Possible Picks?? [Pt. 2]

Following on from this morning'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. [I hope it won't take too long.... But it probably will!]

Midfielders

I'm wary of Salah and Son, at least at the start of the season, because both their sides are going through a little bit of upheaval,... and they both ended last season in rather subdued form. Salah is one of those players who, like Haaland (as I discussed a couple of days ago) could produce another stunning season and be - by a good margin - FPL's top points producer of the year; but for a star passing his prime rather than just entering it, that is a much more uncertain hope to cling to. My hunch is that Salah will end up having a pretty good season, but not reattain the 250+ totals he managed in his two best recent years (much less the 303 pts he got in his remarkable debut season with Liverpool).  It's a fine call as to whether a relatively 'modest' 220-230 from him is worth 12.5 million. I think it probably is.

Son I'm less sold on. I think he's far too 'streaky' to justify a 10.0 million price-tag. While he has generally looked capable of matching Salah over the last four seasons (except in 22-23, when he was noticeably inhibited by an injury for much of the season), he has tended to get his points in short runs of games (indeed, largely in just a handful of individual games, where he produces huge hauls!), with long, long, long dry spells in between. It's great if you manage to catch him in one of his brief scoring surges; but he's deadweight in your squad for extended periods - and I just don't think you can afford that from such an expensive player. It's better to gamble that you can rotate a number of in-form players into his position who will produce more consistently across the whole season,... and, hopefully, end up giving you more points overall as well. (I fancy there are a number of other players at Spurs who might produce more than him this season, anyway, or at least offer much better points-per-pound value.)

Palmer is probably a must-have after last season. I am not a super-optimist about him, though. I think last season was so extraordinary that he can't possibly repeat it, let alone improve on it; changes under the new manager will be unsettling, and may take a while to start working; and he might not be quite so productive under the new system. There are already signs in pre-season that he might be sharing creative duties with Nkunku this year, rather than being a sole provider almost all the time. And probably defences will give him closer attention now, trying to aggressively man-mark him to stop him getting on the ball in the final third so much. So, I can see him perhaps only managing 180-200 pts this season - which still isn't bad, but might not quite justify his new 10.5-milliion asking-price. However, I'd say that this is his minimum likely output; he could do a lot better. And I'm more confident of him at least getting near 200 points than I am of any other midfielder (except Salah).

My personal preference would be for DeBruyne over Foden (Pep often plays Foden in a variety of different roles, some of which really don't suit him; and KDB is likely to take the more prominent creative role most of the time when they start together), and Odegaard over Saka (Odegaard had a slightly erratic and disappointing season, by his standards; where Saka had an extremely successful one, though only really - in FPL terms - in a couple of fairly brief spells where he scored points like a maniac... for most of the season, his returns were disappointingly below what they had been in previous years, and I fear that's going to be a growing trend, as Arteta's tactics increasingly demand a more disciplined and 'controlling' style of play from him; so, I foresee their points tallies being much closer this season, or perhaps even swapping around - and Odegaard is 1.5 milliont cheaper).

It's hard not to like the outright forwards generously classed as 'midfielders' by the FPL gnomes (players like this tend to be the highest producers in the game, certainly for polnts-per-pound, and often overall as well): Mbeumo, Bowen, Diaz, Nkunku (admittedly, looking like he might play more like a creative midfielder or No.10 rather than an attacker much of the time, but still a major goal-threat), Jota (if only he could stay fit!), and maybe Hwang Hee-Chan (although he has tended to blow hot and cold; and Wolves have a tough start to the season); and not forgetting Bournemouth's Antoine Semenyo, who's a 'midfielder' for the first time this year, only costs 5.5 million, and might now be taking a more prominent attacking role after Solanke's departure.

Then there's a welter of attacking wingers who might also pick up a lot of goals and assists: Mitoma, Adingra, Gordon, Barnes, Martinelli, Hudson-Odoi, Elanga, Garnacho, Diallo, Neto, Madueke, Kulusevski, Johnson, Doku, Savinho, Carvalho, Iwobi, Sarabia, Rodrigo Gomes, Summerville, Sinisterra, Kluivert... and probably a few more too.

There are a few very creative midfielders who also pose a significant goal-threat as well as providing lots of assists: Bernardo Silva, Eze, Maddison, Kudus, Gibbs-White, Smith Rowe, Emi Buendia (if he's back to his best, after a long injury absence), and, of course, Bruno Fernandes,... and perhaps even Harvey Elliott (who seems to have been staking a strong claim to a start as a sort of No. 10 for Arne Slot in some of the friendlies).

And then there are some midfielders who might be seen primarily in a more defensive light, yet do also have a strong attacking element to their game: Bruno Guimaraes, Gross, Rice, Rodri, Wharton, McGinn, Macallister, Andreas Perreira,... and perhaps Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.

I can't give you any more help than that, sorry. You just have to pick the ones you have the best feeling about - given their price, and their opening 5 or 6 fixtures. Any of them might start out the season in blazing form.... or be a complete dud. There is no way to tell. 

At least I've pared the choices down to about 50 or so, from the getting on for 400 available in this category.  If you're finding it really difficult to choose,...you might as well just write all the names on Post-It notes, stick 'em to a wall, and throw darts at them blindfold.

Forwards

This category is rather easier, as you only have to pick three, and there are considerably fewer options to choose from.

As I said yesterday, it's become a 50/50 whether to risk going without Haaland or not, because of his exorbitant price this year. Going without him will be hard work, but I think it could succeed; in fact, I suspect that on average, the two approaches may work out just about the same.

I already outlined in this post on 'How to choose the initial squad' that I would recommend (and I think most draft squads I've seen so far are following this approach)  picking two  from Haaland, Watkins, and Isak - since these are very obviously the three best options up front this year. Some people are getting very excited about Solanke's move to Spurs, and are suggesting that he might now be worth considering in that category of the very top picks who can be seen as alternatives to Haaland (if you feel you can't afford him). I think he could do well at Spurs, and would rate him him now as the fourth best FPL forward prospect for the year - but still quite a long way short of the top three.

For me, all the forwards priced at 8.0 or 7.5 fail to be interesting this year, purely because of their price. And the ones available at 7.0 don't look very impressive. I am intrigued by Zirkzee and Fullkrug at 7.0 - but, since they're new imports from Europe, I probably wouldn't take a chance on them from the start of the season; but I think they have great potential, and are worth watching.... to pounce on if they do start showing some form. And Gyokeres would be tempting, if his rumoured move to Arsenal should go through.

