The 'BAD Picks' revisited

 

At the start of the season, I wrote a couple of provocative posts, here and here, criticising some of the most widely popular initial squad picks as being, in my view, non-optimal. I already did a quick review of how these views had panned out, about a third of the way into the season (which was the appropriate frame of refence, since I had been considering these mainly in the context of early-season prospects in the initial squad; although many of their owners had clearly been hoping that they might be not just long-term holds but season-long holds...).  Now, at season's end, I thought I'd revisit those opinions for one last reassessment.

I kicked off my first batch of 'ones to avoid' with a pair of goalkeepers, Matt Turner and Mark Flekken. Turner, of course, was only ever seen as a 'budget enabler', but I maintained he was a bad pick even in that context: he obviously had no hope of ever getting a start this season (wasn't even second choice at his club), and hence brought no value whatsoever to an FPL squad, and indeed, was likely to lose squad value. He bled owners every single week, losing more than half of them by season's end - but the sell-off was so slow and gradual that he didn't drop in price until the middle of the season, and only fell by that solitary 100k step (which was much better than I'd expected). But it was a silly pick. Fabianski, also priced at 4.0, obviously had prospects of getting some starts over Areola at West Ham; and there were other 4.0 keepers, like Dubravka, who were at least first back-up at their club. The only explanation for the pick was that naive managers were noting that Turner - who'd started some games for Forest the previous season - appeared to be the highest-points-earning cheap keeper; though he clearly wasn't going to be again this year.

Flekken was much improved this year (he'd had a sigificant negative delta on his performance between the sticks, an xGC figure well below his actual number of goals conceded the previous year), and, because of Brentford's vulnerability in defence, he was able to rack up a huge number of saves - which compensated for his paltry tally of clean sheets. He'd actually sneaked up into the Top Five keepers by the end of the season. However, 'Top Five' is nothing to get that excited about. Sels had performed far better for the same price; Henderson had performed much about the same, and in general more consistently, for the same price; and Pickford once again emerged as the best FPL keeper, having only cost 0.5 million more at the start of the season. My main misgiving about him, actually, had been the fact that Brentford's opening five fixtures looked really tough; but in fact they pulled off a - very lucky and undeserved! - surprise win in their opener against Palace, and didn't get spanked as hard as might have been expected by Liverpool, City, and Spurs (although they were spanked); and Flekken picked up some nice saves points in all of those games. But that would have been crystal ball stuff; there were no reasonable grounds for expecting that he'd produce decent returns from that run of fixtures. Flekken might have been a decent second-choice keeper for the season, but he never should have been anyone's No. 1 pick: he did a lot less badly than might might have been expected, in that opening run and over the season as a whole; but he didn't really do well.

Ezri Konsa is a decent defender, but was never going to be anywhere near a top pick for FPL; yet over 10% had gone in for him at the start of the season, and his ownership remained strong throughout, having only just dipped to 9.5% at the end of the year. He only barely scrabbled above 100 points, and only just made it into the Top 20 4.5-million-pound defenders for the year - outscored even by Dean Huijsen, who'd only played two-thirds of the season.

Kobbie Mainoo, likewise, is a great player; but not much of a prospect for FPL. The 5% who piled in for him at the start of the season must have been unduly swayed by his eye-catching performances for England in the Euros,... or were perhaps just diehard, delusional Manchester United fans. Of course, his season was cut short by injury; but in the half he played, he barely averaged more than mere 'appearance' points.

I was sceptical about Kai Havertz also. Of course, his season too ended prematurely. The 10% of managers who'd gone for him at the start of the year were feeling pretty smug when he bagged a big haul in the opening game against Wolves. And he continued to look very sharp for a while, producing 3 further goals over the next 6 games. But it was never a devastating rate of return; and it soon began to peter out, even before his injury. My argument had been that people were failing to take enough account of the fact that Havertz was newly reclassified as a 'forward' in the game, which would massively reduce his points return for the same number of goal contributions he'd produced the season before. There were also legitimate concerns about whether Arsenal were about to bring in a specialist forward, and about whether Havertz might not play some games in midfield rather than up-front, even if they didn't. Again, I have nothing against Havertz: I think he's a fine player, and has been very important for Arsenal - but he's just not a great FPL prospect as a forward (as it turned out, particularly this year, when so many of the cheaper forwards performed really well).

I was tempting fate rather more with my second batch of disrecommendations - as I acknowledged that these were all in fact very good players, appealing picks, and might do very well... well enough, indeed, for their owners to feel satisfied,.... and be very reluctant to entertain the thought that their selection might still have been non-ideal. Some of them, in fact, did so well that they might have challenged my initial assessment. (Nearly, but not quite....)

