The Great FPL Paradox: the 'best player' is not always the 'best pick'

 

This is perhaps the hardest idea for most Fantasy Football managers to wrap their heads around. 

It seems obvious, surely, that the best players are going to produce the most points; and the players who produce the most points are the ones you want - right??

Well, NO - not necessarily.

1)  The objectively 'best' all-around players may not always have their excellence fully reflected in their Fantasy points returns.

This has generally been particularly true of defenders and defensive midfielders; and that under-rewarding in the FPL points system has only been slightly ameliorated by the introduction of new points for 'defensive contributions' (the number of points available is quite small, the threshold for earning them is too high, and the tallying of the eligible contributions is too obscure and unreliable for them to have all that much impact, or to improve the overall 'fairness' of the scoring system in the game). But it's also true of more creative midfielders who may be great playmakers, but don't produce all that many attacking contributions (the only things that get any direct recognition in the game; pre-assists and pre-pre-assists are often far more skillful and more valuable than the final credited 'assist', but gain no merit). There are some very, very good players who just aren't really worth considering for an FPL squad. If you allow yourself to be swayed by your appreciation of football, by your recognition of a player's talents - rather than his points potential - you will make some misguided selections.

2)  The players who got the most FPL points last year will not necessarily produce the same returns this year.

Ah, people may object, but we're not interested in the unregarded midfield dynamos or tough-as-nails central defenders who hold their teams together without often earning many Fantasy points; we just look at last year's points tallies and pick the guys with the biggest numbers. But, unfortunately, that tends to be a flawed approach too. There can be all sorts of reasons - known (change of club, change of manager, change of tactics, change of surrounding personnel, improvements by key rivals, injury, aging...) or unknown (the 'headspace', form suddenly falls off a cliff for no obvious reason...) - why a player's performance in one season can be much better or worse than it was the season before. Last year's data is a very useful guideline - but it's not definitive or infallible.

3)  And this is the kicker: the players who will get the most points this year... are still not invariably the 'best picks' for the game.

Naive FPL managers often imagine that if they had a time-machine that would allow them to view the year-end player points totals at the start of the season, they could just pick that 'perfect squad' of all the highest points-scorers, and they'd win the global title. But they wouldn't; they probably wouldn't even come all that close. To attain the topmost reaches of the global rankings, you really have to milk more points from every slot in your starting eleven than almost any individual player will earn in the season.

Many of the highest points-scorers, alas, are very patchy, very streaky in their returns: they'll have a few spells of super-hot form but long runs of blanks in between. And it's simply not worth hanging on to those players for extended periods, hoping to catch one of their hot spells - when you could have tried out three or four other players in the meantime, none of whom would have done any worse during the blanking period, and at least one or two of whom (if you correctly recognised when they were coming into good form) could have done substantially better.

Season totals don't necessarily matter: you have to try to maximise your returns for each starting slot by frequently rotating through the players in the hottest form. A player who returns very high season totals and is very consistent in their returns across the season may be worth regarding as a long-term hold; but they are very, very rare (in fact, even Salah or Haaland in their best seasons were not usually worth hanging on to for the entire season).

Moreover, you have to make your picks in the context of the overall selection landscape: you have to weigh up each squad choice in terms of its likely differential advantage over an alternate selection - i.e., how much of a points-lift can you get from this player compared to the next best candidate in his position, or another candidate at a similar price-point across all the positions, or to the other players you might choose from his club?

David Raya is now pretty unarguably the best goalkeeper in the Premier League. But he isn't the best pick for FPL, because he probably won't do that much better than the next best, he's too expensive this year, and you can usually wring more points from a good rotation pair than a single goalkeeper pick (and there are other possible picks from Arsenal that will probably give you more of a points-advantage than him).

Similarly with Gabriel: he is an absolutely awesome defender, probably the best in the league. But for FPL... he's again too expensive this year, and not likely to outscore his cheaper Arsenal teammates this time (his attacking returns will probably be much lower this year; and Calafiori, in particular, offers much more attacking threat, and seems to have a more secure start this year; I'd bet that Timber will too, once he's fit again).

And so too with Bruno Fernandes: he's looking in fabulous form again, he is probably the best all-around midfielder in the league at the moment - and he might well again be the highest-scoring FPL midfielder for the season. But when he's priced at 12 million pounds, the 'opportunity cost' of all the other players you have to do without in order to afford him is probably too much.

The same argument can be made about Erling Haaland; but, although his price-tag is enormous, I feel that his unique differential advantage might yet justify it. He does seem likely to massively outscore any other forward, and if things really go well for him, he might be the one current player with the potential for a 300-point season. However, if it appears that Alex Isak or Joao Pedro could run him close for points returns in the forward category, then he too might become expendable.

NB: All of these players I just name-checked are likely to be the highest points-scorers in their position categories in FPL this year; that doesn't matter. What matters is their relative value to your squad in terms of their advantage over their next-best alternatives, and how much benefit you could reap from spending their fees across the rest of your squad instead.

Be content with 'good enough'

It's impossible not to indulge in a little thrill of schadenfreude, not to gloat just a little bit over the (slightly more than) 1.6 million FPL managers who hazarded their Triple Captain chip on Erling Haaland against Coventry this weekend.

They were, no doubt, hoping for a high double-digit return; and he yielded only a solitary goal (though, in a low-scoring match, that was sufficient to net him all 3 bonus points as well: we must take our consolations where we may). It was particularly frustrating that City had such an off game all around, and that Coventry were suddenly so much better than they'd looked in their two previous outings; and that Haaland actually had some more decent chances, but failed to convert them - he was twice played in by immaculate through-balls from Cherki, but both times slammed his shot too close to the keeper, Carl Rushworth.

It's important to try to keep a sense of perspective in situations like this.

Almost no-one ever manages to average 5.5-6.0 points-per-game over the whole season, and very few players ever exceed a 7.5-8.0 ppg average over any extended run of games, even when they're in blistering form. Even Haaland gets a lot less than 9 points in at least two games out of every three. 

So, that haul was really pretty respectable, well above average. And it was a 'good' return for the Triple Captain chip (75% of the time, it returns little or nothing!!).

People are only disappointed, dissatisfied with this outcome because Bruno Fernandes just got a once-in-a-blue-moon 23-point haul in the previous gameweek (and a lot of people had been fortunate enough to play their Triple Captain on that). Their hopes and expectations were unreasonably inflated by that reminder of what is - very occasionally - possible with the chip; and they felt under pressure to try to make up that ground lost to so many rivals in Gameweek 2.

But you can't allow yourself to think like that. You have to be happy with whatever you get from the 'bonus chips'. Around half the time, your Triple Captain blanks! Not infrequently, he may even return a score of just 1 point or 0 points; cases have been known of a Triple Captain missing a penalty, getting sent off, etc, and actually returning triple negative points. So, you have to be grateful for any return at all; 4 or 5 points is a pretty fair return ('better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick'), and 8 or 9 points is actually quite good. Double-digit returns are a rare freak, and you should be happily surprised if you ever benefit from one; not greedily expecting it to happen.

The 'disappointment' of the Haaland TC-ers this week, though, does give some encouragement to those of us who held off playing that chip. There is a reasonable hope for us of getting a similar or better haul from our TC play, and so making up the ground that those 1.6-million gained on us this week. With Bruno's monster return last week,... we really just had to write that off as unrepeatable, uncatchable; we'll have to try to claw most of that deficit back through our ordinary weekly hauls. It can be done, but it will be a long hard road.

A cruel game, indeed!

"Why you gotta be so mean...?"