However, given that you rarely want to play all 3 forwards (because you can almost always get more points, or at least a much better points-per-pound return, from a reasonably-priced attacking player in your 5th midfield slot), you can afford to go pretty cheap on your 3rd forward place. 

A lot of the less expensive forwards this year look like they could actually produce some decent points, and not serve merely as a cut-price squad-filler: Cunha at 6.5, Awoniyi and Wood, Muniz and Raul, Thiago and Wissa, and maybe Duran (if he moves somewhere he can get a start) at 6.0; Joao Pedro and Evan Ferguson (when he gets fit again), and perhaps Delap, Vardy, or Armstrong at only 5.5; and maybe even someone like Kalajdzic, Vinicius, Deivid, Archer, or Jebbison, at just 5.0 million, might have a chance of graduating to a regular start at some point.

Again, you might as well just throw a dart.....

So, that's it: my take on how the choices break down this year.  I think there's a wider range of choices this time than there has been for quite a few years (a lot of players coming back from long injuries, a lot of interesting new players joining the league; many of the recent high-flyers coming off slightly disappointing or injury-restricted seasons, or suffering big hikes in their price which could restrict their appeal); and more general uncertainty about the likely course of the season, with four top-half clubs adapting to new managers and four of the top six mired in major makeovers.

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

Possible picks?? [Pt. 1]

Well, I said on here a few days ago that I will generally avoid giving direct recoomendations for or against any specific player (and I certainly won't be sharing anything about my own squad; not in advance, anyway; maybe occasionally retrospectively, just to share a few 'war stories' for general enlightenment - and acknowledge my fallibility), but.... since we're now on the eve of The Big Kick-Off, everyone is becoming obsessed with polishing up their opening squads.... and casting around for additional sources of advice.

So, I'll attempt a brief-ish rundown of who I think are the players most worthy of consideration, for each position and price category.

Goalkeepers

I don't think any of the 5.5 keepers justify their price-tag (although, if you can find the money in the kitty, Alisson might be a promising start-of-season pick, just because of how soft Liverpool's early run of fixtures is).

Pickford (last season's top keeper), Onana (who improved dramatically after a terrible start to the year, and ended up well out in front on number of saves; and might be playing behind a much more stable defence this year, with the arrival of De Ligt), and Leno (consistently one of the best-value keepers for the last two years at Fulham; but it's a pity his price has gone up this year) are as 'premium' as I would go between the sticks; they look like they'll offer very good value at 5.0.

But I think it's probably smarter to start with two 4.5-million-pound keepers, since there are so many strong options at that price-point: Henderson (appears to have the start at Palace now; and has good early fixtures), whoever starts at Chelsea (probably Jorgensen? the best early fixture run of all!), Areola (slightly daunting early fixture run, but was an outstanding keeper for most of last season: second only to Onana on saves, and would have finished higher in the overall points rankings if he hadn't missed a few games with a minor injury), and maybe Sels (I have little confidence in Forest, but... they also have fairly kind early fixtures, in five of the first six, anyway); Neto might also be worth considering (if he keeps his place), and Sa (once Wolves are past their, um, first eight games....); maybe Leicester's Hermanssen (outstanding with the ball at his feet; although I worry about how well any of the promoted sides will stand up defensively, especially in the early weeks).  And Aaron Ramsdale will be well worth a thought, if his touted move to Forest (or anywhere else he'll be the starter) comes off..   [I wouldn't touch Flekken with a bargepole; he's one of the weakest keepers at that price-point anyway, and he has absolutely the worst first 5 games of any of them! However, I'd keep an eye on Valdimarsson, as I think he might be promoted over Flekken to become Brentford's No.1 - making him the only starting 4.0 keeper this year.]

At this point, it still doesn't look like any of the 4.0 keepers will get a start; and I don't like to clog up my bench with non-playing players - even at the start of the season. (Especially at the start of the season: I want to find cheap bench players that will get starts and hopefully show a little form, so that other FPL managers will take notice of them - and push their price up, so I can sell for a profit. Non-playing bench-fillers sooner or later drop in price and erode your squad value.)

If you do choose to adopt this tactic of taking a non-playing 4.0 keeper to free up an extra half a million for another spot in the squad, the only sensible route to it is to take the club back-up to your first-choice keeper (that way, you have a guaranteed replacement if your starter ever goes AWOL). I would go for Fabianski, since we saw last season that he's still very capable (and might perhaps even still be good enough to displace Areola on merit, without him picking up another injury); Bentley seems to be the only other possibility. (I suppose Virginia at Everton or Benda at Fulham could also work; but if you're going to spend 9 million on a pair of keepers, you'll almost certainly be better off with two starters.)

Defenders

Arsenal's three (almost) ever-presents - White, Gabriel, and Saliba - were way out in front of everyone else last season. And that seems very likely to be repeated again this year (with Calafiori possibly joining them as a preferred regular starter at left-back), with no other sides approaching them in defensive solidity.  (Of course, there's a lot of uncertainty at the start of this season, with new managers bedding in at Liverpool, Chelsea, West Ham, and Brighton - but it seems unlikely any of them will quickly rival Arsenal as the league's clean-sheet masters.)

City have too much talent to choose from at the back: hence 'Pep Roulette' is an inescapable hazard - last year, none of their defenders got more than 28 starts. (Well, OK, Walker managed 30; but that seems unlikely to happen again, as he's never really been Pep's absolute first-choice at right-back when other options are fit - and he has started showing signs of aging.)  As their clean-sheet record hasn't been great in the last couple of seasons either, I can't see how any of them are 'worth' 5.5 for FPL, let alone 6.0!

Likewise at Liverpool, while you might expect Van Dijk, Alexander-Arnold and Robertson to be natural starters as long as they're fit... Robertson has often been injured over the past two seasons, and his attacking returns have trailed off a lot from his peak a few years back; Van Dijk has rarely come close to justifying his 6.0-million price-tag in value-for-money terms (he's a signal example of how being excellent in real-world football often has little relationship to how good you are for FPL); and Trent.... is just too much of an unknown: he really needs a 200+ points season to earn back his money, and while he does potentially have that in him, I can't see it happening this year. (There are the additional problems for TAA of having to adapt to a new manager and a new style of play, his oft-stated desire to become more of a deep creative midfielder than a defender.... and the uncomfortable fact that young Conor Bradley revealed himself in his brief spell last season to be simply much better than him as an outright right-back...)

