Possible Picks - 2025 [Pt. 1]

I've always maintained on this blog that I will generally avoid giving direct recommendations 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 mirth - and acknowledge my fallibility), but.... since The Big Kick-Off is finally drawing near again, 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

As last year, I don't think the 5.5 keepers really justify their price-tag. Liverpool looked uncharacteristically vulnerable to the counter-attack in their Community Shield defeat to Crystal Palace the other day; and they have a much trickier opening run of fixtures than last year. So, although I think Alisson is again likely to be among the frontrunners for 'best keeper' over the season, it might be a bit risky to bring him in at the start. Pickford has been in outstanding form for the past few years, and has been monstering the 'saves' points; while the defence in front of him has proved surprisingly robust too - though not without its wobbles (Everton started last season really poorly, remember; that might happen again). And it's really hard to judge the 'difficulty' of Everton's fixtures: they are essentially a side whose ceiling is hanging on to a lower mid-table position and not getting sucked down into the relegation zone - they don't really have any easy opponents. I think Pickford might well come out on top of the pile for the third straight season, but not by enough of a margin to make him a clearly preferable pick over one of the cheaper options.  If Alisson should get injured, his new understudy Georgi Mamardashvili, at only 4.5 million, could become a very tempting pick.

While in most recent seasons it has looked smarter to start with two 4.5-million-pound keepers, this year the strongest options are probably Sels or Henderson (solid all-round teams on an improving trend, with very niggardly defences - and an outstanding pair of keepers too), who are now priced at 5.0 million. 

Robert Sanchez (also at 5.0) is proving a very popular choice this year as well, after his outstanding performance in the Final of the Club World Cup last month. However, I worry that there are still many weaknesses in his game, still a propensity to the occasional costly error. Although he looks to have taken some massive steps forward in recent months, it shouldn't be forgotten that for most of last season, many Chelsea fans and the vast majority of pundits were baying for him to be replaced - by anyone at all, even his not particularly impressive understudy, Filip Jörgensen. More importantly, though, with very strong defensive sides, you usually get a stronger points differential over alternate picks from choosing one of their defenders rather than the keeper; and sides at the top end of the table probably have a lot of attacking players you'd like to have too. So, even if Sanchez were to be the best keeper this year (and I very much doubt that), he still wouldn't be the best goalkeeper pick - because you have to save your club quota of three selections for other, even more valuable Chelsea options. This is the decisive argument against David Raya as well (that, and the fact that Arsenal are usually so good defensively that he doesn't get to make that many saves!).

Altay Bayindir would be a bold, left-field pick. 5.0 is expensive for a back-up keeper, but Onana's form has been so abysmal that he's completely lost the confidence of United fans - and perhaps of his teammates as well - and now looks very likely to be sold or dropped. I probably wouldn't take the chance on picking Bayindir until we know that's happening; but if it does, he could be worth considering. With their impressive new forward line, United could be a much more dangerous proposition this season; and they've usually managed to keep a fairly tight defence, even when the rest of the team was misfiring dreadfully over the last few years. (And apparently Onana has a 'hamstring problem' at the moment, which might keep him out for a few weeks [although I suspect that might just be a smokescreen for a transfer negotiation...]; so - Are you feeling lucky, punk?)

Liverpool's outstanding second-string Caoimhin Kelleher quickly became the most popular 4.5-million-pound pick after his move to Brentford. However, while he's likely to be a frontrunner for the number of saves (as was his otherwise fairly mediocre predecessor, Mark Flekken, last season), Brentford - reeling from the loss of their long-time manager and some of their best players over the summer - are widely predicted to be deep in the relegation fight this year. It will certainly be a very tough season for them; and even when their attacking dimension was looking more robust, they always leaked a lot of goals. Thus, I think that, excellent as Kelleher is, he's a very risky pick at this club. (Also, there's an injury question-mark over him at the moment....)

The other 4.5 options who've returned very well in recent years are Sa, Areola, and Verbruggen, and Petrovic might now join that roster - although it's a worry that they're all in sides who've struggled for consistency, and tend to concede rather a lot (not so much Bournemouth last year; but this time out, they're bound to have some struggles after having almost their entire defence poached during the summer!). And, unfortunately, they all have pretty tough early fixture runs. Wolves, I fancy, will probably come through the first 8 or 10 weeks the best - but it's a tough call.

