look that promising for Fantasy, because he mostly plays in central midfield (he's about the deepest 'No. 10' I've ever seen!), doesn't often get into the box, or even close to the edge of it; and he's too unselfish, always looking to lay the ball off to Watkins to try to score, or to Bailey or Ramsey or Philogene to try to get in behind on the flanks. He is mostly providing Villa with 'pre-assists', for which you get no FPL points, rather than assists or goals. Yes, he is very cheap; but there are at least 2 or 3 - arguably perhaps even 5 or 6 - other options at a similar price who look even stronger prospects. (And midfield points are so important, I really feel you ought to leave yourself more budget than that for your fifth seat.)

Please NOTE: I never said any of these guys were bad players (well, apart from Turner... and Flekken); far from it. They are mostly very, very good players. And in that second post, I explicitly acknowledged that these players would probably produce pretty good points, and that their owners might not feel dissatisfied with them. But the harsh thing about FPL is that just picking very good players is NOT GOOD ENOUGH; for the budget you have available, and the position you're looking at, you need to try to find the BEST POSSIBLE PLAYER - taking into account not just ability and form, but who they play for, and how they are being played, and what their fixtures look like over the medium-term.

And even that assessment of points-potential isn't enough; because you also have to weigh the selection decision in a broader context of who else you could spend the money on, or who else might be a more valuable pick from that club. You're not simply looking for the best player, you're always looking for the optimal pick in a given set of cirumstances. And, for me, none of these guys were that. And sorry, I haven't changed my mind.  (This a VERY unpopular opinion to voice, because a lot of people still have Raya in goal, and/or two or three of those top defenders  I cited after him. And yes, they're doing OK; they're just not the optimal picks.)