A record number of FPL managers punted their first Triple Captain chip on Erling Haaland this weekend, anticipating a goal-fest against the previously dismal promoted team, Coventry City. But this week, Coventry were actually quite good, nearly got something out of the game; and the Lanky Viking failed to convert a few chances you'd usually expect him to put away with casual insolence. He might have had a hattrick - but instead returned only a relatively modest 9 points. Cherki set him up beautifully for his two best chances and might have had 2 assists in the game - but came away with nothing.

Calafiori had a goal disallowed for a teammate's offence, then lost his clean sheet bonus through an uncharacterisic lapse by David Raya,... and got booked: he might have reaped 14 or 15 points from the game, but only came away with 1 point! (Oh, no - apparently he wasn't booked, after all. Well, that's a relief: 2 points!!)

Saka and Palmer both played well without managing to register an attacking contribution and ended up with blanks.

Few teams managed to keep a clean sheet (apart from, improbably, the till now woefully awful Spurs and Villa!).

Yep, all the players that I owned had a misfiring week. I think I've got a pretty good squad; and they all played pretty well this weekend. But they returned a miserable 44 points for me. (Without that goal from Jaden Bogle, I would have been below the gameweek average - wretched thought! Oh god, in fact I was - well under!!!)

So it goes. This is a harsh, brutal, unfair, frustrating game. The only reason we play it, really, is to school our anger management...

This year's EARLY 'Sheep Picks'

I often express my dismay and disappointment that so many FPL managers rush in for the same players - 'sheep picks' based on herd instinct, just following a fad rather than formulating a rationale of one's own.

As I outlined in my annual survey of the pre-season selection landscape over the past couple of days (Pt. 1: Goalkeepers and Defenders, Pt. 2: Midfielders and Forwards), we have an unusually broad selection of tempting options this year, with probably at least 80-100 players worthy some consideration for the initial squad. 

Given that breadth of choice, no-one should be above 50% ownership (there are strong arguments to be made against the premium options in each position category: Haaland, Fernandes, Gabriel, and Raya), and really only a handful should be much above 10%. And yet... currently, 16 players have been selected by more than 20% of managers, and a further 27 have more than 10% ownership; and many of these are not the players who should be the most selected! In the online environment today, people assume that what a lot of other people seem to be doing must be right; when, as often as not, it's quite the reverse.

When I saw the snapshot above of the currently 'most selected' starting eleven, I thought to myself: 'If you have more than 3 or 4 of those, you're being severely unimaginative. If you have more than about 6, you're probably not going to do very well.'

The 2026-27 Pre-Season 'Sheep Picks'

Oh, where to start?? There are so many this year!!

As I reasoned last week, there is a strong - just about overwhelming - case for Haaland, whatever his price, because his points-potential is so much higher than any other forward's. But in that same post I argued that Bruno Fernandes and Gabriel (and David Raya too) are simply too expensive. They had exceptional seasons last year, and it would be unrealistic to suppose that they can produce similar or greater returns this year; on the contrary, there are good reasons to expect that their points totals this time will be substantially lower. They might indeed start the season very strongly, they might well again be the top points-returners in their positions, their owners are unlikely to be dissatisfied with them; but they won't do quite as well as last year - and hence, even if they do claim the top of their position rankings again, the gap to the next best isn't likely to be all that much. You pay a big premium for a player to gain a substantial differential advantage, an expectation of a sizeable points-lift over their closest position rival; Haaland always offers that - the other three don't. These premium-price players are just about 'affordable', but probably only at the cost of going a bit light somewhere else in your squad. And it just doesn't seem worth it - when there are keepers 1-million pounds cheaper than Raya, defenders 2.5-3.0-million pounds cheaper than Gabriel, and midfielders 5.0-6.0-million pounds cheaper than Bruno Fernandes.... who might do very nearly as well.

[And even with Haaland, there is an argument that one might wait-and-see on him for a week or two. As he returned to training so late this year, he's unlikely to be fully sharp straight away, and might get quite short minutes in the first few games.]

Joao Pedro is a justifiable forward choice - but not such an obviously superior option as to merit more-than-60% ownership! Managers are getting a bit carried away by his glut of goals in pre-season. It's always nice for strikers to get their confidence up by finding the net regularly; but pre-season form rarely carries over into the start of the regular season (your granny could probably score a goal in some of these half-pace practice games). For me, he's probably going to be a little way behind Alexander Isak and Igor Thiago as the most consistent 2nd forward pick, after Haaland.

Antoine Semenyo is a player I appreciate in the real world, but am lukewarm about in Fantasy: his returns tend to be a bit up-and-down; and he often plays well without producing any FPL points. And with City currently looking so flakey in their Maresca transition period, I'd probably avoid any of their players - maybe even Haaland?! - for a few weeks until things start settling down for them. And I feel he was operating near the top of his envelope last time; he's another one like Bruno Fernandes who isn't likely to improve on last year's total, and might well come up quite a bit short of it. Also like Bruno - and Declan Rice - he was somewhat flattered by the dearth of points from other midfielders last year; even with a similar points total, he might be well outside the Top 5 midfield points-returners this season. Also, although 8.5-million isn't a particularly high price, it is this year in relative terms - because so few players have been given a high price this time: only 3 midfield players are more expensive than Semenyo, and no-one else is priced with him in the 8.5 tier; there are 9 players priced 0.5 or 1.0 million cheaper; and there are nearly 60 more players priced from 1.5-2.5 million cheaper - several of whom you might fancy to do nearly as well as Semenyo this time, if not a little better. (And of course, when they're that much cheaper, they don't actually have to do better than him to be preferable picks.)

Pedro Porro and Riccardo Calafiori always excite us with their attacking threat; and they almost invariably disappoint our early optimism about them. The new-look Spurs will probably take a while to find their feet, so I'm wary of taking any of their players from the start of the season. (The same argument, of course, applies to Antonin Kinsky and Martin Dubravka, currently the second and third most popular goalkeeper picks; as I mentioned yesterday, they are an appealingly cheap pairing - but it's almost always worth paying that half a million extra for a pair of starting keepers; and people who've gone for non-playing Dubravka without Kinsky ahead of him.... are just pissing 4-million quid away for nothing.)  Calafiori, as well as being worryingly injury-prone, seems to drift in and out of favour with Arteta. Timber, due back in training any day now, might well be preferred to him immediately at left-back (and indeed, Hincapie sometimes was last season); and they've just acquired Konsa as an additional option at right-back. I'm a big fan of Calafiori; but I'm not convinced that Arteta is, and I'm not confident he'll get a long run of starts. Luke Shaw is another super-popular defensive pick at the moment, presumably because he's so generously priced at 4.5 million. But his age, his injury record, and the fact that the club have been trying to buy a replacement for him this summer all counsel caution; I wouldn't be suprised to see Dalot or Mazraoui starting ahead of him at left-back. (While De Ligt and Martinez are out of commission, it seems likely that Ayden Heaven will be starting alongside Maguire in the opening games; he could be an attractive alternative for a cheap representative in the United defence.)

Virgil Van Dijk... is getting old. He was often looking so slow and erratic last season that there was a serious danger he might be dropped - or would have been, if Liverpool had any cover in central defence! He only ended up with a good overall points total because of his exceptionally good attacking returns, not his defensive performance; and that really was a bit of a freak, far more than he'd managed in any previous season (and such melee goals from set-pieces are likely to be much less common this season, as refs tighten up on grappling in the box, and defences get better at reading the set routines). Liverpool will probably be quite defensively solid most of the time, and keep a decent number of clean sheets; and Virgil will probably do quite well on the 'defcon' points, when opponents do manage to put them under a bit of pressure. But I'd expect his points return this time to be a fairly middling 140-160 - simply not worth that huge 6.5-million price-tag.