Martin Dubravka at Burnley (who had an absolutely stellar defensive record in the Championship last year; but an awful lot of that was down to a superhuman season from their young keeper Jamie Trafford, who's now gone to warm the bench at City; and it's very doubtful if that robustness can hold up in the top flight anyway) and perhaps Karl Darlow at Leeds look like being 4.0 starters this year, which will make them popular budget-saving options.

If you choose to adopt the - risky, non-ideal - 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). Bentley at Wolves is really the only good option here. However, there doesn't seem to be any point in doing that this year, when there are 4.0 starting options. (Kinsky, I think, is possibly the best 4.0 keeper, at least in overall context, since Spurs [yes, despite their horror show last season] are a much better team than Wolves or Burnley or Leeds; but I can't see any case for taking Vicario as your No. 1 pick. I actually think Kinsky is a better all-around keeper, and would have fancied him to displace Vicario as the starter sooner or later; but it seems they're likely to let him go out on loan.)

It's particularly worth keeping in mind the fixture pairings for choosing keepers - so that you can, if possible, guarantee that one of your picks will always have a home game.  On that basis, Henderson/Sa or Sels/Petrovic look the best options, with Areola/Darlow perhaps being a tempting - but much riskier - cheaper alternative.

Defenders

Arsenal are likely again to be way out in front as favourites to keep the most clean sheets and concede the fewest goals. Liverpool and Chelsea might give them a good run, though. Forest, Palace, Newcastle, Everton, and perhaps last year's disasters Spurs and Manchester United are likely to be the 'best of the rest' defensively. I don't think I'd look at any other clubs, unless they have a very good attacking full-back option.

Ben White - although it's been forgotten during his long injury absence last season - is always the best Arsenal option, when he plays. It's unfortunate that he might now face some rotation with Timber and Calafiori. Myles Lewis-Skelly - who looks like he might be getting the nod as the preferred starter at left-back? - or Timber, if we find him getting regular starts (probably only if there's an injury to someone else..) could be very tempting options at 5.5. Of the 'big two', Saliba, because of his pace, gets tasked with policing quick counter-attacks, and that leads to him often making unfortunate fouls which can result in yellow or even red cards. While Gabriel is almost invariably the main target man at attacking set-pieces, and is thus slightly more likely to come up with the occasional goal or assist. They're both likely to do very well on the new 'defensive points', with probably not much to choose between them on that. But overall, Gabriel almost invariably has a small but significant edge.

Manchester City seem to have lost their way badly on defensive solidity over the past couple of seasons. And in the Club World Cup this summer, they again looked very porous through the middle, especially against the swift counter-attacking style of Al Hilal, who caused the major upset of the tournament in putting them out in the 'Round of 16'. Pep has become far too reliant on superman Rodri being able to singlehandedly plug all the holes like the heroic little Dutch boy; but he's temporarily sidelined with another injury,... and suddenly engulfed in transfer rumours. If they lose him now, I wouldn't bet on them managing a Top Six finish. Even if they do rediscover their former invincibility, Pep Roulette is a very real hazard for FPL managers: the rotations at that club can be so frequent and so unpredictable that even their very best players cannot be relied upon to start every week. Ait-Nouri and Gvardiol are massively popular choices at the moment, because of their impressive numbers in the past for attacking contributions. However, Gvardiol now seems likely to be starting most games in the centre of defence, where he won't be able to get forward very much to threaten the opposition penalty area. And I fear Ait-Nouri, even if he manages to keep a regular start (and there is a lot of competition for that left-back slot), is likely to be much less productive than he was at Wolves, as Pep doesn't seem to like having his full-backs push all the way up to overlap with his wingers any more (although that makes you wonder why they bought him in the first place, as that is basically his whole game; but very often City's recruitment has appeared completely divorced from what their manager is actually doing on the pitch - remember Jack Grealish???). And for me, at 6.0 million, they're both far too expensive - for a likely points return that will almost certainly be significantly lower than last year (at least, if you leave out any extra 'defensive points' they pick up; Gvardiol is likely to be much the stronger of the two on that; but neither of them are going to be amongst the top performers on this new metric).