I think it's probably worth taking one or two of the Arsenal defenders; but no-one at the 5.5 or 5.0 point really impresses me as a 'must-have'. (although Munoz or Mitchell, Maatsen, maybe Cucurella, and Branthwaite - and De Ligt, if his price is going to be somewhere around there - might be worth considering)... when there are so many strong options at 4.5 this year.

Full-backs almost always give better returns than central defenders (much more chance of attacking contributions, at least with the more progressive ones), so long as they're in a side with a decent defensive record, so I'd focus on options like:  Robinson, Ait-Nouri, Mykolenko, Burn (although he looks likely to play in central defence this year, at least iniitally), Tete, Castagne, Kerkez, Emerson, Roerslev, Toffolo, Aina (if he gets a regular-ish start this year), perhaps Semedo (when he's fit again), Livramento or Hall (if they get a regular start at Newcastle this year)... maybe Reguilon (if he gets a start anywhere this season).

Amongst the cheaper centre-backs, I like Andersen, Tosin, Van de Ven, Guehi and Richards, Senesi and Zabarnyi, Murillo,,... maybe Quansah or Chalobah (if they ever get a decent run of starts).

There are some starting defensive options at 4.0 in the 3 promoted clubs, notably the dependable Belgian international centre-back Wout Faes at Leicester and Southampton's youngster Taylor Harwood-Bellis (who picked up a moderately impressive 3 goals and 6 assists in the Championship last year; but is already dangerously over-owned in FPL - when he disappoints initial hopeful expectations of him, his price might plummet).  However, I'd be very wary of taking any defenders (or keepers) from these clubs until we've seen how they can stand up for themselves in the Premier League; in recent years most of the newly-promoted sides have been woefully off the pace and have just served as punching-bags for most teams - you don't want defenders (even as emergency back-up on the bench) who offer you hardly any points at all, because they're regularly taking a thrashing.  [There is one 4.0 defender, though, at an established Premier League side, who looks likely to get at least a few starts early on, because of injuries at the club. You can dig that out for yourselves. I don't want too many people piling in on him!]

So, that's about it for the defensive half of the equation....

I'll try to get around to a 'Part Two' on the more attacking options this afternoon... or tomorrow.

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.

How should you judge if your squad is any GOOD?

A little while ago, I took a moment to diss an online gizmo that claims to be using some sort of 'AI algorithm' to evaluate people's FPL squads. (It is - unsurprisingly - utter nonsense: not even bad, just fake.)

One of my main gripes was that it does not divulge any hint of the criteria on which it supposedly bases its ratings.

So... that got me to thinking, on what sort of factors should we try to assess how good our squad is looking for the start of the season?

I would suggest the following:

1)  Is the squad balanced for budget?

Do you have a good spread of player prices, some shrewd picks in all positions and across the low, middle and upper portions of the price spectrum? Having too many players from any one of those strata is probably not going to work.

2) Have you maximised your value-for-money?

As I said the other day in my post on picking a squad [link again below], you are not so constrained by budget for your top-end picks; but the further down the roster you go - money running very short as you approach the last half dozen or so selections - making sure you have good points-per-pound potential from every player is vital.

A related point I think I omitted then (which probably deserves its own post sometime) is that it's also worth considering overall price differential patterns - asking yourself not just 'Have I got a player with an excellent points-per-pound potential?' but 'Have I got the best points-per-pound player for the money I have left to spend here?'  This isn't entirely straightforward, because you find that the distribution of points return is uneven between different position categories and across different segments of the price spectrum: sometimes a particular price increment makes very little difference to the points returns available in a particular position category; elsewhere, you may find that the same price increment can make a substantial difference. You may well be surprised to discover on closer examination that it's a mid-priced midfielder or a semi-premium defender who will actually give you the biggest lift in points for an extra half-million or million pounds spent.

3)  Have you avoided 'false economies'?

I warned in my long post last week on 'How to pick the initial squad' that going for 'enablers' just because they're super-cheap tends to be a destructive strategy: players who never actually get on the pitch - or are terrible when they do - will soon disillusion their original ownership, and drop in price as a sell-off begins, leaching away your precious squad value  Even at the lowest price-points, there are some players who are nevertheless likely to start, occasionally even some who are quite good; and even if they're not yet starters, they might have a good prospect of getting at least a few first-team games fairly soon. Make sure your low-budget picks are players like this, not perpetual reserves.

(And if you take a chance on going with a non-starting back-up goalkeeper - which I wouldn't recommend! - make sure you get the best one possible, and one who is definitely first-in-line to take over if his starter should get injured or dropped.)

4)  Do you have some favourable rotation prospects for goalkeeper and defence?

Again, in the big 'How to....' post, I pointed out that keepers and defenders are best avoided in games where they might concede heavily; while, of course, there will also be games when they look likely to have much better prospects of a coveted clean sheet (and perhaps even an attacking contribution of some sort from the more progressive defenders); and in general, defending teams tend to do much better at home.  It is therefore very valuable to have a pair of keepers who largely alternate their home and away fixtures with each other.

And, since you'll generally only be starting 3 or 4 defenders, you have the option on your bench to rotate some of the defenders as well as your two keepers, trying to have the chance of optimising the fixtures of your starters each week. So, effectively spreading your defensive picks across clubs according to their pattern of home and away fixtures (and, if possible, their harder and easier fixtures as well) is a strong sign of a really well-chosen squad.

5)  Have you paid close attention to other possible impications of the fixtures?

Some clubs - even the leading ones - may have a dauntingly tough run of fixtures near the start of the season. Some are plunging into European competition after only a month, raising the prospect of fatigue and possible rotation for key players. Other clubs have particularly inviting fixture lists for the start of the season (Chelsea and Liverpool seem to have been particularly blessed this year!). So, while it's especially important to be able to steer your goalkeeeper and defenders away from particularly rough fixtures - and towards the ones where they may have a better chance of clean sheets - keeping an eye on the possible impact of shifting fixture difficulty is important across the whole team, and the whole squad.