I said yesterday in my review of the forward options that the sudden enthusiasm for Dominic Calvert-Lewin is quite baffling. He had one moderately good (not brilliant) and mostly (not entirely) injury-free season last year - for the first-time ever. There's no compelling reason to assume he can pull that off again; and even if he can, he's not that strong a pick, even in his price category; in fact, I'd rate him towards the bottom of the 6-million-pound forward options. When a player who doesn't merit a 5% ownership is up nearer 30%, the odour of sheep-shit is heavy in the air.

I like Morgan Rogers as a player; but as an FPL asset, he's severely unconvincing. He's posted decent - but not outstanding - season totals over his two years at Villa; but those seasons were both characterised by a few brief bursts of high-scoring and long runs of blanks. It's not obvious how he'll fit into the set-up at Chelsea (I'd like to see Enzo Fernandez leave, to 'make room' for him), and he might not immediately be a regular starter; and even if he is, he'll probably take a little while to settle in. If we're only going for one Chelsea midfielder,.... it's likely to be Palmer that claims that spot.

At the moment, with City looking so disorganised at the back in the Community Shield last weekend, and there being so much uncertainty about the preferred defensive lineup under the new manager, we really shouldn't be taking any of their defenders in the initial squad. Nico O'Reilly hasn't looked in great form since the end of last season, and is quite likely to be displaced at left-back by fit-again Josko Gvardiol; but if he isn't, Gvardiol will surely play instead in the centre-back pair, at the expense of Marc Guehi. And yet, by some strange logic, O'Reilly and Guehi are currently the most popular defensive picks from City, with massive ownership levels. Until we know that they are regular starters - and that City aren't going to leak goals every week, like they just did in Cardiff - they shouldn't be in anybody's squad!

Declan Rice has nearly 20% ownership, young Greek winger Christos Tzolis is at 19%, and newly signed defender Ezri Konsa is at 16% and on the rise. This is presumably a response to how formidable Arsenal looked in the Community Shield this year. But Rice didn't make much impact in that game (having come on at half-time for a limping Guimaraes), and after carrying an injury all summer and looking seriously fatigued for England, he seems likely to be out of action or given rationed minutes for at least the first game or two; and anyway, his rate of returns, though fairly consistent, just isn't high enough to warrant long-term inclusion in an FPL squad (it was only that consistency that got him such a high final ranking last year, that and the fact that all of the leading creative/goalscoring midfielders had horrible seasons; he was rarely in the Top 5, or even the Top 10 midfielders over any short run of games; and I think he's unlikely to be in the Top 10 overall at the end of this season). Tzolis has looked very lively in pre-season, but there's no guarantee that that form will translate into Premier League performance; indeed, there's no guarantee that he'll be an immediate or invariable starter (it's a concern to me that the left-wing position is the only slot in the Arsenal team that isn't nailed-down to an obvious first-choice starter - and thus has to be used to give token minutes to all of the back-up players, just enough to keep them 'happy'; not just the specialist wingers, Martinelli and Madueke, but also Jesus and Eze, and even perhaps Havertz or Guimaraes, on occasion; thus, even if Tzolis does immediately get the nod as the preferred starter there, I can't see him playing every week). And folks are now getting very excited about Konsa being a 'cheap route' into the Arsenal defence!!  But is he going to start - ever??? I can't see how; he looks like back-up to the back-up to me. He's only a makeshift right-back, and he doesn't look nearly as good as Mosquera at centre-back (or as good as White or Calafiori or Timber, who can also play that position). And Bruno Guimaraes, likewise, is surely destined to be a back-up rather than a regular starter. He's got excellent value as a utility player, versatile enough to deputise ably for Rice, Zubimendi, or Odegaard - but he's not actually better than any of those three in their particular roles. (Many Arsenal fans have grown disgruntled with Odegaard in the past couple of seasons, and were assuming that Bruno would immediately displace him. That never seemed likely to me, since Odegaard is very tight with Arteta, and plays a crucial role in organising the implementation of his coach's tactical instructions on the pitch; in that, he's probably become pretty much irreplaceable - at least in Arteta's eyes - even if his performance-level had tanked; but he was clearly back to his very best in the Community Shield - so Bruno is surely going to be bench-warming as soon as Rice is fully fit again.)

Illiman Ndiaye is another player I really like, but he had a pretty underwhelming season last year, in large part because David Moyes kept shunting him around to different positions, rather than regularly starting him in his preferred left-wing slot; and also, perhaps, because there was no regular - or reliable - forward playing in front of him. I don't see that changing this year. In fact, I rather fear that Everton 'over-performed' last year, and might slump into relegation trouble again this time. There are a lot of good midfield options at 6.0-million this year, and Ndiaye doesn't really look to be the most promising of them.

Issa Diop and Milan van Ewijk are way out in front as the most popular 'budget' defender options. But if you go without one or more of the premium picks, it shouldn't be difficult to find an extra half million to spend on your 5th defender - so that you can actually get someone decent,... rather than someone who's likely to ship 80-100 goals over the season!! Even if you do insist on having a 4.0-million-pound player to stretch your budget, I'd rather have Coventry's Bobby Thomas.

Meanwhile, Pascal Gross and Enzo Le Fée are the two most popular 'budget' midfielders - why? There are so many more tempting (and also temptingly cheap) midfielders at Brighton alone! Gross is now 35, and has surely been reacquired more for dressing-room 'influence' than for regular starts. Le Fée is a decent player, but there are at least half a dozen other options in that price-bracket who should be getting more attention.

So, good grief, that's at least two-thirds of the Top 30 or so current picks who are at least rather dubious, if not outright bonkers choices!!!

Possible Picks - 2026 [Pt. 2]

 

Following on from yesterday's post on the most promising goalkeeper and defender picks for the season ahead, I'll now try to provide a survey of the best prospects in midfield and attack. 

Midfielders

Bruno Fernandes is by far the most popular midfield pick at the moment, with an ownership of very nearly 50% - despite his eye-watering price-tag of 12 million pounds. Although there's not enough 'budget pressure' this year to make him strictly unaffordable, my feeling is that he's not 'worth' that price, when there are several others in that position who might do nearly as well as him for 4 or 5 million less. I think he's unlikely to do quite as well as last year, and might come up shy of 200 points; he might again be the top midfield points-scorer, but it won't be by that much of a margin this year. It's non-ideal to take more than one player per club in any one position, so there's quite a lot of competiiton for a slot from Manchester United. I would favour Mbeumo, who is probably the most nailed starter and an out-and-out goalscorer. Cunha (a little incnosistent, and might be a minutes-risk), Diallo (will probably mostly get minutes off the bench) and Dorgu (unfortunately reclassified as a 'midfielder' this year, which greatly reduces his possible points return) might all be worth having when they enjoy a run of regular starts and a nice spell of form, but Mbeumo is the more promising long-term choice.

From Liverpool, it's a toss-up between Szoboszlai and Wirtz. It looks as if Szobo is going to be played a bit deeper this year, as a 'second pivot' alongside Gravenberch; but he'll still have plenty of opportunities to push forward into the attack when they enjoy sustained spells of possession, and he's a major threat from set-pieces. Wirtz, as an advanced '10' and occasional box-crasher, should be the more regular source of attacking returns, but many might still have doubts about his consistency after the difficulties he had settling in last year. A steady drip of extra points for 'defensive contributions' and bonus points might swing the dial in Szobo's favour; I think he'd certainly get the nod if he were the designated penalty-taker too, but I'd guess that's probably going to be Isak.