Liverpool's new defensive signings Frimpong and Kerkez are attracting a lot of interest; but they're both much stronger in their attacking contribution than they are as defenders (Frimpong, bless him, really isn't a defender at all, and is probably rather being groomed as an eventual successor to Salah), and so they both might be at some risk of minutes-sharing with Bradley and Robertson. Van Dijk is obviously their most dependable option; but he doesn't tend to chip in attacking points very much, despite his huge aerial presence at set-pieces in the opposition box, and I always feel that his colleague Konate, if he can stay fit, is going to give you almost as many points for half a million less. But I'm not convinced that any Liverpool defender is this year going to offer enough value to be worth one of your club quota picks, when they have so many strong attacking options: Salah, Wirtz, Gakpo, and Ekitike all seem very likely to be better picks from that club.

Marc Cucurella is obviously the most popular pick from the Chelsea defence, as he's probably the most nailed of their options, and sometimes offers a lot of attacking threat as well (although he is a bit of a naughty chap, and picks up a few too many cards for my liking). Gusto and James would be very tempting options too, if they weren't likely to be sharing minutes with each other (and it always feels like only a matter of time before Reece's hamstring pings again....)  Tosin might be a useful budget option at only 4.5; he might have a much better chance of a regular start now that Colwill's picked up a long-term injury (although new arrival Jorrel Hato could be the preferred replacement instead).

At Forest, we have the rare-ish phenomenon of their centre-backs being so outstanding that they easily eclipse their full-backs as the most desirable defensive option. Neco Williams doesn't have a secure start, and Ola Aina isn't pushed forward often enough to provide much of an attacking threat (although he's certainly got the capacity for that). But Milenkovic and Murillo are both likely to be amongst the top performers on the new 'defensive points', as well as favourites to keep a lot of clean sheets (Forest have had a bit of a ropey pre-season - but almost no-one could score against them!), and offering the occasional attacking threat. I might incline slightly towards the Brazilian - who carries the ball forward superbly, and is thus more likely to pick up the occasional assist and, even if he doesn't, will usually gain a slight edge in garnering bonus points; his colleague's numbers last year were boosted by a crop of headed goals, and I fancy he won't do quite that well again this time.

One fears that Newcastle may be badly unsettled by the ugly transfer saga surrounding Isak. And if they lose him (as now looks almost certain) and fail to secure a good replacement (also seeming dangerously likely) their prospects for the season could be derailed. Also, being back in the Champions League is likely to put a severe strain on their not-terribly-deep squad. So, I have all kinds of reservations about picking any of their players at the moment - reservations which have nothing to do with the quality of those players. Fabian Schar would usually be my favoured pick from the club: very dependable, and possibly the best goal-threat of any defender in the League, as he has a tremendous shot on him as well as being a good header of the ball. Dan Burn is a great all-rounder (and remarkably fair; for a big, scary, and somewhat clumsy-looking chap, he picks up very few cards); although, alas, there may be some doubts about how much he might get rotated with Sven Botman. Tino Livramento (now likely free of any risk of rotation with Trippier) and Lewis Hall (if he's shaken off the effects of a major injury last season) are tempting options too; but I worry that Hall may be priced out at 5.5 million (a pretty outrageous tag to put on someone who missed half of last season!).

At Palace, Daniel Munoz is obviously the top pick (we're probably lucky he was only priced at 5.5 rather than 6.0, after the season he's just had!); but Marc Guehi and Chris Richards are also tempting, being weirdly under-priced at just 4.5 million. The worry here, of course, is how disruptive the possible departure of Guehi would be.

At Everton, Tarkowski's frequently massive numbers on the new 'defensive contributions' metric is making him the most popular pick. Although I think his young partner Branthwaite is likely to do just as well (and be less of an injury risk), while full-back Jake O'Brien - one of the breakout stars of last season - is likely to offer a little more attacking threat, and is half a million cheaper at 5.0.