David Raya was by far the season's highest-owned keeper (nearly 20% at the start of the season, up to an incredible 32.6% by the end) - yet he was nowhere near the season's best keeper: that's a sign of something going very wrong in people's decision-making. He ended up as the third best keeper in FPL, but quite a long way adrift of Pickford and Sels, and only very narrowly above Flekken and Henderson, who cost 1 million less. My rejection of him might have looked particularly suspect early on, as Arsenal started a little shakily, and were strangely vulnerable at the back a few times - which allowed Raya to earn 7 saves points from the first 5 matches. His team recovered something of their previous solidity thereafter, but he still recorded nearly twice as many saves as in the previous season - which is not something that anyone had expected. But even with that small but handy unanticipated lift to his points total, Raya was not worth the money: there were at least 4 alternatives who could give you the same points or more at a lower price-tag (and Alisson might well have done better than any of them, if he hadn't suffered a couple of spells out with injury). And my main argument had in fact been that, even if he were to be the season's best goalkeeper (and I conceded that was possible, although I thought top three or four was more likely), he still wouldn't have been a great FPL pick because of the club quota restriction, and the fact that there were so many other players from Arsenal who might be more valuable to you. (Gabriel and Saka were pretty much essential at the start of the season; and you might well have wanted a second Arsenal defender as well,.... and possibly Arteta for the 'Assistant Manager' chip. and from time to time, another of their midfield options, like Trossard, Odegaard, Merino, Martinelli.)

Pedro Porro also threatened to make me look foolish (in the eyes of his adoring owners, at least!) by coming up with a goal in the opening game, and then managing a clean sheet against Everton in the second. However, he produced nothing else until the 4-0 drubbing of floundering City in Gameweek 12. Spurs, of course, had an uncommonly horrible season, plunging into the relegation zone. I won't seek any credit for 'foreseeing' just how bad things would get for them, because I didn't; I didn't anticipate that Porro would come up shy of 100 points for the season and finish outside the Top 30 defenders. My argument had been that he wasn't such a surefire source of attacking contributions as his backers supposed (most of his previous season's impressive haul had come in a handful of games where he was being played more as a wide midfielder than as a full-back; that's not his typical deployment), and that he probably wasn't quite going to be worth his premium fee - when there were alternatives like Munoz, Kerkez, and Robinson to consider.

But, oh dear, it does look like I was 'wrong' about Josko Gvardiol, who made a late run up the defender charts to claim 1st Place at the very end of the season. How can I say someone was a 'bad pick' when he was the Best Player in his position??  Well, I'd still dispute that he was really the Best Defender: Gabriel and Alexander-Arnold would have beaten him, perhaps quite handily, if they hadn't missed a bunch of games with injury; Van Dijk was right on his heels; and so were Milenkovic, Kerkez, and Munoz, all much cheaper. You don't want or need more than one or two premium defensive picks - certainly not in the initial squad, when budget is still uncomfortably tight - and it was probably wise to go for at least one option from both Liverpool and Arsenal as long-term holds, because they both have a much more solid defensive record than City. I admit, I anticipated that Gvardiol's season-haul would be quite a bit lower, and that he was unlikely to be among the top defensive contenders: but my reasons for expecting that were all perfectly sound - Pep usually rotates his defenders a lot, Gvardiol was only an (almost) ever-present this year because there were so many injuries to the rest of the defensive roster; he did eventually get shifted back into central defense, where his goal-threat largely evaporated (I thought this might happen sooner, more often; but it was an obvious, almost inevitable risk to his output); and I thought it was unlikely that he could repeat his level of goalscoring output from that hot streak at the end of the previous season (his owners were briefly getting their hopes up, when he bagged 3 in 5 games, from Gameweeks 6 to 10; but over the season, he only managed one more than he'd netted in a handful of games the year before). 5 goals for the season is excellent for a defender (and he had come close to picking up quite a few more); but 153 points is one of the lowest Best Defender totals in history, and very dubious value for a 6-million-pound spend. If you went for Gvardiol at the start of the season, and stuck with him - you got lucky: he performed right at the very top of - if not a little above - what could reasonably have been relied on from him for the season. But it still wasn't a great pick, season-long; and not objectively a 'wise' pick last August.

I got a lot of hate and scorn for including William Saliba in that list as well. But my argument on that was simply that he wasn't going to be as good a pick from the Arsenal defence as his partner Gabriel - and he wasn't.

I cited Cody Gakpo as well, because, although I rate him very highly, I couldn't see how he was going to fit into the Liverpool side. Although he was integrated more regularly and effectively in the second half of the season. he only started just over half of the year's games - and got very short minutes in a lot of those. His season total of 127 points was actually outstanding for the number of minutes he played. But, unfortunately, in FPL, you just can't take a chance on a player who isn't a guaranteed starter every week.

I also, at other times early in the season, called out the massive adoption of Harry Winks and Morgan Rgoers as 'budget enablers'. There was a decent case for Rogers, of course - a fabulous young talent who'd just graduated to a regular start with a top-half side and was rapidly establishing himself as their most important player... for only 5 million. Winks, though, wasn't even an invariable starter, and offered just about zero attacking potential - and was in a side who were obviously doomed to go straight back down to the Championship. The 5th Midfield spot is probably the most important 'differential' position in the squad, and you simply cannot afford to go light on it.

Rogers I commented on a number of times over the season. While his opening price-point was very tempting, I thought it was inappropriate, self-deluding to compare him only to players costing 5.0 and less; he should really have been considered in the 'cheap' midfielder category of 5.0-6.0 - and in that, there were a lot of strong alternatives. Rogers ended up being - narrowly - the best of the bunch (well, apart from Semenyo, who nipped ahead of him on the final day!) over the season as a whole. But he never managed to produce a run of high-returns together, just a string of solid performances with the odd goal contribution here and there. In any sequence of 5 or 6 games, there was invariably at least one of the other cheap attacking midfielders, often two or three or more, who out-pointed him; therefore, it was self-limiting to treat Rogers as a season-hold purely on value-for-money terms; it was a bad choice, although he's a great player (such paradoxes abound in FPL; the inability of many managers to recognise them is probably the main reason for under-performance).  The 5th Midfield spot is probably the most important 'differential' position in the squad, and you have to constantly rotate the most in-form options into that spot.