Arsenal's midfield isn't very attractive because it has become so unproductive in recent years: a scant 71 goals last year, and so many of those coming from scrums at corners. On the plus side, that is going to have to change this year - so, we might see substantially more goals from them this time, more goals from open play, more goals from midfield. However, at the start of the season, I think they're all a bit too much of an unknown quantity to be gambling on. The arrival of Bruno Guimaraes has created some selection uncertainty (I doubt very much if he'll be an immediate starter, but he's a great utility option: versatile enough to deputise ably for Rice, Zubimendi, or Odegaard, though not quite as good as any of them at their specialist styles of play); Odegaard was outstanding in the Community Shield, but has had two very subdued seasons, which is causing many to continue to doubt him (and even to question his future with the club - although I think that's nonsense); Rice isn't worth having for his defensive points alone (his season haul last year, though it ranked him as the 4th best midfielder, was not quite enough to merit long-term inclusion in an FPL squad, and probably wouldn't have been enough to put him in the Top 10 in most years); Tzolis has looked impressive in pre-season, but that may not count for anything, and there is a huge doubt over his minutes (the left-wing position is the only slot in the squad that's not fairly well nailed, so it has to be used to give minutes to most of the back-up players: not just Martinelli and Madueke and Jesus, but also potentially Eze and Havertz, on occasion). Saka is the only Arsenal attacking player who carries a really high points-threat, but... there's still a question-mark over his fitness, as he was only given a run-out for the last half-hour in the Community Shield on Sunday.

Palmer might be worth a punt at Chelsea; he is the best goalscoring playmaker in the league, but his confidence might be dented after a couple of very difficult seasons, and it might take a while for a new style of play to take shape under Alonso. Rogers is a wait-and-see; he has great potential, but is also worryingly inconsistent - goes 'quiet' for long periods; and he's not guaranteed an immediate start (they really need to sell Neto or Enzo Fernandez to make room for him). Estevao could be a tempting option, but probably only for short runs of games - when he hits hot form and/or the fixture run looks especially favourable.

Semenyo is the most popular option from City at the moment: I have doubts about his consistency of output - to me, he's always looked like a player who relishes the limelight, who wants the responsibility of being the prime creative force in the team; obviously that's not often going to be the case at City, and so, last season, he tended to blow hot and cold in his FPL returns. But he's probably worth gambling on, in case he starts the season hot. My preference would have been for Doku, but he's got a calf-strain and is a doubtful starter for the opening weekend. Cherki and Foden are too inconsistent, and too uncertain of regular minutes to gamble on for Gameweek 1, and no-one else at The Etihad is very tempting; Anderson, like Rice, isn't worth having for defensive points alone - and he won't get nearly as many of those at City as he did for Forest, anyway.

Gibbs-White is the other tempting option in the upper mid-price range, although Forest are again likely to be down in the bottom third, and his 8-million asking price this year is, I think, just a little bit excessive. Things might take a while to settle down under Glasner, and they have a lot of tricky fixtures over the opening few months. He has a 12% ownership at the moment, but for me he's another wait-and-see.

There's a huge amount of value to be found in the 5.5-6.5 price range this year: Schade, Ouattara, Damsgaard, Lewis-Potter, and Janelt at Brentford (and perhaps also Jaidon Anthony, after he joined from Burnley; although he's likely to be rotated with Ouattara), Tavernier, Rayan, and Kluivert at Bournemouth, Okafor, Aaronson, Wilson, Ampadu, and Stach at Leeds (a pity about the selection uncertainties this abundance of talent creates!), McGinn, Buendia, and - most excitingly, when he gets fit again - Manzambi at Villa, Le Fee and Talbi at Sunderland, Mitoma, Ayari, Hinshelwood, Gomez, and Gross at Brighton, Sarr and Pino at Palace, Kudus (although he's suffered a serious muscle injury this summer and looks set to be out for a while), Maddison, and Tel at Spurs, Ndiaye and Dewsbury-Hall at Everton, Iwobi and Smith Rowe and Bobb and Kevin at Fulham (though probably not until GW6, as they have one of the most daunting batches of early fixtures!), Barnes or Ramsey, or perhaps the newly-arrived Bamba or Touré at Newcastle, Hudson-Odoi or Ndoye at Forest, and maybe, maybe even Fatawu or Enciso of Ipswich or Tchaouna or Hamer of Coventry. I think everyone should be taking at least two or three of these. And it's quite possible that five or more of them will out-perform all the more expensive picks over the first few weeks of the season!

This wealth of talent at the budget end of the midfield category is the reason there's no acute 'budget pressure' this year. If we load up on these guys, we can easily afford at least two - perhaps even all three - of the 'super-premium' players. I just don't think that Gabriel and Bruno Fernandes are sufficiently compelling options.

Forwards

The big question in FPL at the moment is not so much whether we want Haaland (of course we do; however dodgy City's form might be under Maresca, especially early in the season, he's the only forward who looks clearly capable of getting well over 200 points, and he might even be able to reach 300 in a really good season; no-one else is anywhere near that potential) as whether we want him now. He only returned to training in the middle of last week, and was pulled off shy of the hour in Cardiff on Sunday (although that looked like it was prompted by an excess of caution, rather than because he was too tired to continue). I don't have too many concerns about his physical fitness, but I do think he might get short-ish minutes in the first few games, and might take a little while to recover his full sharpness. I said last week that I don't like the risk of being caught out by a sudden price-rise on him if all the fence-sitters suddenly come in for him in a rush (his ownership level has already fallen back slightly to 70% this week, and might dip lower; it will jump back to 75-80% the moment he scores his first goal!); and I don't like the idea of committing transfers - possibly even the Wildcard - to such a major squad restructuring (as would be required to bring him in) so early in the season. I think we just have to commit to him - or not - and accept that he might miss a game or two, or be well short of his best in the opening month.

The other big conundrum is whether Isak can regain his best form - and stay fit all season (he has been worryingly injury-prone all through his career). At least he's got no competition for a place at the moment, with Gakpo said to be heading out the door imminently and Ekitike facing a protracted rehabilitation after his Achilles injury in April. I would say Isak is certainly the strongest alternative to Haaland, if you want to try going without the big Viking - and probably the strongest second forward pick; although Thiago, Calvert-Lewin and Joao Pedro are currently more popular options. For me, the Brentford man is much the strongest of those three, although his early fixture run doesn't look that inviting. Joao Pedro is a brilliant player, but not an outright centre-forward; for me, he doesn't really seem to thrive in that role, and has blown very hot and cold during his difficult first season at Chelsea (indeed, I wouldn't be that surprised to see the club try to acquire a proper No. 9, and start using JP more as a '10'; they were rumoured to be sniffing after Osimhen). Calvert-Lewin had his first decent season ever last year - and it still wasn't that great; he has a long history of being both physically and mentally fragile, very injury-prone and woefully inconsistent; and he's got fairly strong competition for the start in Nmecha and Piroe. For me, he's not even the best option at the 6.0 price-point: Brobbey, Osula, Rutter (though less appealing now that he's been categorised as a forward rather than a midfielder), Igor Jesus, Richarlison, and Evanilson all look much stronger picks to me (especially the first two: Brobbey was sensational at the World Cup, and surely now ought to be a nailed starter with Sunderland; and Osula finished the season so strongly with Newcastle that he too surely ought to be geting a settled start now); and Solanke, if he could stay fit, and Wissa, if he could recover his best Brentford form, and perhaps also Fulham's Spanish youngster Gonzalo Garcia might also come into consideration at some point. Coventry's Haji Wright might have been an interesting possibility too; but he, apparently, has a serious thigh-muscle injury that might keep him out for a few months.