6)  Have you spread risk?

Doubling or trebling up on teams, particularly in one area of the pitch, can be hugely risky, and is usually better avoided - at least at the start of the season, where there are so many uncertainties about what line-ups and tactics may be adopted, and what individual and team form is going to look like coming out of the summer break. So, it's better not to have too many players from one team - and definitely no more than one in the same position on the field.

And although promoted teams may offer some promising selections, particularly at the more budget end, most of us aren't really able to follow Championship football very much - so, we don't have a clear idea of what these players might be like until they've played their first few matches of this Premier League season. Moreover - sad as it is to say - in recent years most of the promoted sides have suffered from the huge gulf in class between the two leagues, haven't been able to adapt to the elevated intensity of the top flight, and have just served as punchbags for most of the established teams. So, again, it's probably best to steer clear of anyone from the promoted sides until we've seen some form from them - until they've reassured us that they're not going to be spanked every week and go sraight back down.

Backing players from teams with new managers is also a big gamble, and one probably best avoided, as far as possible. It is likely that it may take Liverpool, Chelsea, Brighton, West Ham, and Leicester a month or two to find their feet this season.

7)  Have you taken some smart, carefully calculated gambles?

Although you generally want to avoid making too many big bets on unknown quantities (like whether Salah will immediately thrive again under Arne Slot, or whether Calafiori will be instantly integrated into the Arsenal back-four), it is worth taking a few calculated risks here and there. In particular, it's usually worth going for one or two players who might not look like surefire sensations - or perhaps not even guaranteed starters (although you really don't want to have more than one or two players who are at any risk of not being a regular first-pick) - but who offer a huge upside if they hit form (do they have the fixtures that will help with that??).

In addition to one or two such prospects in your main 11 - slightly less-fancied players, perhaps, that you have faith in to produce - you should also try to look out for one or two outright 'investment picks': players at the cheaper end of the scale who are only just emerging as prospects, and appear to be currently under-valued in the FPL pricing because they're not expected to get a regular start. If you believe that they are good enough to deserve some decent game time, even if it isn't a full 90 minutes every week, or, better, you can see that form and injury issues at their club make it very likely that they will soon get a run of starts, buy them - and enjoy watching their price go up as lots of other FPL managers come a little late to the party.

8)  Have you avoided obvious foot-shootings??

We all far too easily make some of our selection decisions... hastily, impulsively, without due thought or research... perhaps allowing ourselves to be influenced by peer pressure, the tide of modern social media, the 'sheep instinct' - if we see a lot of people making the same pick, we may assume they must be on to something and get tempted to follow along. That's almost always a bad idea.

Just to give one quick example, there has been a rush of Fantasy managers recently plumping for Brentford's Mark Flekken as their first-choice keeper. And that is kind of baffling - because there is nothing in his team's or his own form last year or in his stats to justify that choice; and he has the worst run of opening fixtures of any keeper this year. [I think I'll write one or two quick posts on classic examples of Bad Picks over the next week or so.]

There are a fair few more picks I see commonly on the forums at the moment that are obviously - or sometimes, not so obviously - BAD. If you're confident you've dodged any of those.... you're good to go.

In fact, if you've pondered all of the above considerations, and you can honestly say that you've ticked all the boxes - then, congratulations.  You probably do have a pretty damn good squad!

But you shouldn't have one YET (this first posted on... 3rd August, two weeks before the season gets underway), it's way too soon.  Remember what I said yesterday about the wisdom of keeping away from FPL, not giving it any thought.... until just before the Big Kick-Off.

'Rank your team?' ('No thanks, HAL...')

I've noticed some of the FPL forums being awash with posts over the past couple of weeks about this online widget that purports to assess the strength of your preliminary FPL squad - giving it a score out of 100.

With a month to go before the real game gets under way, people seem to have been going crazy over this as a surrogate distraction, seeming to find it a worthwhile challenge to see if they can push their score higher and higher, to see if it's possible to edge it up to a perfect 100.

Such A LOT of problems with this gizmo. Here are the main ones, as I see it:

1)  It says it rates your 'team' - but it actually expects you to submit your whole squad (in the form of a screenshot of your FPL 'Team' page). So, it's not clear if it's rating the full 15, or just your starting 11. It also doesn't tell you if your initial captain and vice-captain picks are considered relevant to its 'judgement' on you. And it doesn't tell you if it's offering a prediction of your likely success over the whole season... or the first month... or just the opening gameweek.

2) It doesn't explain its criteria, or what its rating scale is supposed to mean. What would a score of 100 actually signify? That you're absolutely certain to be this year's Global Winner?? Or that you're fairly sure to be among the top 10,000, 50,000, 100,000??  Or just that you're likely to have a very good Gameweek 1???

If you were to try to assess your own squad on a 100-pt scale, or asked one of your more knowledgeable and objective friends to do so, you wouldn't expect anything like a 100% answer; even mid-90s would be very, very good. Heck, even if you gave yourself an unlimited budget, you wouldn't seriously expect perfection: you'd know that some of your picks were a little bit of a gamble, a hopeful hunch; while maybe some others that seem like 'bankers' will, in fact, turn out to disappoint. I think, however you define 'success', no team/squad can really be said to give you more than an 80-90% prospect of achieving it.

3)  It doesn't give you any meaningful feedback, doesn't explain WHY it has rated your squad as it has, or identify the weakest members you should consider replacing. It just endlessly trots out the same infuriating glib cliché about needing to 'find some transfers to improve'. [It's probably still having a problem with the pod-bay doors too...]

So, as a tool for helping you pick your squad, it's utterly USELESS.

4)  I had a little fun the other week, quickly testing it with about 20 or so squads randomly generated by FPL's 'Auto-Pick' facility.  

Three things quickly stood out: a) They ALL scored in the high 80s to mid-90s; there was very little variation.  b) The squads that were most conspicuously a bit weak, or downright dreadful, tended to score higher!  c) It was possible to get a different score for the same squad resubmitted within quite a short space of time.

Now, I had been hoping that there might be something to this gimmick.... that a careful observation of its prognostications might enable us to deduce something about its algorithm, to divine what factors it was considering in its assessment.

I had thought, that at the very least, it might be aggregating the points scored by your chosen players last season (which of course we already know; but it might have been handy to have the calculation done instantly for us), or perhaps even be producing a slightly more subtle and complex rating of expected 'form' based on a combination of factors.