Many people, I'm sure, are still going to obstinately 'disagree' with all of these assessments. But I'm happy to stand by them: I think they were all accurate, remarkably prescient. Only Gvardiol surprised me a little; and even then, not enough for me to recant my original verdict.

Return of THE CULT??

 

Early in the season, I bemoaned how the FPL 'Sheep' had been ridiculously over-enthusiastic about Aston Villa and their players, with picks like Konsa, Martinez, and Duran, in particular, being owned in numbers that were completely counter-rational. (Morgan Rogers you could at least make some sort of case for; but - strong admirer though I am of his talent - I've always felt that his attacking contributions in the Premier League have been too intermittent to justify his FPL selection...)  I described this phenomenon humorously as a 'Cult'!! 

And sure enough, Villa this season have been a pale shadow of the over-performers we marvelled at last year. 

Well, they weren't able to bring in any new talent over the summer, to strengthen their squad depth ahead of their first Champions League campaign (it didn't even exist the last time they qualifed for the senior Eutopean competition in their early '80s glory days; it was still the European Cup) - apart from Ian Maatsen (who's barely earned a game for them) and Rogers (who can't really carry the side on his own, although he tries); while they lost one of their most influential players, midfield stalwart and penalty-taker Douglas Luiz, to Juventus. And in this latest window, they've let go two of their most talented players, Emi Buendia (who'd barely been given a start since returning from a long injury) and Jhon Duran. Also, almost all of their defenders seem to be perpetually injured. And even World Cup-winning goalkeeper Emi Martinez has recently started occasionally looking a bit wonky....  

Teams almost invariably flounder a bit with their first season in European commpetition, failing to adapt to the disruption of usual preparation routines caused by regular midweek football, and lacking the squad depth to rotate enough to cope with the additional toll of injuries and fatigue. That phenomenon has hit particularly hard with Villa this year. They appear to have been saving their best efforts for their Champions League games; but their form in the League has been very up-and-down - and, over the past couple of months, just downright poor.... and recently getting worse. The only reason they're still in the top half of the table, just, is that so many teams who should by rights be above them - Brighton, Brentford, Spurs, Manchester United: perhaps even Everton and Wolves - have also been having a dreadful time for much of the season.

And now - they're without almost all of their preferred starters in defence (Konsa, Pau Torres, Mings, Cash) going into Gameweek 25. And their star striker Ollie Watkins has only just tentatively re-entered training after nearly two weeks out with a worrying hamstring strain.

So,.... no-one with any sense would touch any Aston Villa 'asset' with a bargepole at the moment....

And yet....  Villa players have been some of the most transferred-in over the past two weeks, and their coach Unai Emery is perhaps the leading pick to bet the 'Assistant Manager' chip on this week!

It's purely the mystical allure of the Double Gameweek, of course. The naive assume that having two games must automatically ensure a higher points return. But it does nothing of the kind; the returns are fixture-dependent - and if the fixtures in a double aren't good, plenty of Single Gameweek alternatives will out-perform the doublers.

Villa's GW25 is effectively a 'Single Gameweek', because you can't realistically expect them to get anything against Liverpool - even playing at home, even against a very sub-par Liverpool (and there's no reason to suppose there's anything too wrong with Liverpool's form, just because they unluckily dropped points to a freak late goal in an even more-emtionally-charged-than-usual Merseyside derby last night). And Ipswich - greatly strengthened in the transfer window, and fighting for their Premier League survival - probably won't be a pushover either... not for a team struggling as badly as Villa have been lately.

I think Emery is unlikely to reach 10 points for the 'Assistant Manager' chip this week; and might not reach 5!

Meanwhile, Marco Silva, Vitor Pereira, and - yes - Ipswich's Kieran McKenna have an opportunity to earn the hugely lucrative table-bonus for getting something out of a game against a higher-ranked opponent. The most promising option on that front, though, must surely be Brighton's Fabian Hurzeler - who hosts a recently very flakey-looking Chelsea (who've just lost their star centre-forward to a hamstring injury) on Friday evening: he actually looks to have decent prospects of a table-bonus win, rather than just a very hopeful and speculative chance of a draw....

I don't even want to play this damned new chip, though; I think it ruins the game. I am taking the high road on this by quitting playing the game for the rest of the season. Please consider joining my Boycott.  Or, if exiting the game altogether is too much for you, at least think about refusing to use the Assistant Manager chip - and criticise and complain about it online as much as possible.

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip

BAD PICKS - Addendum

 

Following on from yesterday's review of my pre-season nominations of some of the most common Bad Picks in FPL this year, I'll offer one more.... that I've noticed in an awful lot of squads so far.

Harry Winks - Now, I like Harry as a player; I think Spurs were mad to let him go. And a few years ago, he was looking like he could be a decent back-up holding midfielder for England. But his career just didn't quite catch fire, and instead took a detour into the second or third-tier of porfessional accomplishment. Still a very decent central defensive midfielder, though: a good scrapper, and sometimes a decent passer of the ball too.