I initially forgot to mention Sesko and Gyokeres at all. I think they'll probably come into consideration at some point, but they're just too expensive to consider for the initial squad - given Sesko's unfortunate record of being repeatedly injured, and not trusted with a regular start even when fit last season, and Arsenal's unfortunate recent record of just not being very prolific goal-scorers. And after the Community Shield last week, there may be a suspicion that Kai Havertz has again become Arteta's favoured starter up top.

It's going to be a great season: anything could happen!

GOOD LUCK!!!

The annual conundrum!

 

Every year..... we face this challenge at the start of a new FPL season that our favourite players, who were expensive last year, are even more expensive this year - and seem 'overpriced', perhaps unaffordable.

Last year, at least, only Haaland and Salah were priced at a 'super-premium' level, and I warned in an early post that, the way their two teams were going into the season, it looked unlikely that either of them would have a particularly good year,... and might end up with quite a disappointing one (although I did not anticipate quite how spectacularly Mo Salah's farewell season would fall apart).

Because last year was so epically low-scoring (one of the worst in the game's history; in fact, the worst for midfielders), and because, as yet, no major new talents have transferred in during the current trading window, we are really short of elite-level points-prospects in the game. And hence the top performers in each of the three outfield position categories have been especially aggressively overpriced this year - to the point where, in most years, we'd just accept that they were unacceptably priced, 'priced out' of consideration altogether, and we'd have to find ways of making do without them.

But, as I mentioned the other day, there's such a shortage of obviously 'high value' players in the game at the moment that budget pressure doesn't really seem that acute. In most previous years, there have been so many 'premium' and 'super-premium' players that we'd all probably want, we obviously couldn't have them all - and we had some tough choices to make. This year, with only three to tempt us, it's not that difficult to accommodate them all without leaving the rest of the squad hopelessly weak (although you are probably going to have to overlook a lot of tempting picks in the mid-price range, and leave yourself with a dangerously light bench). And squeezing in one, maybe even two of them, really isn't a bother at all. In the past, it usually would have been; but this year it's not.

But, although we might not face an immediate crisis of simply not being able to afford them, they are, I think, so grotesquely overpriced that we should still hesitate over whether to buy them - any of them. And my instinct is that we should probably only pick one of the three.

I've seen a lot of misguided logic applied to this question - of which, if any, of the three 'super-premiums' to pick for the start of the season - on the online forums over the last few weeks. The commonest line has been that Fernandes is cheaper than Haaland, and thus provides better value-for-money.

There might be something in the idea that if you want to spread more money around the rest of the squad, going without Haaland might give you an edge there. But it's only a very small one. Haaland is a whopping 6.5 million more expensive than the second highest-priced forward option this year, Isak; and there are only six other pretty decent forwards priced within 8 million of him. The two next highest-priced midfielders after Fernandes are still a substantial 2.5 million pounds cheaper; but there are 118 midfielders - some of them really rather appealing FPL prospects - priced between 6 and 7 million pounds cheaper than him. So, although the price gap is scarily big with Haaland, there isn't really that much competition for his place; with Bruno, there is - there are a lot of other players to choose from in midfield, at much lower prices.

The key thing here is that your 'super-premium' players never give value-for-money in pure points-per-pound terms (Salah's record-breaking season was arguably an exception - but a unique one!); and so you have to evaluate them on completely different criteria from most of your initial squad picks. Their absolute cost (not just their price itself, but the consequent 'opportunity cost' in how far you might be going short in other areas of your squad) is one part of it; but, as I just said above, I don't think that's really in play this year, because there are so few players at high price-points now (and the ones there are didn't show any convincing form last season, for one reason or another) that budget pressure isn't particularly acute. 

No, the main thing you have to consider is the absolute points advantage they offer you over the next best options in their position category.

Haaland - who had a pretty so-so year, really, given what he's capable of when everything clicks for him and his team - was 58 points ahead of the next best forward, and nearly 100 points ahead of the 5th best. And it's not unreasonable to hope that he might do at least a little better this year. He really looks as though he has the capacity to return a 250-point season with relative ease; and he's the only current player who looks like he could potentially have a 300-point season in him.

Fernandes - who had a really outstanding year, his second-best ever (and is really unlikely to surpass that, or even get all that close to it again) - still finished narrowly behind Haaland in the overall ranking, and only 33 points ahead of the next best midfielder, Semenyo; and 55 points ahead of the 5th best (barely half the margin that Haaland had). And this in a year when almost all the usual highest-returning midfielders had dreadful years due to injuries or whatever....  It is almost certain that Bruno Fernandes will do a little less well (perhaps quite a lot less well) this year, and that several other competitors in that position category will at least get close to him. I'd be surprised if at least one or two don't out-perform him this year. Maybe.... someone like Szoboszlai, who's priced 5.5 million pounds cheaper!

Fernandes was performing near the top of his envelope last year. And Haaland wasn't; nowhere near. So, the potential at least is there for Haaland to do much better this year, while it would be extremely unlikely for Fernandes even to equal last season's total. Quite apart from the statistical improbability of performing near your absolute theoretical peak two years in a row, our Bruno, bless him, is aging: he turns 32 shortly - and at this age, your physical performance can drop off a cliff at any moment. Even if he does manage to sustain excellent levels of fitness and sharpness for a few more years, it is pretty much certain that his very best years are now behind him. Moreover, it's always seemed to me that Bruno is a player who thrives on disaster: he plays his best when the team around him is terrible - he really digs deep to try to carry the whole damn team, and often he manages to pull it off. That was happening for much of last season, with many other key players injured, Sesko not being trusted with a regular start, and Cunha and Mbeumo struggling to fit in, never quite regaining the sensational form they'd shown with their previous clubs the year before. If things all start coming together under Carrick, these other star performers will start taking the limelight, and Bruno can lapse into a more supporting role. I still expect him to have an excellent season, and very likely be United's highest points-scorer again (although I have a suspicion it might be Mbeumo this year; or perhaps even Dorgu, if he gets a regular start on the wing); but he won't be the prime/sole driving force behind their success, as he was for so much of last season. And so.... he might have an excellent season without breaking 200 points this time.

In my judgement, then, Haaland might do even better than last season; and, since there isn't much competition in the forward position at the moment (unless Isak recovers his best Newcastle form and manages to stay fit all season and doesn't suffer any rotation with Ekitike or Gakpo - all of which seem like pretty big ifs), he's pretty much certain to again be the highest-scoring forward and quite likely to outscore his closest positional rival by at least 30-40 points, quite possibly more than twice that much. While Fernandes is likely to do at least a little worse than last season, might not even be the highest-scoring midfielder this time, and it's unlikely to be by all that much of a margin even if he is.

On that basis, it looks like you'd be paying a 4 or 5-million-pound premium for Bruno Fernandes for.... little or nothing. While for Haaland, you're paying the extra 6 or 8 million for a very substantial - really unique! - differential advantage in the forward position category. And that..... is almost certainly worth it.

And Gabriel?? Well, I don't see much of an argument there. No, he's not going to be worth it this season.

He's priced at 8 million because he had an exceptional season, he got a significant lift to his points total through the newly introduced 'defensive points', all of his defensive peers at Arsenal missed chunks of time with injuries, and all of the other top clubs had pretty poor years, and his other closest rivals in the defensive rankings (Tarkowski, Senesi, Lacroix, Truffert, Mukiele, etc.) were all playing for mid-table teams who had rather up-and-down seasons. I don't see any of those things happening again. And frankly, in the past, I've hesitated to buy even an attacking-contributions monster like Alexander-Arnold or Cancelo when they've been priced at 7 million or more; 8 million, for a defender, is just stupid. I'm not sure that I fancy any of the 6.5 or 6.0 options in that position all that much this year!