But, alas, no - it's pretty obviously just spiting out random numbers... and jeering at how seriously some people take the results!  Thank you, HAL, you condescending bastard!

DON'T jump the gun!

The Fantasy Premier League official website (and accompanying Facebook page) started getting active again even while EURO 2024 was still in progress, gradually teasing selected new player pricings during the last few days of the tournament... and then relaunching the game for the new season only two or three days after Spain's triumph in the Final.

And immediately the FPL forums were flooded with people anxiously obsessing over every little snippet of leaked information... AND sharing endless variations of DRAFT SQUADS. More than FOUR WEEKS before the season kicks off!!!  [The opening game this year is an evening kick-off between Manchester United and Fulham on Friday 16th August; the main programme gets under way on Saturday 17th.]

I know I'm not exactly modelling the best example here, with the amount of time I've spent writing for this blog over the last week, but.... there is such a thing as an  FPL/Life Balance, people! And spending hours and hours fretting about the game in pre-season is not conducive to maintaining that.

So much might yet happen before the Big Kick-Off - valuable hints about form and tactics and likely team selections  (not many, perhaps, but some...) emerging in the pre-season friendlies, players arriving or leaving in the summer transfer window, and, unfortunately, INJURIES. There really is no point in trying to select a squad - even provisionally - when we really have no idea who's going to be playing (and for which team!) on the GW1 weekend in mid-August. There is no point in even thinking about it.

It's not just a WASTE OF TIME - it's positively a BAD IDEA, something that will almost certainly lead to you making WORSE DECISONS about your selections.

Because of the way the human brain works... if you start looking at the player options, and allowing yourself to think, even vaguely, about possible squads, you will inevitably start making some decisions about your likely squad: decisions based on inadequate, incomplete, soon-to-be-outdated information; hence, in many cases at least, WRONG decisions. You probably won't be very self-aware about this; well, if you're even a little aware of it at the time, you'll almost certainly forget about it very quickly. But these proto-decisions - not always outright selections, but foundatioinal preferences and prejudices and assumuptions that will have a massive influence on selections - are mostly forming deep in your subconscious; and once they're there, they're very difficult to displace. The deep-rooted cognitive bias in favour of self-consistency means that once you've made a choice like this, it's very, very difficult for you to change your mind about it (especially if you don't realise you've made that choice, and/or don't know why you've made it!). There's a similar, very dangerous phenomenon called the 'anchoring bias' - which means you're very likely to make decisions based on the first one or two pieces of information you look at.

Anyone who's picked a squad two or three or four weeks out from the start of the season is VERY unlikely to have picked a good one. And they're also much less likely to be able to pick a good one later on... than someone who only starts pondering the options after the Community Shield.  [This year, the season's traditional curtain-raiser is being played between Manchester City and Manchester United on Saturday 10th August.]

I know I put out a BIG POST about 'How to pick the initial squad' just a few days ago...  I'm SORRY: I just wanted to get it out there in plenty of time before the start of the season, to give people a chance to discover it. I did not mean to encourage anyone to start trying to pick their squad straight away. (Bookmark that link, and come back to it in a week or two!)

The best time - the ONLY sensible time - to pick a squad for the new FPL season is.... on the afternoon of Friday 16th August.

Really, that is absolutely a TOP TIP!!  Try it next year.

How to choose the INITIAL SQUAD

I already dropped a couple of short preliminary posts on this topic of choosing the initial squad yesterday: one on the constrants of the budget, and one on the need to abandon any thought of trying to pick a team that would be balanced and workable in real life (all left-footers, all wide players, all short and cross-eyed.... it's all good: the only thing you're interested in is their Fantasy points return, not how thay might gel together on the pitch in reality).

Now, here's the complete 'How to....'.    (Well, as near as I can manage. I'll try to be concise!)

[Sorry - it did get a bit LONG....  Pace yourselves!  I put in bolded headings to make it easier for you to find the topics that might be particularly interesting to you.]

Some basic principles....

Focus on midfield

Midifielders get a point more than 'forwards' (5, rather than 4) for every goal scored. They also tend to be rather more likely than most of the game's 'forwards' to register assists.... and pick up bonus points. And, unlike 'forwards', they get free extra points for clean-sheet bonuses (only 1 per game; but that can add up nicely over the season, especially in teams with stronger defences). And, outside of the top handful of high-priced players, they tend to be rather cheaper than the 'forwards', sometimes quite a lot cheaper. So, attacking midfielders with exactly the same number of attacking contributions as the leading 'forwards' tend to get 20 or 30 or 40 pts per season more! The best midfield options in the game usually offer you more total points, and certainly more points-per-pound, than 'forwards'. (There are rarely more than 3 forwards in the top 10 or 12 overall FPL points scorers; often, only 1....)

And the formation rules only allow you to play a maximum of 7 midfielders and forwards. So... you really want to play 5 goalscoring midfielders as often as you can (and thus only 2 forwards; sometimes only 1 forward!).

The game generously classifies a lot of outright forwards as 'midfielders' (they claim they do this on the basis of last season's 'heat maps' for the players, but I'm not convinced...): Salah, Diaz, Son, Bowen, Mbeumo, Nkunku, Hwang, Semenyo, Rashford, etc. (and last season, Richarlison, Gakpo, and Havertz too!). There are also a lot of wingers who may score - and assist - almost as much as (or even more than) most of the game's 'forwards': Gordon, Barnes, Saka, Martinelli, Kulusevski, Johnson, Neto, Sarabia, Mitoma, Rogers, Bailey, Garnacho, Diallo, Hudson-Odoi, Elanga, Doku, Bobb, Kluivert, Harrison, etc., etc.  And then there are some highly creative midfielders who also offer a very strong goal threat: Palmer, DeBruyne, Foden, Bernardo Silva, Odegaard, Eze, Bruno Fernandes, Maddison, Kudus, Gibbs-White, etc.

Usually only a few of the very best 'forwards' will outscore any of these attacking midfield options. So, the midfield is where you need to focus most of your attention - and most of your budget.

Two playing goalkeepers, but not too expensive

Now, some people favour the strategy of taking a main keeper and a back-up keeper from the same club, to save a little money (a lot of the second-string keepers are only 4.0 million); the thinking being that you'll have a guaranteed instant replacement if your first choice should get injured or dropped.