Just.... NOT for Fantasy.. While he is a fairly reliable starter (though he has missed a couple of games already, for some reason), and almost invariably plays the full 90 minutes, that's about it: he offers very little prospect of any other points. So far, a couple of assists (rather surprising: a strike-rate unlikely to be maintained across the season), 0 goals, and 0 bonus points. He is pretty much just giving you the bare minimum appearance points every week (most weeks...).

A lot of people went for Winks at the start of the season as a lazy squad-filler choice: they werre running out of budget, and he was the only likely starting midfielder available at 4.5-million pounds. But his ownership actually went up even further over the next few weeks!! (Perhaps some people hadn't initially noticed that there was a starting player this cheap?) And it still hasn't fallen off very much even now: it's still over 12.5% - which puts him among the Top 10 midfield picks! For someone metronomically returning only 2 points per game, that is just INSANE.

While there might be some excuse - not much, but some - for going for a player like Winks in your initial squad, while you're struggling for budget, there is absolutely NONE for hanging on to him this long. In FPL terms, he is an essentially worthless player; he may only cost 4.5 million; but that is 4.5 million being pissed away on NOTHING.

I think there are FOUR IMPORTANT LESSONS here:

1)  You can't afford to go light on your midfield. You can almost always get more points from a 5th midfielder than from a 3rd forward (or a 4th defender), and so in most weeks you want to be starting all 5 midfielders - and expecting good points from every one of them.  Really, you want to be looking for at least 5 points-per-game on average from all your midfielders (ideally, 6 points or over from at least two or three of them). Someone who can't give you a chance of that isn't worth your time

2)  Therefore, you CANNOT afford to carry midfielders on your bench.

3)  Even Bench players need to be offering a prospect of at least a little more than just appearance points. (I like to maintain an average of 3.5 to 4 points per game from everyone on my bench.)

4)  If you do find yourself with someone like this in your squad, you can't afford to be complacent about it. It is just as important - often even more imporant - to replace a completely inadequate fringe player (YES, even a completely inadequate bench player - but Winks should never have been accepted as just a bench player) than it is to swap out a star attacking player who seems to have hit a bit of a dip in form, etc. Selecting Harry Winks in pre-season I can, just about, forgive; still having him going into GW11 is absurd and self-harming.

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.)

The Cult of Aston Villa??

I originally made these remarks last week, in my regular rundown of the main Gameweek selection issues; but they seemed a little out of place there, so I thought I'd rewrite them slightly and give them the space of their own post now.

This train of thought was initially triggered by pondering the Morgan Rogers phenomenon. An astonishing 17% of FPL managers owned him after GW5 (now up to nearly 21%!), most of them from the start of the season; presumably just because he seemed worth taking a punt on at only 5 million quid, after a good showing in pre-season. But it might well have been a fairly unthinking choice for many, simply the cheapest 5th seat option to fill out the midfield roster, if trying to save money to afford Haaland (or Salah or Palmer...).

He was indeed fantastic for Villa in pre-season, scoring a few goals. He then - slightly unexpectedly - become a regular starter, and a key player for them. He has been playing extremely well in the early games, without registering any FPL returns. Then, in GW5 he produced a couple of excellent assists. And he still only cost 5.0 million! 

However, I didn't see an argument for bringing him in (if you didn't already have him), and I still don't. My misgivings are that he's playing as quite a deep No. 10, mostly quite central; unless he gets out wide more, or up around the penalty box more often, he's not likely to register any goals, or many assists (he's claimed a number of 'pre-assists' - but you don't earn any points for those); you can be a very good player without earning any FPL points recognition for it... and, so far, Rogers has mostly been one of those.

Well, that was what I said a week ago. And then, of course, the Rogers fandom get all I-told-you-so triumphalist because he finally a scored a goal this weekend. Sorry, that proves nothing. That goal found him drawn into the central attacking position because Ollie Watkins had, somewhat unusually, pulled out wide on to the left wing; the ball was actually played to him by a defender's mis-kicked clearance; and even then his first instinct was to lay the ball off to Watkins rather than attempting a strike himself; only when that pass drew three defenders towards Watkins, and Watkins returned it smartly to him to allow him a fairly easy finish, did he grab his chance. I haven't seen Rogers's 'touch map' for the game, but I'd guess that might have been the only time he got on the ball in the box. That was not a goal that suggests he's now likely to become a regular scorer. Quite the opposite - it was obviously something of a freak occurrence, and there was much about it that confirmed all my previous misgivings about the way Emery has him playing.

Good - potentially great - though he is, Rogers has been mostly playing far too deep to get many assists or goal opportunities; and even when he does get up around the box, he's tending to be too unselfish - always looking for Watkins (or Bailey, or someone else) as the goal outlet. Perhaps he will gradually start pushing forward more, especially as McGinn, usually Villa's most attack-minded midfielder, is now out for a while with a hamstring problem. I don't at all write off the chances for Rogers becoming a significant FPL asset; I'm just very sceptical as to whether he's become that yet.

