This year's EARLY 'Sheep Picks'

 

Last year, in the early days of this blog, I put out a couple of posts highlighting a few of what I thought were the most obvious 'bad picks', and some of the less obvious 'bad picks', in early drafts being widely circulated online in the week or two before the first kick-off.

They attracted an awful lot of criticism in some of the online forums (well, more unthinking disparagement, really; because people don't like to have their prejudices challenged), but I stand by them. They all in fact (even the few that massively outperformed expectations!) panned out much as I had predicted, and my rationales for questioning the wisdom of their selection at the start of the season were proved to be sound. 

I highly recommend revisiting those two posts, as I tried to frame them in terms of the broader reasons behind why such misguided choices can become so excessively popular. They are still, I think, among the most valuable pieces of general advice I've penned on this blog.

However, I subsequently launched my occasional series of 'Sheep Picks', discussing other strangely over-popular choices from time to time during the campaign. And I think another review of perhaps unduly popular early picks in pre-season this year is best accommodated under the same banner. So, here goes...

These, it seems are the most popular early choices this year. (At least, they were a week or so ago, But although the overall numbers and some of the relative positions may have changed, I think this is still pretty much the 'top ten' at the moment.)

Most owned FPL players ahead of the 25/26 season

While they are all obviously very good players and very tempting FPL picks, and there is a strong case for all of us taking around 3 or 4 of these,.... it does seem that a great many FPL managers are taking many more than that - which, I think, is probably a serious mistake.

And there are persuasive arguments to be made against each of them, even the hallowed Mo Salah. So, I will now attempt to - briefly - do that; though sometimes in the devil's advocate capacity, rather than necessarily stating my own view.

Mo Salah - He had a freakishly good season, a record-shattering season last year: there's no way he can exceed that, or, probably, even get close to it again this year. Moreover, he's 33 years old now, and some loss of edge in his pace and/or stamina, and a slightly greater vulnerability to muscle injuries is pretty much inevitable: for some players, the post-30 drop-off in athletic performance kicks in a bit later than for others, and is very gradual at first; but it happens to absolutely everyone - and sometimes, it's like falling off a cliff. There is very much a non-zero risk that that will happen to Salah this season. Also, it's bound to be unsettling to have so many new personnel joining the side this year, and probably to have some major shake-ups in tactics following on from that. Salah had a particularly productive rapport down the right with Trent, who's now gone; and also with his frequent counterpart on the left flank, Luis Diaz, who's now gone; and he was starting to develop such an understanding with Dominik Szoboszlai, who's likely to be one of the players whose minutes are most heavily hit by the new arrivals (if he does continue to get regular starts, it seems likely to be in a deeper midfield role, rather than as a '10' or a progressive '8'). And, at the very least, he's likely to find that the creative focus of the team gradually shifts away from him towards the new star, Florian Wirtz. There can be no doubt at all that Salah's season haul this year will be substantially lower than it was last year - the only question is, by how much? I fear it could be much, much lower: still very good (maybe 220-250 points?) - but is that enough to justify his eye-watering 14.5-million asking price??  Probably not.

Joao Pedro - Everyone's suddenly getting super-excited about his prospects at Chelsea - not unreasonably - after his stupendous performances in the semi-final and final of the Club World Cup (I share some of that excitement; I can still feel the bruise on my jaw from having it hit the floor so many times watching those games). However, prior to this, I had seen him as perhaps more of a utility player: able to deputise for Delap or Jackson as a central striker on occasions, but more likely to start on one of the wings, or sometimes perhaps in a more central 'No. 10' kind of area, or simply to be held in reserve as a wily 'lock-picker' option who can be brought on from the bench. And those doubts still persist: Liam Delap is an expensive and very promising forward signing who can be expected to get at least pretty substantial minutes as a conventional 'No. 9'; if he's starting some games, where does that leave Joao Pedro? And the Brazilian, despite the promise he's recently shown as a main striker, is not a natural 'No. 9' - has rarely played in that role previously, doesn't have a prolific goalscoring record in his career in England thus far. Moreover, with Chelsea back in the Champions League this year, and having a host of forward options to draw on, it is dangerously likely that just about everyone - except, probably, Cole Palmer - will face quite a lot of rotation,... which could completely undermine their FPL value. Joao Pedro looks like a very risky beginning-of-season pick - until we see just how often he's going to start, and in what role.