There's something to be said for that. But many of the second strings aren't actually that good; and having a keeper change forced on you in the middle of the season naturally disrupts the rest of the team a bit, especially the defence; so, you might well get significantly weaker returns from that back-up keeper.

And more importantly, you probably want to try to keep even the best keepers away from the toughest fixtures: anyone could ship a ton of goals away to Liverpool or City or Arsenal, or maybe Newcastle and Spurs and Villa too... or any team that's currently in a hot run of scoring form. So, having two decent keepers that you can rotate around the most daunting fixtures can be very valuable. 

Almost all defences do much better in home games as well. So, it's worth considering a pair of keepers who largely alternate their home and away fixtures. This page on the FPL site shows you which teams are exactly fixture-matched in this way. But there are other combinations that work pretty well most of the time - for fixture difficulty as well as home/away advantage. Last year the Leno/Areola pairing fitted together very nicely.

So, I think trying to save money with a non-playing second keeper is a dangerous ploy, a false economy. But you also don't want to spend too much money on keepers. They don't score that many points overall (Jordan Pickford was the only one who made it into the 'Top 25' overall points-scorers in FPL last season; often there are no keepers that high up the ranking...). And there tends to be less of a differential points spread between keepers: Pickford ended up quite a way ahead of the pack last year (that's unusual), but there were only 20 points separating the next 6 - and then there were a few others who didn't play the whole season but were nearly as good as Pickford on their points-per-game return. Hence, it's difficult to justify paying a 'premium' price for one of the very best keepers, when some of the 4.5-million-pound options will probably do almost as well (and maybe, if you're lucky, even a little better). [That holds for the start of the season, at least. In the last few months, you might have some more budget to spare - because you've grown your squad value, or because some of the premium players you started with have lost form or got injured - and you can then consider upgrading to one of the top-scoring goalkeepers.]

Also... Beware of keepers from the top sides! It is paradoxical, but... City and Arsenal in particular are so good defensively that their keepers rarely get called upon to make saves. And the 'saves' points can actually be as important - or even more important - to a goalkeeper's points total as his clean sheets. Teams down in the relegation zone often have keepers who produce very good points, even if they hardly ever manage to keep a clean sheet.

Beware of central defenders

Clean sheets are, of course, hugely valuable. Although in recent seasons, with Liverpool and even City losing a bit of their defensive solidity, there haven't been as many of them. Maybe only one or two teams will post really good numbers for that. Last year, Arsenal were way out in front with 18 (which made everyone want to 'double up' on their defenders). The year before, somewhat surprisingly, it was Man Utd.  But some lower-ranked teams can be unexpectedly resilient: last year, relegation-battling Everton were actually one of the best defences in the League; the year before, Brighton and Brentford were well up towards the top of the heap, alongside Newcastle and Villa.

However, all members of a defence get the same points for a clean sheet - regardless of how good a defender they are. (Most people would agree that William Saliba is Arsenal's best defender, and maybe the best defender in the League now - but he doesn't get any more points for that!)  So, the top-scoring defenders are almost always full-backs, especially very advanced full-backs (or outright wing-backs), because they offer a better prospect of some attacking returns - assists, and maybe even the occasional goal - as well as defensive actions.

There are exceptions to this. There have been some defenders who mysteriously hoover up the bonus points every week (even when their side has lost!), because they get on the ball and play a lot of passes in addition to completing a lot of defensive actions: Cristian Romero was a prime example of that in the early part of last season. (But NB: changes to the system for allocating bonus points this year, with defenders and keepers much more heavily penalised for conceding, will likely mean that they get far fewer bonus points in games where they don't keep a clean sheet.)  Some central defenders don't just step up into deep midfield occasionally, but go marauding all the way forward and contribute around the edge of the opposition box too (Antonio Rudiger was a monster for this at Chelsea a few seasons ago!). Some are so aerially dominant that they become 'agents of chaos' in attacking set-pieces and pick up a surprisingly large number of assists and goals that way (the late, great Tyrone Mings was a prime exponent). And of course, most central defenders can occasionally be a goal-threat at set pieces (but you shouldn't get too carried away by that; very few defenders score more than 2 or 3 goals in a season; and even fewer do that in successive seasons; when defenders score 2 or 3 goals in a short space of time, it's almost always a transient streak.... not an emerging trend!).

Finally, as with keepers, there isn't usually that much of a differential points-spread between defenders (so, to some extent, it barely matters who you pick!). There are often a few players who are well ahead of the pack: we've seen some exceptional returns in recent years from Cancelo, Alexander-Arnold, and Trippier. But there's not usually all that much to choose between the best of the rest: last year Ben White ended up well out in front, but there were 14 other players who averaged between 3.5 and 4.5 points per game. Hence, it's very difficult to justify spending a premium price for a defender. You might go for one or two of them - people like White or Trippier, if they look likely to be fit and in-form (and playing on their favoured flank: White was switched back to the centre for a little while at the start of last season, and Trippier was moved over to the left for a few games). But there are a lot of good options at the 5.0 and 4.5 price points - and even a few likely starters at only 4.0 million.

Beware of central midfielders (BUT.. they may have their place!)

Rodri and Caicedo and Rice are fantastic players, yes, fan favourites, and crucial to the way their teams play.... but they're not likely to get anywhere near the top of the FPL scoring charts.

You only get 5 midfield picks; and, as I outlined above, there are 20 or 30 possibilities who are regular goal-scorers - most of these should comfortably out-point even the best central defensive midfielders (if they stay fit and in-form...).

Ah, but there might be exceptions.... (There are always some exceptions!)  There are some central midfielders who are more box-to-box, and get involved in the attacking third as well quite a bit (e.g., Bruno Guimaraes). There are some who at least sometimes play a much more advanced role - and/or may be on set-pieces or penalties (e.g., Pascal Gross, James Ward-Prowse). There may be others who are transitioning into a more progressive role where they will sometimes go on a bit of a scoring streak (e.g., Declan Rice). And there are some who have the happy knack of coming up with just a few goals a season, but somehow always in the most crucial games (Rodri!). Now, none of these are usually likely to be anywhere near the 'Top 10' FPL points-scorers in midfield (well, Rodri and Rice actually finished around 10th last season, but that is unusually high for a player of this type; and I doubt if they'll do quite that well again; an awful lot of the more attacking midfielders missed big chunks of last season with injuries), but... if you look at the points-per-pound return  (select the 'Value (season)' option for the display on the FPL stats page), you find that Rice and Rodri were the TOP TWO midfielders last season... and Guimaraes, Gross, Tomas Soucek and Andreas Perreira also got into the 'Top 10' or thereabouts.