But Rogers is just the most conspicuous example of an odd mass hysteria going on around Aston Villa this season (perhaps because they were last year's 'most improved' club??).  Going into Gameweek 6, Emi Martinez had over 13% ownership, yet wasn't even in the top 15 goalkeepers.  Konsa was at nearly 14% ownership, but - even after scoring a rare-as-hen's-teeth goal in GW5 - wasn't even in the top 10 defenders at his price-point! Rogers barely scraped into the top 15 midfielders in the sub-6-million category. Onana (nearly 12% owned) was only 4th in that bracket (and his 2 early goals were obviously a bit of a flash-in-the-pan; a stolid central defensive midfielder, but very unlikely to make a charge for the Golden Boot...). And Jhon Duran was up to 5.5% ownership - despite costing over 6 million, and not being a first-team starter?! 

This exaggerated enthusiasm for Villa players is only likely to intensify after their historic win over Bayern on Wednesday night (I had the joy of being able to watch that in a pub in Birmingham). Duran's stunning winner there is driving many to think that he might soon be getting a start in the Villa attack, and he's now surged above 6.5% ownership. If that happens (still unlikely), he's going to be sharing the goals with Watkins, not displacing him. He does indeed look a very exciting player, and should be good for a fair few goals, even off the bench (I tipped him as a prospect in pre-season, and was hoping one of the rumoured transfers to a club where he'd get a regular start would come off). But at the moment, he's just a super-sub - and that's not worth having in FPL.

All of this is MADNESS: none of these players are remotely worth considering, even as a 'cheap' last choice. Is Unai Emery some sort of weird cult leader...???

More BAD PICKS (some slightly less obvious ones!)

Following on from yesterday's post about some of the most egregious 'BAD Picks' I see a lot of FPL managers making at the moment, I present a few more examples.... that may seem more surprising or controversial to a lot of people.

Now, yesterday's examples weren't bad players (well, apart from Turner and Flekken!); but they were very conspicuously poor picks for their position and price-point.

This is how ruthless FPL rquires you to be. You only get 2, 3 or 5 picks in each position category; and across each of those positions, you probably have a particular amount of budget in mind, a range of just one or two price-points, for each individual selection. So, you're not just looking for 'one of the best' players for a certain position; you're looking for absolutely THE BEST, in FPL points potential, in that position, at that price-point - for every slot in your squad. (But you also have to consider filling each valuable squad slot not just in isolation, but in the global context of how many players you can take from each club, and how much more bang-for-your-buck you might get from taking a same-position player from another club, or perhaps a different-position player from the same club, or.... The combinations of factors you have to juggle are daunting.)

In order to achieve that, you have to look beyond merely superficial appeal (so many people are clearly just picking whoever happens to have scored the most points last season in each price/position category; that's so lazy - and deserves to be punished!).  You need to look deeper into the stats. 

In particular, you need to work out returns-per-game, not just look at the whole season numbers (a lot of players didn't play the whole season). It's also valuable to review the xG ('expected' goals), or xGC ('expected' goals conceded) for defenders and keepers, and to look at whether those numbers are lower or higher than the actual numbers of goals scored or conceded; this 'delta' factor (the difference between 'expected' and actual performance) is a key indicator of whether a player has been doing a good job.

You also need to try to recall the story of the season as a whole. Did a player play the whole season? Was he consistent across the whole season, or did he have peaks and troughs in form? Did he, overall, improve or decline across the course of the season? How did most of his points come about? What changes in tactics or personnel at the club contributed to his differing returns?  (If you don't watch much football, or can't remember, you should read up on some old match reports, or season summaries for the leading clubs - most clubs put out their own, and there are some good ones on Wikipedia too. And there are some good tactical analysts on Youtube who sometimes put together reviews of the season to explain how a top club achieved success. Adam Clery of FourFourTwo magazine had a particularly good one on Arsenal's so-near-and-yet-so-far-away season a couple of months ago.)

So, here are 5 players who look like very good picks - but AREN'T... for perhaps slightly non-obvious reasons.

Raya

Reason:  Arsenal were way ahead of the pack on clean sheets last season, and Raya conceded fewer goals than any other regular keeper. And he ended the season as the second-ranked FPL goalkeeper.

Yes, but... he was only a negligible amount ahead of Leno and Onana, and miles behind Pickford; so, not very convincingly one of the top few goalkeeper picks for FPL. (Onana, bouncing back after a dreadful start, looked the much better prospect in the latter stages of the season. And Leno has been consistently at the top end of the FPL goalkeeper rankings during his two seasons with Fulham.)

Moreover, his 24 goals conceded was actually slightly above his xGC - which suggests he is prone to the occasional lapse.

And he has a similar problem to Ederson at City over the last few seasons: the rest of the team dominates games so much, is so good defensively, that he rarely gets an opportunity to make a save. And saves - and the bonus points which can come from them when the keeper has a busy game - tend to be worth more than clean sheet points (that's why so many keepers from clubs at the lower end of the table manage to return decent FPL scores). His 'saves' total for the season of 46 was way the lowest of any keeper - barely a third of what Sa, Leno, Areola and Onana posted. And he managed a puny 6 Bonus Points for the entire season - compared to 15 for Leno and 22 for Pickford.

So, if you ponder the stats for a moment, Raya - despite his huge clean sheet potential - just isn't one of the more attractive goalkeeper options.

But that's NOT the reason you shouldn't have him in your squad. The key reason is the differential advantage offered by other Arsenal players. Raya probably won't be the top-scoring keeper this season; and even if he is, he won't significantly outscore a raft of other goalkeepers who cost 0.5 or 1.0 million less. But last year, White, Saliba, and Gabriel massively outscored every other defender; and they almost certainly will do so again.

