Your 3rd forward might be the least important member of the squad

That's a 'controversial' assertion for many people. But it really shouldn't be. 

A lot of folks seem to get beguiled by the impression of 'more regular goals' that forwards seem to offer. But they forget that a) there aren't actually many forwards in the EPL these days who do produce 'regular goals', b) many of the strongest 'forward' prospects are actually classified in the game as 'midfielders', and c) midfielders can pick up so many more points than forwards (more points for each goal, the occasional 'free' extra point for a team clean sheet, and usually more likelihood of assists and bonus points too; and now, for some, also the occasional possibility of 'defensive points'): a good goalscoring midfielder will almost always outscore a forward - in FPL points - who has the same number of goals, or even a slightly higher number of goals.

In recent years - particularly over the last couple of seasons, when some of our biggest-returning midfielders have been lost to us (Salah, DeBruyne, Son, Jota, Olise, Bowen), and many others were wiped out for long spells by injuries - it's become increasingly common to start 3 forwards on a fairly regular basis. This is almost never a good idea.

If we glance at the current FPL points rankings, we see that only the outstanding Erling Haaland and Joao Pedro are up near the top of the pile (and even they're not currently in first place!). Admittedly Alexander Isak, the third-placed forward, just missed the last game, but at the moment he's languishing behind 9 midfielders, 7 defenders and a goalkeeper; and level with, or only a point or two ahead of a whole raft more. That's not at all unusual: you almost never get more than 2 or 3 forwards in the Top 10 players overall; sometimes you don't even get that many in the Top 20. In fact, things may even be a little worse than that: because the best forwards do tend to maintain quite a good average return across the whole season, some of them may end up looking like they were a 'Top 10' pick - but you find that almost invariably, at any point of the season, there were always 5 or more in-form midfielders comfortably out-pointing them over a short run of games.

The 'best of the rest' at the moment (the rather uninspiring Kostoulas, Emersonn, and Barry??!!) are outside the Top 40... Only Isak had any kind of case for inclusion in a starting eleven. And really, you can't realistically afford all 3 of the most premium-priced forwards - not at the start of the season, anyway, when budget is still rather tight. You'd do better to spend that extra money in midfield or defence.

The 5th midfielder is almost always the most important member of your squad, at least the most influential member. It's the position most often overlooked, most often scrimped on by your rivals; the squad slot that gives you the biggest differential advantage (in the true meaning of the term). You really want to be playing a 5th midfielder as often as possible.

The 4th defender is a close second - or joint second - in importance amongst your 'fringe players', the ones you might leave on your bench (and the 5th midfielder, I would argue, shouldn't really be viewed in that categoary at all, but should be a default starter almost all the time). You'll often want to start 4 defenders (if you have a short-term injury hole somewhere further forward, and/or you have 4 defenders all facing a promising fixture against a side in very poor attacking form); and you'll often need a fill-in for one of your usual starting defenders who's picked up a short-term injury or a suspension, or happens to be facing a particularly tough opponent one week (you really never want to be playing a defender against Haaland!); or you'll have someone who's unexpectedly rotated out, and needs to be auto-subbed.

Because these kinds of problems afflict our defenders so much, the 5th defender slot can also be surprisingly important. While starting all 5 defenders might be a pretty unlikely eventuality, it can happen occasionally. And it is relatively common that your 5th defender will have to stand in as your 4th defender because of an injury issue or somesuch with a priority starter.

However, for me, the back-up goalkeeper is really rather more important than the 5th defender - since I always try to go for a strong rotation pair that I can switch around regularly to try to always get a keeper with an appealing fixture. While I will usually have a preferred starter out of that pair, there's often not much to choose between them; and I'll generally end up using the 'second choice' at least 25%-30% of the time,.... sometimes well above 40%! So, that's a little more important than the 'last seat' defender.

And then there's the 3rd forward. Really, I'm not using my 3rd forward, except in a dire emergency. So, for this squad slot, you want to spend as little money as possible. And their returns really don't matter that much; so long as they have a guaranteed start, and are picking up an attacking contribution every 3 or 4 games, that's enough.

I see so many people online constantly fretting over their 3rd choice forward, impulsively shunting him out for a replacement every time he blanks once or twice. Vanity of vanities. It doesn't matter if your 3rd forward is a goal-machine or not. So long as he's not injured or dropped, you should hang on to him.