Cole Palmer - This is the player I find it hardest to make a powerful case against, the one I think is closest to a start-of-season must-have. He was close to or ahead of Salah and Haaland in FPL returns for most of his first season-and-a-half at Chelsea, and showed the potential to be even better (he's had at least one game where he could conceivably have come up with a 40+ points haul!). Doubters and haters, reluctant to acknowledge his talent, pounced on his steep drop-off in productivity after Christmas last year as 'proof' that he'd been a flash-in-the-pan. That was utter nonsense, of course: I felt that, for the most part, he'd still been playing very, very well in the second half of last season, was still creating a lot of chances for himself and others, and was still regularly Chelsea's best player - but he just couldn't have much impact when the rest of the team around him had become a dysfunctional mess. Could that team dysfunction manifest again this season? Well, it's possible: but Maresca seems to have found a balance of personnel and a system of playing that really clicks now - and they will take enormous confidence from their superb performance in the Club World Cup. My continuing worries are that, with such a rich squad, we might see a bit too much rotation, and thus rarely if ever see a settled starting eleven. (I think Palmer will always start in the League, if fit; but he might be having to adapt to a different set of players around him and a slightly different style of playing almost every week.) Also, of course, there's a significant risk that he - and his teammates - will still be weary after their big summer tournament,... and comparatively short of conditioning immediately pre-season. Chelsea, although they have the most inviting early run of fixtures of any team, might well be a bit slow out of the blocks this year.

Florian Wirtz - I am a huge admirer of Wirtz's talent, and I think he is the biggest foreign arrival in the Premier League... well, certainly since Haaland, but perhaps more properly since Bruno Fernandes. And I don't think there are any serious doubts that a world-class talent like his will have any major problems in ultimately adapting to the intensity and physicality of the Premier League. However, he will almost certainly take some time to settle in to his new surroundings, to get used to his teammates and become completely comfortable in his new role. And it's generally unwise to double-up on a club in one position; many will no doubt prefer more established Liverpool attacking players - and likely much more prolific goal-threats - Mo Salah and Cody Gakpo (and indeed, possibly also their more outright forwards: Hugo Ekitike... or Alexander Isak!). I think Wirtz will have a big season at Liverpool, and is probably the most underpriced player in FPL this season. However, he might not start to show his full potential for 6 or 8 or 10 weeks.... And this is a case where club differential calculations must come into play: however good he is, there are probably other Liverpool players you should take instead.

Aaron Wan-Bissaka - This is one that probably strays from the merely potentially doubtful/arguably risky into outright 'bad pick'.  Yes, he's a very good defender, who is likely to see his season's total get quite a nice lift from the new 'defensive points'.  And he did enjoy a bit of a purple patch at the end of last season, starting to get forward down the flank a lot more, and actually supplying quite a lot of dangerous balls into the box. That, however, was very untypical of his normal game: the attacking dimension to his play has always been regarded as his major weakness (perhaps a little unfairly; but still, that is the reputation that has dogged his career...). I do like Wan-Bissaka as a player; and I think he could prove to be a decent option among the cheaper defenders this year. But it should be remembered that defenders will always earn most of their points contribution not from attacking returns or from the new 'defensive points' but from keeping clean sheets and not conceding too many goals. And Wan-Bissaka, through no fault of his, looks likely to be a pretty terrible option on that front. West Ham were dismal, relegation-worthy last season; they didn't really show any significant signs of improvement under the new management of Graham Potter, and they haven't yet done anything much to bolster their squad for this season. It's difficult to envision them at the moment finishing any better than 16th or 17th; and if any of this year's promoted sides prove to be half-decent, they might well be going down. You really don't want defenders from a club like that. And that makes Wan-Bissaka a very big risk for an initial squad pick.

Alexander Isak - The unfortunate controversy surrounding his possible move to Liverpool has soured his relationship with fans (not just Newcastle's, but around most of the country), and exiled him from team training in pre-season. If he stays at Newcastle (now looking very unlikely), the legacy of all that ill feeling will have a very negative effect on his reception in home games, and on his relationship with teammates, and that's almost bound to interfere with his concentration and confidence. And if he does go to Liverpool, it's not at all clear how he'll fit in there: like Arsenal, they've played without a conventional central striker for a long time. He might not even start every game, as Slot rations his resources across domestic and Champions League campaigns; and even if he does, he'll be sharing the pool of goals with Salah, Gakpo, Ekitike, Wirtz, and others. It seems unlikely this ugly situation will be resolved before next week's kick-off; and even if it is, he's not likely to be sufficiently match-fit, or to have been able to get in enough time training with teammates, to be able to start the first game. I think Isak is one of the best handful of strikers in world football, and I've been very glad to have him in my FPL team for most of the past two seasons; but I wouldn't touch him with a bargepole until the dust clears from this messy transfer saga.

Caoimhin Kelleher - Yes, an outstanding young keeper, and perhaps, on pure ability, the best of the 4.5 options this year (although there are others with a claim). But he's got to settle into a new club. And that is a club who've had a very poor defensive record over the past two seasons, and who are reeling from the disruption of losing a number of their best players and their long-time manager this summer. At the moment, the talk around Brentford is not whether they can challenge the upper half of the table again, but whether they can avoid relegation (and a lot of pundits are not offering a positive answer on that!). These might be prime conditions for Kelleher to rack up massive numbers of 'saves' points - as his much less capable predecessor Flekken did last season; but to produce a really good goalkeeping points tally in FPL you really need to put together a few clean sheets as well, and not often concede too many goals. Even last year, that was a calculus that was poised on a knife-edge for Flekken. And this year, things seem to be an order of magnitude worse for Brentford: they are likely to be struggling for survival for much of the season - and if a few things break against them, that might be a struggle they end up losing. (I think they'll survive, but maybe only by the skin of their teeth. There are probably at least two or three of the current EPL teams, as well as all three of the promoted sides who will almost certainly be as bad, or a bit worse.)  And, oh, he's injured already. That's what you get for picking a squad way ahead of the deadline...