So, you probably want at least 1, more likely 2 players from the Arsenal defence. You also probably want 1 of their very potent attacking midfielders, Odegaard or Saka. You might even fancy Declan Rice as a more budget option for your 5th midfield spot. And you might also be interested in Gyokeres up front, if that transfer comes off. Or you might just want to keep one of your three Arsenal slots open for another player who might get a run of starts and hit some rich scoring form for a spell - Martinelli or Trossard or Havertz or Jesus, perhaps.

David Raya might be a 'Top 5' goalkeeper option -  but he's not a 'Top 5' pick from Arsenal.

If you don't consider the full range of relevant goalkeeper stats (saves, bonus points, and delta xGC) - you'll make bad choices. If you don't pay attention to the relative value that other players in other positions at the same club offer - you'll make bad choices.

Saliba

Reason:  He's the best defender in the League. And Arsenal were way the best defence in the League last year (miles ahead on clean sheets), and are almost certain to be so again.

Absolutely. But.... being 'the best' in your position in real life means very little for your value in FPL 

All members of the Arsenal defence get the same 4-pt bonus for the many, many clean sheets William Saliba helps them to earn; but they all offer more than him in the potential for further points. Gabriel presents a more consistent threat at attacking set-pieces (it's a fairly marginal advantage, and might not always translate to an actual points lift; but it is worth paying attention to); and Ben White, when he pushes forward to link up with Saka, provides a regular possibility of assists and even a few goals over the season. Calafiori - if he starts immediately, if he beds in well and lives up to his potential - should also become a major attacking force down the other flank this season, and could conceivably even out-score White.

(Also, there might be just a little bit of a worry about Saliba's physical resilience, because he did end up missing about a third of his debut season at The Emirates - with what had initially seemed to be a fairly innocuous back strain.)

So, paradoxical as it might seem, while Saliba is, by common consent, the best defender at Arsenal, he's the worst defender pick from Arsenal for FPL.

The exact same thing happened last year. Almost everyone went for Saliba, rather than White and Gabriel, at the start of the season. And the season started weirdly: Gabriel mysteriously out of favour and dropped for a few games, White moved back into central defence (where he's much less productive in FPL terms),... and then Saliba nabbing a couple of - extremely untypical - headed goals. So, the sheep who'd gone for Saliba because everyone else had gone for Saliba, felt smugly vindicated: Saliba was miles ahead of those other two after the opening handful of games. And his owners then felt it wasn't worth using a transfer to switch to one of his rivals later on, even when that started to change. But once things had settled down at Arsenal, Saliba's two clubmates did indeed outscore him during the remaining portion of the season, Gabriel fairly narrowly, but White very substantially. Saliba wasn't the best pick from the Arsenal defence last year either.

Ben White costs 0.5 million more than Saliba this year. Last year, despite missing a few starts at right-back, and having a fairly subdued opening phase to the season, he still ended up with nearly 20 pts more than him. And Saliba might not get on the scoresheet again this season so,.... there's a strong chance that White's advantage over him this year could be in the 30-50 pts range (and Calafiori's haul perhaps similar!). You look to earn, ideally, around 30 or so points for every million spent on your starting 11 (realistically, a little less than that for defenders); and there aren't actually many differential picks where you find that kind of potential advantage for an extra half-million or million spent. But Ben White is absolutely worth the extra half-million he costs this year - if you can afford it; he will almost certainly score quite a lot more points than Gabriel or Saliba.

If you focus on real world status rather than Fantasy points value - you'll make bad choices. If you don't properly consider the rival choices in the same position at the same club - you'll make bad choices.

Gvardiol

Reason:  He scored 4 goals in a handful of games at the end of last season!

Yes - but, as I remarked somewhere on this blog just a few days ago, when defenders score a few goals in quick succession, it's almost always a fleeting streak, not an emerging trend. A lot of the FPL managers piling in for Gvardiol are absolutely expecting this to to be a consistent trend, they think he's going to be rivalling Haaland's scoring figures. That won't happen. He might well not score a goal all season.  [We see the same thing, a little less strongly, with the popularity of Pedro Porro this season (see below). And we saw it with Pervis Estupinan, one of the great 'sheep picks' from the start of last season, who had likewise bagged a couple of spectacular - but extremely untypical (I don't think he'd ever scored in his career before; other than from the penalty spot for Ecuador) - goals towards the end of the previous campaign.... Remember how that worked out?]

He is primarily a central defender, and is likely to be used there rather than at left-back at least some of the time. And when he does play at left-back, it's extremely unlikely that the ultra-conservative Pep is going to sanction him playing in such a marauding style very often. (And if he does, it's likely that opponents will be much more alert to the danger now, and will try to make sure they don't allow him time and space with the ball around the edge of their penalty area.)  The prospects of him repeating last season's goal-spurt are, alas, very, very slim.

There's such squad depth in the defensive positions at City that no-one is likely to start every game. Despite his outstanding form at the end of last season, Gvardiol is not even a guaranteed starter for the beginning of this season - and he certainly won't be an invariable starter for the whole campaign. 6.0 million is a lot to pay for someone who might only get 25-30 starts. (And City haven't even been keeping that many clean sheets over the past season or two!)