So...  for the 4th or 5th midfield spot, when your budget's starting to get a bit thin, players like this are worth considering. But you certainly want at least 3 of your midfield picks - and, if possible, 4 or 5! - to be regular goal-scorers.

Value-for-money

That 'Value (season)' stats listing on the FPL website is one of the most valuable tools for squad selection. You always want to be thinking about getting the most bang-for-your buck from every pound of your squad budget; and this page will help you make choices to do that. If you're torn between two options, bear in mind that the one with the higher points total last season might be unreasonably priced. If his rival has only slightly fewer points, but a much better points-per-pound return - he's probably the one you should go with.

However, some of the super-premium players are worth having, regardless of their unimpressive points-per-pound. Haaland's points-per-pound figures are bound to be fairly terrible. (Last year, Watkins and Solanke were the only 'forwards' to make the 'Top 40' on this metric. The top of the rankings - apart from Cole Palmer - were almost all goalkeepers and defenders; then some defensive midfielders.)  Salah's and Son's too. But players like these offer you the prospect of a huge overall points total. Moreover, they return uncommonly reliably, 'blank' relatively infrequently (well, Son not so much...); and they usually produce quite a few really huge hauls each season - which it can be painful to miss out on.  Palmer and Foden, and perhaps a few others, now seem to have joined this elite corps of players too - players who are 'above budget': you have to consider including them regardless of how much they cost or what their points-per-pound value is.

But as you go through the selection process, the value-for-money consideration becomes more and more important. When you only have 5 or 6 or 7 slots left to fill, and your budget is down to perhaps 30 million or so, it is absolutely vital to target the players who offer you the highest points-per-pound.

Forwards??

The approach to selection here varies greatly from year to year. A few seasons back, we had a weird situation where almost none of the weaker teams had a decent forward, and just about all of the more promising options (Vardy, Bamford, Ings, Calvert-Lewin,...) missed most of the season with injuries - leaving Harry Kane as just about the only worthwhile forward pick for long periods. There happened to be a lot of high-returning attacking full-backs that year too, so we found ourselves often going with a 4-5-1, or occasionally even a 5-4-1 formation - but that's a bit of a freak.

Two years ago, it was looking like Haaland was an inevitable pick for everyone, massively ahead of any of his rivals (except perhaps for Kane, who was getting ready to depart). But then Ollie Watkins began to show that he was a significant force too; and last season he actually out-pointed Haaland (though only because the lanky Viking missed two months of the season with injury). Alexander Isak, although a big injury worry, is also looking very potent. And we now have a wealth of promising options at lower price-points too: Mateta, Cunha, Muniz, Wood, Awoniyi, Joao Pedro... maybe Evan Ferguson, when he gets fit again.

The main dichotomy in strategy this season appears to be: take Haaland and/or Watkins (+ 1 other top striker, if you opt for only one of them; I might rather have Isak than either of them...), OR take 3 more mid-priced strikers.

Since, as I explained above, it's usually not a good idea to start more than 2 of your strikers (as there are plenty of goalscoring midfielders to choose from, who give you more points for the same goal contribution - and often for slightly less money too), you can probably save money with your third striker pick and go for a promising prospect in the 5.5-6.5 range. [As it happened, there were so many good performances in this price bracket - with veterans Wood, Welbeck, Raul and Vardy suddenly showing great form again early in the season, as well as strong newcomers Delap, Strand Larsen, and Evanilson - that you could in fact take all three strikers from the cheap end of the spectrum. With so many of the usually high-scoring midfielders having a spotty start to the year, it even became attractive to start all three strikers quite often! This, again, was a real freak circumstance.]

Haaland, Watkins, and Isak are - pretty unarguably - the three strongest striker picks this year; and almost everyone will be going with TWO of those, and one other. (No, there won't be a lot of differentiation on the forward line. Don't sweat it!)

I feel that the 'mid-priced' forwards are effectively priced out of contention this year: those priced between 7.0 and 8.0 million - Solanke, Mateta, Havertz, Alvarez, Gakpo, Darwin Nunez, Jesus, Hojlund, Richarlison, Toney, Wilson, Jackson [Zirkzee might be an exception??] - just don't bear comparison with the 'Holy Trinity' of Haaland-Isak-Watkins; but they're too expensive for that third slot that you're hardly ever going to use. (And, frankly, I don't think they're as good as some of the cheaper options - Cunha, Awoniyi, Wood, Muniz, and maybe Duran, if he moves to a club that will give him a start.)

Whether or not we can afford Haaland (plus 2 or 3 other premiums, such as Salah, Palmer or Foden) is the huge question of the moment for FPL enthusiasts... and I'll probably discuss that more in a later post.

Beware false economies - you NEED your bench!

A lot of FPL managers fall in thrall to the concept of the 'budget enabler': the idea that it's worth getting a few players at the cheapest possible price-point because it will give you a little bit more to spend on your starting eleven. Now, sure, it is useful - necessary, even - to have a few very cheap players to make the budget work for you. (This year, I'd probably go for 2 goalkeepers at only 4.5 each, 1 or perhaps even 2 defenders at 4.0, and most of the rest at 4.5; and a very cheap third forward and fifth midfielder.)

But a lot of people just grab blindly for the very cheapest options, without giving any thought to whether they bring any value to the squad. As I said above, every pound of that initial 100 million is important; every single one of them needs to be put to work. If you have a bench stacked with reserve-team players who will never get a start, you are storing up trouble for yourself!

The rate of injuries in the modern game has become insane over the last few years. Even 15 or 20 years ago, serious hamstring problems would only crop up a few times a season at any club, and ACL tears were quite a rarity across the entire League; last year, almost every single club had 3, 4, 5 players ruled out with injuries like that at any one time. I had to replace 55 players over the season because of injury (about 20 more than my previous worst season!); and that was serious injuries, not just minor knocks that might sideline someone for 2 or 3 gameweeks. You might get some sort of injury problem almost every week.... sometimes 2 or 3 or 4 in one week! And they often happen at the last-minute (even sometimes in the pre-match warm-ups!!), giving you no opportunity to transfer the affected player out. If you don't have a playing bench, sooner or later - probably sooner - you are going to find yourself putting out a team of only 10 (or 9, or 8...) men, and haemorrhaging points as a result.