At Spurs, Pedro Porro's silky skills going forward beguile a lot of people; but in the past he hasn't actually been deployed in a very advanced role all that often (he had one real purple patch for goals and assists a couple of years ago, but that was during a handful of games when he was really playing as an outright winger because of injuries to all the other players who usually fill that position); Thomas Frank has, at times, seemed to like swashbuckling wingbacks, so that potential might be better unlocked in the Spaniard this season; but I worry that he's a bit of a big gamble at his price-point, probably not quite worth 5.5 million. Especially not when two of his colleagues, Udogie and Van de Ven, might produce as well or better, for only 4.5 million. I'd probably go for Van de Ven, as he's likely to hoover up lots of the new 'defensive points', and carries the ball forward so well, and often at pace, that he creates far more attacking threat than almost any other centre-back. (It's just a pity that his hamstrings seem to be so fragile. He's probably not someone you should be expecting to rely on season-long; just make the most of him, while you can.)

Although I am modestly optimistic about Manchester United's prospects for a substantial improvement this season, there's still too much uncertainty about their defence for me to fancy any picks from them. Diogo Dalot would have been the best option, but it now looks as though Amad Diallo might have displaced him as the favoured right wing-back. Patrick Dorgu hasn't yet found his feet at the club. And there still doesn't seem to be a settled back-three (although Noussair Mazraoui might be the most tempting option, as his versatility ensures that he could start almost every week - on the left, the right, or in the middle!).  I suspect I'll probably have a United defender by the end of the season; but for now, they're a wait-and-see.

Antonee Robinson is probably the best crosser of a ball among our current crop of full-backs. But, unfortunately, he hasn't yet recovered fitness after having a knee surgery at the start of the summer break. Also, of course, his output fell off a cliff in the second half of last season; and while an injury niggle might have been partly responsible for that, my greater worry is that Fulham are fundamentally too weak a club to maintain much consistency of performance over a long spell. They have been mostly managing to punch massively above their weight for the last few years under Marco Silva, but they're essentially a bottom-third side who just about manage to scrabble up into the top half - and that doesn't really make them a very tempting source of FPL picks from any position. I really like their Calvin Bassey too; but I wouldn't pick him until we see what Fulham's early-season defensive form shapes up like.

Bournemouth had a pretty impressive defence last season - but they've lost almost all of it; so, they're a completely unknown quantity going into this season. Sole survivor in central defence, Marcos Senesi, might be worth giving a thought, at only 4.5 million. And their new left-back, Adrien Truffert also looks very promising. But either of these would be hugely speculative picks - and they are better avoided at the start of the season.

Brighton's new left-back, the Belgian Maxim De Cuyper, is attracting a lot of FPL interest - but I'm a sceptic. He has racked up some very impressive attacking numbers - but that's only in the rather uncompetitive Belgian league. And he is, by all accounts, a pretty horrible defender. I'm not even convinced he'll start regularly for Brighton, unless all their other options are injured.

Aaron Wan-Bissaka has proven an extremely popular early pick this year, as a result of his hot flush at the end of last season, when he started getting forward a lot and supplying dangerous balls into the box (something he's not been at all known for in his career to date). He's an excellent one-on-one defender as well, so will probably do very well out of the new 'defensive points'. Unfortunately, I think West Ham's prospects for this season look fairly dismal: I'm not convinced by Potter as a coach, and they don't seem to have done anything to reinforce their squad yet. It's difficult to see them finishing far off the bottom - and, indeed, they might well go down, if any of the newly promoted sides prove to be half-decent this year. Again, I don't think you want to risk taking defenders from sides that are likely to struggle, and might lose a lot of games, concede a lot of goals.

Aaron Hickey at Brentford certainly looks the best 4.0 defender prospect on paper; but having hardly kicked a ball in two years, there must be doubts about whether he'll ever get back to the kind of level he was showing in his prime - or indeed if he will be able to reclaim the starting slot at right-back,.. or if the new manager will allow him to advance so aggressively down the flank as he did before. Burnley's new left-back, Quilindschy Hartman (crazy name, crazy guy...), is probably the best of the rest, and will presumably be an immediate starter. Leeds's Gabriel Gudmundsson and Burnley's Maxime Esteve also look set to be nailed starters at only 4.0 million, but I worry that they might be the sort of desperate budget-enabler picks that prove to be a false economy. It seems pretty unlikely that any defender from one of the promoted sides will keep many clean sheets or low goals-against tallies,.... or do that much under the new 'defensive points' regime, or pick up bonus points, or anything else....  You need the prospect of more than 1 or 2 points per game, even from a second back-up defender!

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.