Like Bruno Fernandes, he had a gap last year of 30 or more points over his closest positional rivals. But, exactly like with Bruno Fernandes, I doubt if he's going to do that well again, and it's reasonable to expect that at least some of his rivals might do a lot better this time. This is not to say anything against Gabriel: I'd say he is - arguably, at least - the best defender in the Premier League at the moment. And Arsenal are likely to be, once more, the best defensive team in the league. He is quite likely to again be the No. 1 ranked defender in FPL this year. But.... it's not a racing certainty; and it's not likely to be by a massive margin. For me, both of those things need to be true for him to be worth even 7.0 or 6.5 million, let alone 8.0 million!

Last year was a freakish season for him. 19 clean sheets?! Surely not going to be quite that good again. Tons of defensive points?! That was because Arsenal were actually quite ropey at the start of the season, and then had another big wobble approaching the final run-in; if they play better, if they play consistently to their true potential - players like Gabriel (and Zubimendi and Rice, and the other defenders) won't be nearly as busy defensively this season. 8 attacking contributions?! (Only 3 goals in that; I'd thought it had been more!) Again, not likely to be repeated. The rule-change allowing referees to penalise jostling fouls before a set-piece is delivered will greatly reduce the effectiveness of set-piece routines for nicking goals, which Arsenal relied on so heavily last year. No doubt new tactical ideas can be worked out which don't rely on unfair wrestling prior to the kick, but... they're unlikely to be quite so productive. And even without this sea-change in the rules environment, Gabi had been becoming rather too obviously the almost invariable target man for Arsenal's set-pieces. Opposing teams would have got better at defending his threat, and Arsenal would have had to start varying things up a lot to maintain their effectiveness at converting set-piece opportunities.

So, I can see Gabi and Arsenal again dominating the defensive numbers this season, and him being very probably the best individual FPL defender. But I doubt if he'll get above 200 points again; maybe not above 180. And he won't beat his closest rivals by all that much. Which, when he's priced at 2.5 million more than most of them,.... he needs to.

So, my summary position on the Super-Premiums Conundrum for this season is:

Haaland - YES: almost certainly going to be 'essential', because he's the only current player with a proven potential for regular returns well over 200 points per season. It's 'worth' paying pretty much whatever they're asking for such a unique advantage in the game - particularly when none of the other forward options look very convincing to return even three-quarters of Haaland's points.

Fernandes - PROBABLY NOT: unlikely to do quite as well as last season, and unlikely to have a very substantial advantage, if any at all, over the next best in his position. (He might, indeed, be outscored by his United teammates Mbeumo, Cunha, or Dorgu; or they might at least get fairly close to him, for much less money - so, he could be ruled out on club quota, as well as 'value' for money.)

Gabriel - DEFINITELY NOT: won't do nearly as well as last season, and has no obvious massive advantage over his own cheaper teammates, or the 'best of the rest' in the defender category, many of whom are 2.5 or 3.0-million pounds cheaper.

Of course, fans of these players or their clubs, or FPL managers who've included these players in their early drafts, will take these opinions very much amiss. I'm sorry: it's nothing personal. It's just.... common sense.

Does it 'matter' this year??

 

The traditional curtain-raiser to the new season, the Community Shield, kicks off this Sunday afternoon (though, for some reason, it's in Cardiff rather than London this year?!).  I've said before that in recent years, the two participants have been tending to take this game much more seriously than in the past, treating it as a valuable final warm-up - much more competitive than any of the other pre-season games - and as an opportunity to establish an early psychological edge over a rival. That is particularly the case, of course, when the two teams - the winners of last year's League and FA Cup trophies - are the likely frontrunners for this year's league title. That doesn't always happen; but this year, Arsenal and Manchester City are indeed the two favourites to become the Premier League Champions of 2027 - so, there's a lot to play for: this could be a 'dry run' for this season's title chase.

And for us FPL enthusiasts, we could see - for the first (and only!) time in pre-season - some reliable indications of the preferred lineups, and the likely early form of these teams and players.

There is particular curiosity - anxiety - about what part Erling Haaland may play in the game. He only finally returned to training from his extended post-World Cup holiday in the last few days, and so it may be doubtful if he's able to take part at all. If he doesn't feature, or gets only very short minutes. there will be major concerns that he might not be ready to play in City's opening league game against Bournemouth, at The Etihad next Sunday. And, since he costs a whopping 15.5 million quid in the game this year, that might prompt a lot of people to go without him in Gameweek 1, feeling that they should use some of that huge chunk of budget on a forward who's more certain to contribute a full 90 minutes.

The problem with this is, of course, that because Haaland is so much more expensive than every other player (3.5 million more than this year's only other 'super-premium', Bruno Fernandes; 6.5 million more than the second most expensive forward, Alexander Isak), you can't very well put all of that extra budget to use if you're only expecting to go without him for one or two weeks; you need to be swapping him for one other expensive player, and leaving the considerable surplus in the kitty (unless you're also committed to using your 1st Wildcard straight away, so you can make multiple changes to the squad when you bring him in). Well, you could also wait a few weeks, and save up transfers - or even take a few hits - so that you could bring him in alongside multiple other changes, and thus have all, or at least most, of the initial budget put to work in your selection. But we rarely have that luxury to use transfers at will early in the season; there are usually large numbers of forced changes thrust on us through early injuries, or players being in terrible form or just unexpectedly dropped.

I have a further concern that unless his ownership level is very high (it's currently at 73.5%, which, I fear, is not quite high enough - and it might drop a little from this peak if there are major worries about whether he's going to start next week), there's a danger of being caught out by a price rise. It will be difficult to anticipate when the fence-sitters decide to come in for him, and there might be a sudden jump in price,... perhaps even during that opening weekend (especially if he scores a brace off the bench in that first match!!); and that might happen while many of us are asleep.... At the start of the season, a shortfall of even 100k in your budget can be a massive inconvenience, because most of us are maxed out on our spending on the initial squad, and most the price-steps are still at the original 500k minimum intervals; hence, a single price movement can leave you unable to afford everyone at a particular price-point (and perhaps unable to afford anyone at all, if you want to offload a 4.0-million-pound 'budget enabler'). If Haaland's initial ownership level is up around 80%, I think we'd be fairly well insulated from that danger, because there's always a substantial minority of naysayers who just don't like him (or, more likely, don't like City), or have obstinately committed to doing without him for the season to use the budget elsewhere; so, even if he were to score a hattrick off the bench against Bournemouth, the number of new managers coming in for him should be relatively modest; and when the starting ownership level is that vast, you need really huge numbers of purchasers to move the price-dial any further - it becomes just about impossible. But if the ownership number is down around 70% or even lower,.... I think I'd take the chance on having him from the get-go. 

This is really no different to any other gameweek; there's always a chance that Haaland is going to miss a start here or there, after picking up a minor knock, catching a cold, or just getting rested before a big European game. This is why you have a decent 3rd forward - someone you won't start every week, someone you might hardly use at all, but someone who'll hopefully give you fairly decent points whenever you do need to use him.

Moreover, I don't like the idea of committing to transfers - let alone multiple transfers or a possible early Wildcard - just to bring in a key player for a particular gameweek. At the start of the season we are facing so many uncertainties: lots of players go down with injuries ('trying too hard' while not yet fully match-fit), lineups get unsettled by arrivals or departures during the transfer window, some teams or players are mysteriously out-of-form while others may be unexpectedly super-hot. We very often have to make multiple transfers - or reach for that early Wildcard - anyway, without having made 'plans' to bring in Haaland a week or two late.