Jeremie Frimpong - Great going forward, but not much of a defender; really more of a winger, who does his best at tracking back and helping out in his own penalty area - but that's really not his forte at all. To get the best out of him, Slot probably needs to play him more as a wingback, in a 3-4-3 set-up; but he's not yet shown any signs of wanting to make that change to his basic tactics. The manager has in fact dropped hints that he perhaps sees Frimpong more as a replacement for Salah, in the long-term. But what does that mean for Frimpong's role in the squad in the interim - when they have an excellent young right-back in Conor Bradley. who also deserves some decent minutes? Some rotation is almost inevitable, I would think. It is indeed even possible that Frimpong will be - or will become - mainly a shock option off the bench, to rest Salah later in the game, or provide a different attacking dimension to Bradley when they're still chasing a result.  I'm a fan of Frimpong, and intrigued to see how things might go for him at Liverpool. But it's always a big gamble to go for a player who's newly joined a club and is still finding his feet; that's even more the case with a player like this, who doesn't have such an obvious fit into the way the team has played previously: either he's got to change his game, or the team has; probably a little of both - and that's almost always a bit of a painful process at first.

Mohammed Kudus - Damn, part of me hates to speak against these players, because they're all ones I have a big soft spot for....  But as I've said above already, players joining a new club are always a big gamble. And you don't really want to be gambling too much - or perhaps at all - in the inital squad (if you make too many 'big bets' that all go wrong, you can be left having to use your Wildcard after only 3 or 4 weeks!!). The uncertainties and risks are particularly acute with Kudus, because he's had a pretty up-and-down career in the Premier League so far, hasn't really yet shown his best - not with any consistency, anyway. And the club he's joining, Spurs, are coming off one of the worst seasons in their history,... and adapting to a new manager. If Kudus and his teammates and the Spurs fans quickly take to each other, if he's given respect and responsibility in the team, if he gets a regular role on the pitch that suits him (I think I'd rather see him in the 'No. 10 space' than out on one of the flanks; perhaps more possible, now that Maddison's got a long-term injury), then, yes, he could become a very promising FPL player this season. But I think that will take time, it's unlikely to happen immediately. And those cheaper 4th and 5th seats in midfield are usually better rotated fairly frequently, to constantly take advantage of players who are hitting a hot streak of points-scoring form. I would bet that Kudus will be that at some point during the season; but not for all of it,... and probably not at the start of it.

Rayan Ait-Nouri - I worry that a player like this may be particularly at risk of the notorious Pep Roulette. After all, Pep has blown hot-and-cold in recent seasons as to whether he even wants to have full-backs, in any 'conventional' sense. Moreover, Nico O'Reilly and Rico Lewis have both acquitted themselves very capably in that position; and Josko Gvardiol was often a bit of a monster there - and could perhaps be moved back into the role if other central defenders are fit this season. Even if Ait-Nouri is the preferred starter, he's surely rather unlikely to start every game. And Pep's recent preference has been for his full-backs to slot into midfield, rather than pushing all the way forward down the flanks to overlap the wide attackers and try to provide balls directly into the box (Ait-Nouri's strong suit). So, I fear that, even in the improbable eventuality that Ait-Nouri proves to be an almost ever-present for City this year, he's likely to have far less attacking impact than he did in his best spells with Wolves. Moreover, there are a few things still fundamentally broken with this team, and they might take a while to 'fix'; at the recent Club World Cup, the problems in central midfield were just as evident as they were for most of last season, with unfancied Al Hilal able to cut them open at will on the counter-attack. None of City's defenders, even if they appear to be 'nailed' starters, really look like very tempting options from the point-of-view of defensive returns this season. On top of all that, the club's creative talisman over the past decade, the majestic Kevin DeBruyne, is now departed; his heir-apparent, Foden, unfortunately seems to have done a Wilshere; and their crucial defensive midfield lynchpin Rodri is out again with a new injury. I thought City were lucky to scrape back into the Champions League places last season; at the moment, I'm very doubtful they can do any better this year. All of that makes Ait-Nouri a very dubious pick. I might have taken a chance on him, if he'd only cost 5.0, or maybe even 5.5 million - but at 6.0 million, NO WAY!!!

Heck, I've very nearly convinced myself that none of these is worth having for the start of the season.

Certainly none of them are incontrovertible must-haves; there are very decent alternatives to be considered in every instance. All of them represent a very high degree of risk, for various reasons, in the opening few games; and risk like that is better avoided, or at least minimized. We might take 2 or 3 of these players, I think, perhaps 4; but any more than that would be extremely dangerous.