Gvardiol, again, is not an outright terrible choice: he's obviously one of the strongest defensive options for the year. But he is a very extravagant choice, a profligate use of funds. There is little need to take any of the defenders priced at 6.0 million or more; and if you do, there are probably better picks at the premium price level than Gvardiol.

If you think 'black swan' events will start happening every week - you'll make bad choices. If you ignore the reality of 'Pep Roulette' - you'll make bad choices.

Porro

Reason:  He got 3 goals and 7 assists last season

Indeed he did. And he is a very talented player, with some good potential for attacking returns. However, it's probably wildly over-optimistic to think that he might equal or better last season's tally - because he doesn't play that high up the pitch most of the time. The majority of those attacking contributions came in a handful of games, where he was playing as a very advanced wingback... because all of the right-sided creative mdfielders were out with injury.

And Spurs have a pretty terrible defensive record. With Postecoglou insisting on a suicidally high line, and a keeper who's very flakey and ridiculously easy to bully at set-pieces, they are always likely to leak a lot of goals. Moreover, the BPS tweak this year, with defenders and keepers now being more heavily penalised for conceding a goal, means that Spurs defenders are much less likely to pick up many bonus points in games in which they don't keep a clean sheet. Thus, even if Porro does get some good attacking points over the year, he's still fairly unlikely to get near his last season's points total again.

Porro's not a terrible pick; but he is a bit of a 'sheep pick' - and that collective enthusiasm for him derives from unrealistic expectations. With so many very strong defensive options this year priced at only 4.5 and 5.0 million, it's very difficult to justify paying 5.5 million for someone with such doubtful clean-sheet potential.

If you allow yourself to be swayed by headline numbers, without looking at the pattern of the whole season - you'll make bad choices. If you go along with the sheep too easily - you'll make bad choices.

Gakpo

Reason:  He always impresses for the Netherlands; he was brilliant at the Euros.

Indeed, he's been great for the Dutch in the last three big tournaments. But club and country are completely different worlds. For the national team, he enjoys the confidence of being a guaranteed starter in his favoured position down the left side of attack; and, in the absence of an established central goalscorer, he's been free to cut inside as much as he likes... and take on the mantle of being the team's primary goal-threat. He'd love to be able to play like that at Liverpool as well - but it ain't going to happen.

Gakpo's never really staked his claim at Anfield yet. Diaz (and Jota, when fit; and now maybe Carvalho too) has clearly been claiming priority on the left side of 'the trident', and both he and Jota can also usefully fill in through the middle, when Nunez is missing the sticks too often. Yes, Gakpo can play deeper in midfield as well, though that's not the best use of his talents; and there's probably even more competition for places there. 

He's more of a support player than an outright stiker anyway, so not a super-prolific source of goals. And it's difficult to see how he's ever going to become more than a handy utility player at Liverpool. There are so many forward options 1-2 million pounds cheaper who are primary goalscorers for their club and start every week.

If you let yourself be dazzled by someone's 'potential' rather than their likely prospects at their club - you'll make bad choices. If you get too impressed by someone's international form - you'll make bad choices.

How many of these guys do you have?  Maybe you should think about switching them out....

Not that any of these guys are dreadful picks, of course. They're all excellent players, and they will all very probably return very strong results in FPL this year. People who own them probably won't feel much remorse. But the objections I've raised above are mainly based on the context of the overall selection: to me, they look severely non-optimal when compared to other players you might pick instead - whether that's in their position category, their price category, or just across the range of choices at their club.

I'll try to remember to return to these guys a few times over the season to check how they're doing.

BAD PICKS (And why people make them)

I thought I'd go over some of the most obviously AWFUL picks that seem to be very popular in FPL at the moment, dissecting why it probably is that people are coming to make such poor choices.

Of course, the No. 1 'Bad Pick' of the moment, by a mile, is goalkeeper Matt Turner. He's the most popular GK currently, with nearly 25% ownership - that is just gob-smacking. 

Usually with a bad keeper pick, you make jokes like "He deserves to be 3rd or 4th choice at his club. They're probably going to demote him to the youth team soon - or sell him." But with Turner, the usual resources of humour fail. That is actually TRUE. He is nowhere near a start at Forest: already third-in-line, at best - and they're said to be looking to acquire Aaron Ramsdale as their new No. 1.

So, WHY has this happened? How have so many people come to pick a player who is so utterly and completely VALUE-LESS?

1)  Turner

Reason:  He is the highest-ranked 4.0-million-pound keeper, on last year's points returns.

Yep, he did actually get some starts last year; played nearly half the season in fact. But his points during that time were terrible. And he was deservedly dropped - twice. He now looks unlikely to feature in the Premier League again - not just for Forest, but for any club ever.

People lamely say, 'Oh, well, it doesn't matter - for a back-up keeper, you can take anyone.'  NO - it does matter. Even at that 4.0 level, there are some keepers who are first-in-line to take over if anything happens to their starter. Some of them are quite decent, and might even have a chance of being promoted to the No. 1 spot. They bring some value to your squad; Turner doesn't. In fact, he represents negative value - because there's likely to be a big sell-off when people start to realise how useless an asset he is, and his price will suddenly drop.

If you only look at one stat - you'll make bad choices.  If you look at a stat without understanding what it's showing you - you'll make bad choices.  You need to know something of the history of how last season unfolded as well.