But if the big Viking gets a decent run-out on Sunday and looks sharp,... this will all be moot: he'll be in at least 80% of teams by next Friday!

[I have moved to Danang for this weekend - purely because it is reputed to be the one place in Vietnam with a few decent sports bars where I might be able to watch the game... Fingers crossed! Since bloody TNT Sports acquired the rights to the game last year, we don't even get highlights on BBC or ITV any more.]

[So, Haaland started, and played about an hour: not fully sharp, but no real issue with his fitness. The bigger concern arises from the rest of his team: everybody else looked miles off it - even Donnarumma - and they're clearly still struggling to get to grips with Maresca's desired style of play. They have so many excellent players that I imagine things will start clicking for them fairly soon, but.... they're looking a very dodgy prospect for the opening few games of the season.

The weirdest and most worrying aspect of yesterday's unexpectedly one-sided Community Shield was that while Arsenal fielded what was largely a 'B team' (no Rice, Zubimendi, Saka, Gyokeres, Timber, Saliba....), City, with the exception of Kovacic, were putting out something much closer to a full-strength side, pretty much what we might expect them to start with against Bournemouth. Ouch.]

How pricing works in FPL

 

It is a mistake to suppose that the initial pricings in each new FPL season are a reliable measure of a player's value, his likely points return.

For managers new to the game, it serves as a reasonably reliable guide to who the best points-prospects are - but it's not infallible. And it's certainly not finely-tuned, not a precise correlation to likely points return: the most expensive players simply do not provide 'value for money' on a points-per-pound basis; the 'premium' and 'super-premium' players are lifted beyond that consideration and have to be evaluated on other criteria.

It is also a mistake to suppose that it is based only on last season's performance.

It is very largely; but there are important other factors at play. Haaland this year, for example, has had his price increased not because he had a great season last year (it was, by his standards, a pretty mediocre one!), but because Salah has left the league, creating a void at the top end of the pricing scale.

Pricing is, in fact, primarily determined by the need to maintain budget pressure - so players are priced relative to other 'competitor' players in their position category or price bracket, and in an overall context of how many players there are available at each of the price-points.

With the likes of Kane, Son, DeBruyne and Salah leaving the league in recent years, without any comparable replacements coming in, and with almost all the most exciting young talents like Saka and Palmer and Foden and Mitoma having very subdued seasons last year, we are left with a very thin top-end in the pricing spectrum this year. Haaland and Bruno Fernandes are the only two 'super-premiums'; and nobody else is priced at or above 10 million. The next most expensive forward, Alexander Isak, is only 9.0 million this year, while Saka and Palmer are the only 9.5-million-pound players (which many feel is still a bit too high, given their returns last year). Semenyo is the only player at 8.5, and only five players (one of them a defender!!) are priced at 8.0 million this year.

The pricing gnomes have tried to compensate by increasing the prices of a lot of defenders, and creating a lot of congestion in the 6.5-7.5-million range (which is probably where most of the crucial selection decisions will have to be made this year), but.... it really looks like the system is 'broken' at the moment: there isn't any effective pressure on budget - and for the first time in years (perhaps ever??) people might be having quite a stacked bench and/or leaving some cash unspent, even in Gameweek 1.

The shortage of elite points prospects in the game at the moment has meant that last year's three outstanding performers - Haaland, Fernandes, and Gabriel - have been priced stupidly, eye-wateringly high. For me, this has been aggressively overdone: there is a jarring disconnect now between how much they cost and how much 'value' they offer. So, ordinarily, in most years, they would be very clearly 'priced out', and we'd just have to find a way to get by without them. It would, almost certainly, be more advantageous to use the money saved on them to enhance the rest of the squad, because buying them would inevitably leave the rest of the squad very weak. This year, however, I don't think that level of budget pressure is there: it seems it might be perfectly possible to afford all three of them without completely beggaring the rest of the squad; and having at least one of them is not a problem at all. This situation creates some interesting dilemmas of its own - which I'll probably write a bit more on shortly. [Actually, quite a lot more; and only a couple of days later!]

Yes, Gabriel, Fernandes, and Haaland are grotesquely overpriced this year; but they're still arguably 'affordable'.

What's up with Erling?

 

I like The Athletic's print content, but their video output on Youtube has often been a bit all-over-the-place. Their flagship 'The Week in Football' programme has degenerated this season into a self-indulgently podcasty ramble around half a dozen or more different topics that takes far too long,... and often says little of any real insight. Their best shows were always the more in-depth analyses from JJ Bull and Jon MacKenzie, especially when hosted by the amusing Joe Devine (who now seems to be fully occupied in doing the voiceover for their Tifo sub-channel, the one reliably entertaining bit of their output at the moment), but those seem to have become more and more rare.

However, at the start of the long break in Premier League football we've just suffered, the weekly ramble did return to something like its previous, more focused format, with a single topic - the alarming decline in Erling Haaland's goal output since December - and close analysis from Mackenzie and Alex Barker.

While the discussion does highlight how dramatic the fall-off in The Viking's effectiveness has been in the last few months, I think overall there is much to take comfort from. Haaland doesn't actually seem to have any serious underlying injury issue, or to have some problem of 'confidence' or attitude; he's still working hard for the team, getting into lots of good positions, looking monstrously hungry for goals. The problem has chiefly been that City's current style of play hasn't been suiting him so well. And that shift has largely been necessitated by a number of key injuries, particularly to the wingers. Now that Doku appears to be back to his best, and Savinho may soon be back too, and Semenyo and even Cherki have recently demonstrated that they can also be dangerous in a wider attacking role down the right side, I think we could see the service to Haaland start to pick up again.

In the FPL context, with so few premium players this year, and so few regular big producers in midfield at any price, there's really no pressure on budget at the moment. So, there's really no motive to drop Haaland to try to 'upgrade' in multiple other positions (most people already have pretty much exactly the squad they want, as well as Haaland - without having had to make any great economies). So, the only reason to drop Haaland would be because you think there are at least three other forwards with better points-prospects than him over the run-in. And, frankly, nobody else has been in consistently impressive form lately: in fact, the only forward scraping into the Top 20 points producers over the last handful of games is Beto!!! And I don't see anyone dropping Haaland for Beto....

So,.... scary and potentially disappointing as it is, I think we probably have to stick with Haaland,... and hope that he's going to assume a central role in a brave City charge for the title over this next six weeks. 

The essence of FPL is assessing the potential of players. Haaland's potential is always far higher than just about anyone else's - he is a 'generational talent', one of the greatest goalscorers the game's ever seen; and he plays for one of of the highest-performing, most consistently creative and dangerous sides in world football. His potential is enormous; but, unfortunately, for multiple, complex reasons,... he doesn't always fulfill his potential.

I still think he's worth having a bet on for the last 7 gameweeks.

Sometimes.... BRAVERY pays off

LBJ's Brass Balls

I had always thought that this Gameweek 17 fixture, at home, against West Ham, would be Erling's Haaland's best prospect for a big haul in the first half of the season - and thus the prime opportunity for betting the Triple Captain chip on him.

But it would have been a very, very risky play to hang on this long, to ignore all the tempting rival options for the chip in earlier fixtures...

West Ham looked the worst team in the league at the start of the season; but they might have improved. And they have: quickly getting rid of the anodyne Graham Potter was a positive step, and there have been some promising signs for them under Nuno Espiritu Santo's stewardship since - although they're still often a bit ropey in defence, especially on set-pieces.