2)  Flekken

Reason:  He's the top-ranked 4.5-million-pound keeper on last year's points returns. But that's not a full reflection of his ability and FPL points potential. And he has horrible opening fixtures.

Flekken was new to the League last season, and he struggled to settle in at first. He improved in the second half of the season; but many analysts still feel he might be at risk of being replaced.

Brentford were in relegation trouble for much of last season, and although that was largely because of a huge injury crisis in their defence and they might bounce back this year, they are essentially a side who are struggling to maintain a lower mid-table ranking.

Most of the other keepers priced at 4.5 million missed a few games to injury last year, or only came in part-way through the season. That's why Flekken ended up with more points than them overall (though he's only 3pts ahead of Areola). They almost all did much better than him on saves-per-game and points-per-game. Flekken conceded 63 goals in the league last season, the second highest of any keeper. He had a terrible delta too; he let in 9 more goals than his xGC of 54 - that's a sign of a poor keeper.

And Brentford have possibly the worst early run of fixtures of any team: even their home opener against Crystal Palace might be tough; and they then face away trips to Liverpool, City and Spurs in GWs 2, 4, and 5.  You really don't want any keeper starting for you in matches like those, where there's a high likelihood of conceding multiple goals.

If you don't carefully compare someone to all the rivals in his position - you'll make bad choices. If you don't work out their relative returns-per-game as well as over the whole season - you'll make bad choices. If you don't check the fixture list - you'll make bad choices.

3)  Konsa

Reason:  Name recognition; recency bias. Konsa got some attention for his performances with resurgent Aston Villa last season. And people remember that he appeared in the Euros (he played one game!).

There are 70 or so defenders available at 4.5 million; and about a third of them are more attractive FPL prospects than Konsa. Thus, his current ownership level of 17.3% is quite baffling, hugely inappropriate.

Villa's defensive record last season wasn't that great: they conceded around 1.6 goals per game. Palace, Everton, Fulham, and even Bournemouth kept more clean sheets. (And, as a central defender, Konsa offers minimal chance of any additional points for attacking contributions.)

If you don't carefully compare someone to all the rivals in his position - you'll make bad choices. If you just plump for a familiar name - you'll make bad choices.

4)  Mainoo

Reason:  Name recogntion, recency bias; club loyalty, patriotic pride, over-enthusiasm about emerging talent.

Yes, Kobbie Mainoo was outstanding for Manchester United in the latter part of last season, and showed a lot of promise for England in his performances at the Euros. He likes to carry the ball forward, and is even capable of getting the occasional goal. That's all very exciting - at least for Manchester United and England; not so much for Fantasy Premier League.

Mainoo is a defensive midfielder, and those just don't tend to produce that many points; not as many anyway, as players who provide plenty of goals and/or assists. Even at his low 5.5-million-pound price-point, there are some hard-working bonus point-magnets like Andreas Perreira, McGinn and Pape Sarr (who also get among the goals a bit more than most players of their type); there are very talented creative players like Smith Rowe, Barkley, Elliott and McNeil; there are numerous goalscoring wingers like Hudson-Odoi, Elanga, Iwobi, Sarabia, Adingra, Kluivert, Harrison and De Cordova-Reid; and even one outright forward, in the unfathomably reclassified Antoine Semenyo. Many - perhaps all - of those will outscore Kobbie Mainoo. So, it's very, very difficult to justify picking him, even if you need a 5.5-million midfielder.

If you choose someone based primarily on recent international performances - you'll make bad choices. If you don't think about how someone's position and style of play will limit their likely points return - you'll make bad choices.

5)  Havertz

Reason:  People see him ranked as the third highest-scoring 'forward' last year.

Very impressive, yes. Except that... perhaps they're forgetting that he was classified as a 'midfielder' in the game last year; so, he got 1 extra point for each of his 13 goals; and a lot more extra points for all of the team clean sheets that he was involved in; and quite possibly a few extra bonus points too. If you take that into consideration, he actually ranks only seventh. 

And a lot of his closest goalscoring rivals - like Isak, Cunha, and Mateta - missed big chunks of the season; most would agree that they look stronger attacking prospects than Havertz.

Admittedly, he didn't play every game either. And he played more as a midfielder for most of the first half of the season. So, it is reasonable to assume that if he continues in the 'false 9' role for the whole of this season, he might score a few more goals. But he'd need 7 or 8 more to equal his points tally of last year - does that really seem likely?

And Arteta, we know, loves to tweak things constantly. There can be no confidence that Havertz would remain in that role for the whole season, or that the team would continue to play in the same style they did last year. So, any projections of his goalscoring returns this year are very, very speculative - fraught with many uncertainties.

In fact, using Havertz as a 'false 9' always felt like an improvised solution, and the club was known to be seeking a new forward throughout the last year. Now, they appear to be close to completing the signing of Viktor Gyokeres from Sporting Lisbon - which will probably mean that Havertz drops back into midfield,... or maybe even ends up on the bench for much of the season.

If you don't take into account how changes in position classification can affect the points return - you'll make bad choices. If you don't take into account possible changes of personnel or tactics at the club - you'll make bad choices.

So, there we have it: my current  Top Five AWFUL Picks in FPL.  I'll share a few other - slightly more surprising - examples soon.