City might not have been able to maintain a strong title challenge this year - especially after they lost Rodri again so early on. But in fact, they have steadily got better and better, after a rather shakey start.

The big Viking might have picked up an injury by now, or suffered a bit of a dip in form; but in fact, he's having his best season yet, maintaining an astonishing level of consistency in output all the way through to the middle of the football year.

So - waiting till now to use the Triple Captain on him.... has paid off very nicely! But damn, you needed cojones to hang on for this long!! 

And it probably wasn't the smart move for this chip. Waiting this long was too big a risk; and if the plan had gone awry at the last minute, because of a late injury to Haaland, you'd have few other remaining options for using the chip, with just two more gameweeks in its validity period after this one.

If you enjoy a big success on the Triple Captain chip - or any of the bonus chips - you should maintain a due sense of humility. 

A one-off punt like this always has a bigger chance of going horribly wrong than it does of succeeding. And if you wait until the very tail-end of their availability window to play one of the bonus chips, the chance of that play going very, very wrong is greatly increased. 

A big return from a chip - however 'likely' it seemed - is always to a large extent LUCKY.

[The picture at the top is of a giant 'Brass Balls' sculpture, supposedly those of US President Lyndon Johnson (who famously complained of his trousers always being too tight in the crotch!), recently commissioned as a joke by John Oliver (standing next to the huge hanging scrotum here), the presenter of award-winning Sunday night political comedy show 'Last Week Tonight'.]

The distant laughter of the Fantasy Gods....

 

On Saturday - when half the world had bet their precious Triple Captain chip on him - the great Erling Haaland played like a man who'd been heavily on the lash on Friday night....

But just three days later, he comes up with a goal and 2 assists, for what would have been a very decent return on the TC chip!!!

The pagan gods who preside over the realm of FPL are not just cruel and capricious, but fond of mockery; it is not enough for them to smash our hopes, they must then taunt us in the midst of our despair.

But really, backing Haaland against Leeds was the 'right' choice, Fulham are a way better team than Leeds, and this match was on their home ground: it was not nearly so favourable a prospect for a big haul from the lanky Viking. (But then, neither were the Bournemouth or Everton games; or even Burnley or Wolves.....! It's impossible to predict with any confidence when the big hauls are going to happen.)

Triple unhappiness!

 

Oh dear, the great Triple Captain play on Erling Haaland this weekend (Gameweek 13 of our 25/26 EPL/FPL season) really went BADLY.

But in times of tribulation like this, it is good to try to mainain a sense of perspective.

For one thing, an awful lot of people were in the same boat: the great majortiy of still active managers in the game were probably playing the chip in this gameweek. 

And things could have been so much worse. He might have felt an injury in the warm-up and not even started. He might have got injured, or just been subbed off early by Pep, before the 60-minute mark. (And we should feel especially grateful every time a favourite player escapes a serious injury in a game, not for the impact that might have on our FPL points hopes, but for the man himself - and for the fact that we have not been denied the pleasure of watching him play for the rest of the season, or a big chunk of it.) He might have been given a yellow card, or perhaps even a red one. (Not very likely with Haaland: his disciplinary record is very good. But you never know.... Weird shit happens sometimes!)

It is quite common for captain and Triple Captain picks in FPL to register only 1 point or 0 points in a game - or even, occasionally, negative points.

So, the Haaland TC play this weekend, while very, very disappointing, was not an utter disaster. Those happen too; and this wasn't one of them. Perspective.

It was not even a particularly unlikely - and thus should not have been a completely unexpected - outcome. Captain and Triple Captain picks are going to return a blank somewhere between 1-in-2 and 1-in-3, even at the best.

When Fate shits on you like this, all you can do.... is hope that you're going to get a 1-in-3 unusually good outcome next year!

What is a Triple Captain worth?

 

There are two aspects to that question:  1)  How should you assess the points value of the Triple Captain chip?  and 2)  How many points can you expect to earn from it?

Unfortunately, if your thinking is muddled on the first part of the question (as it often seems to be in FPL-land), that prevents you forming a clear idea of what you ought to be aiming for with the chip.

People very commonly claim that their return from playing the Triple Captain is THREE times the gameweek points-haul for their chosen captain. But this is just empty bragging, or dangerous self-delusion. (People who somehow persuade themselves that the value of the chip is TWICE their captain's points-haul are even more perversely misguided in their way of looking at this!)  Of course, you should really only be interested in the points lift that the chip gives you over what you would have had without it. And you'd get the basic points haul for that player anyway. In fact, since you surely would have made him your captain anyway, you would have got twice his points-haul for the week if you hadn't played the chip. So, the additional value of the Triple Captain chip is only the basic points-haul total, not some multiple of it.

I have discussed in some detail before the issue of whether the Triple Captain chip invariably pays off better in a Double Gameweek. (Summary; it can - but usually it does not. And it's a very dangerous thing to gamble on, since Double Gameweeks are now few and small, and right at the back end of the season.)

My general advice on both types of Bonus Chip is that you have to be prepared to play them opportunistically. There can be so many swings in player and individual form over a season that you often don't know who the hottest player of the year is going to be until a streak of exceptional returns suddenly emerges,.... and you often don't know what anyone's 'easiest' fixture is going to be until shortly before it happens. You can suss out the likely most promising options some months ahead; but you need to stay flexible, and be prepared for those tentative plans to completely change. (This year, Erling Haaland is still in form, and still the only FPL player regularly producing big points returns. And it has been fairly obvious since the start of the season that his two best fixtures in the first half of the season were likely to be City's home gaines against Leeds and West Ham in Gameweeks 13 and 17. So - for once - the start-of-season provisional plan for most people hasn't changed.... yet. But a lot of people weren't prepared to risk waiting this long, when Haaland was also knocking in braces of goals against better opponents. And now there is a chance that Saka or Mbeumo might be coming into tempting form as possible alternative picks. If Haaland gets injured in the next few weeks, then there'll have to be a late change of plan.... Such things often happen.)

Of course, you hope to successfully target one of your best hauls of the season for a Triple Captain play - but it is not reasonable to expect to land on the best; it's all just too unpredictable. Almost always, in fact, your and everyone else's best haul of the season comes from some complete random that you would never have expected to produce for you - and didn't very often, so wasn't a strong bet for the TC chip. You have to focus on players who can bag very large hauls multiple times a season, and who maintain top form for extended periods. Even if they won't ultimately provide any of your very best scores of the season, they are more reliable bets to provide a good score in a particular gameweek.

You shouldn't use the chip lightly, just throw it away on impulse; you should carefully choose a week in which your best player, when he's in his best form, is facing an opponent against whom he should have an especially high chance of scoring more than one goal.

But even the most exceptional players don't return every week. Usually, in fact, they'll 'blank' at least 1 game in every 3 across the season, probably closer to 1 game in 2. And sometimes even a Mo Salah or an Erling Haaland in their hottest run of form will still manage to 'blank' against a poor side.

You have to steel yourself to accept that a Triple Captain play can return nothing - and very often does. Perhaps 1 time in 3, your Triple Captain will only produce basic 'appearance points', or even less (the annals of FPL abound with horror stories of managers who ventured their TC on a player who got injured inside 10 minutes, or missed a penalty, or received a red card....).  

You have to be grateful for any sort of return at all from the chip; and very, very grateful if your haul from it happens to break into double-digits, even narrowly. It is foolish to expect - or even to hope for - a massive dividend of 15 or 20 or 25 points. That kind of thing happens fairly rarely, and requires a very large dose of LUCK.

[I wrote a follow-up post a day or two later on how to assess the impact of your Bench Boost chip.]