And with so much pressure on the (these days, entirely inadequate) number of Free Transfers, you can't afford to waste those on short-term changes: if a player has a minor knock, or a suspension, or is likely to be rested for one weekend after some gruelling European ties, or just faces a particularly unpromising fixture next... you want to drop him to the bench, not move him out of the squad. That kind of thing also happens a lot.

So, by all means look for some ultra-cheap players to fill out the squad. But make sure they are regular starters - or at least have a decent chance of becoming so. (Valentin Barco, for example, might not be a nailed-on choice at Brighton, but does seems likely to get a few games at the start of the season because so many of their other defenders are currently injured.)  And try to get the best players you can: there are still choices to be made, even at these very low price-points. And it is worth paying just a little bit extra for a bench player who can actually give you a chance of some decent points, if you need to call on him.

Have an eye to 'investment picks'

On a related point to that last one... Another fatal drawback to choosing cheap players who don't play is that they become toxic assets. A lot of managers have probably included them because they mistakenly believe that they will play, or at least hope that they will; and they will start selling them off when they discover that they are nowhere near to getting a start (or they just discover early on how badly they need a proper bench!) - and their prices will crash.

It is essential to try to steadily boost your squad value (again, this is worth another post or two all of its own; I'll try to get around to it) - so that, after a few months, you might have an extra 2 or 3 million pounds available with which to upgrade your squad... perhaps get in one more of those coveted premium-price players that you couldn't quite afford at the start of the season.

In order to boost squad value, you need to avoid any players whose price is likely to drop (or quickly get rid of them if their price starts dropping), but seek out players whose price is likely to rise. These are what I call 'investment picks'. You might not actually fancy them for a long-term hold; you might never put them in your starting eleven, except in an emergency - but they can help you to grow your budget. The best prospects for this are usually fairly cheap. (Cheap players are usually lower-owned initially, but also more attractive as new acquisitions because of their accessibility. And price increases are mainly dependent on the percentage change in ownership - so, a relatively low-owned player who quickly gains 100,000 or 200,000 more owners is likely to shoot up in price.)  They are often conspicuously under-priced - either because they had a disappointing season last year (perhaps just because of injury absences, rather than actually playing poorly when they did turn out), or because they're new to the League (transfers in from overseas, or promoted youth team players) and no-one really knows how good they might be yet. And they're often on the brink of breaking into the first team, but it's not clear if they're quite there yet. If you can correctly anticipate that someone is going to get a run in the first team because of an injury or a crash in form for the usual starter.... you've got a good 'investment pick'. (I already mentioned Barco as an example. And Conor Bradley or Jarrell Quansah at Liverpool could be tempting to take a chance on for similar reasons - at least at some point during the season.)

Watch out for budget 'windfalls'

A lot of people seem to be grumbling at the moment that there aren't as many good options available at the lowest price-points as there have been in some previous seasons (I'd disagree with that, but...). Perhaps the main reason for that is that it's still too early. Late transfer activity usually brings in some very good new potential picks, often attractively priced down at around 5.0 million, or even 4.5 million - or, occasionally, if you're very, very lucky, at 4.0 million. The 'poster boy' for this phenomenon is, of course, Cole Palmer, who went from perpetual bench-warmer at City to Ballon d'Or fodder with Chelsea (well, you know, if they'd had any European football last year...). But last year also saw Areola's sudden promotion over Fabianski in goal for West Ham. And a couple of seasons before that, Neco Williams made an eve-of-season transfer from the Liverpool bench to a start with Nottingham Forest. So, 4.0-million pound starters, even, occasionally, quite good ones, can just drop in your lap out of nowhere right before the Big Kick-Off.  Be patient, and keep your fingers crossed.

In particular, keep an eye on low-key domestic moves. Very often 'Big Six' clubs will sell or loan out some of their surplus squad players or rising youth team stars to one of the lower-table or newly promoted sides: these can be particularly useful low-budget picks. But such moves often happen very late in the day; and they don't usually make big headlines.

And FORGET about 'differentials'!!!

This is another topic that should one day get a post all of its own (maybe a whole series of 'em!). Suffice it to say that I find this one of the most worthless, the most exasperating, the most overused and misused of all FPL jargon terms. The problem with it is that most managers seem to have a very muddled idea of what it really ought to mean: for most of them, in fact, it seems to be primarily interpreted as: 'Avoid good players because a lot of other managers will have them...'  This is, of course, self-harming nonsense. Utterly BATSHIT CRAZY, in fact.

People glance through the forums where FPL obsessives (like me, I know...) are frenziedly sharing their draft squads (already: three weeks before the season starts!), and if they see someone with several of the same players they have, they moan, "Oh, he's got ALL the same players as me." (NO, he doesn't; he might have 6 or 7 or 8 of the same players; but that's it.)  Then he finds one or two more who also seem to have some of the same players as him, and moans again, "EVERYONE has the same squad as me."  (NO, they don't. A lot of managers may have many of the same players as you.... but NOT  EVERYONE.)

Even the guys or gals who are most like you in their picks probably have no more than 7 or 8 of the same players. That means you have at least 3 unique picks in your starting eleven. And probably an entirely different bench. And maybe different captain and/or vice-captain picks as well. Your teams/squads are perfectly well differentiated. Even across the whole 10 million or so teams that will be regustered over the next few weeks, it is extremely unlikely that there will ever be more than a relatively small handful - and in many gameweeks, absolutely none at all - that are an exact match for yours. (And probably only ever for the starting eleven, not the whole squad. And that will only ever be a one-off, for one gameweek. NOBODY is going to duplicate your team for the entire season,... or even for two weeks in succession.)

Stop fretting about how many other people might be choosing a particular player. Just choose the players you think are going to bring in the most points... and see how you get on.

And finally.... just to recap on a couple of suggestions from yesterday's posts:

I recommend listing all the premium-priced players you might be interested in (if you can dismiss some from consideration right at the start, that's a big help). For all the ones you'd really like to squeeze into your squad, assign them a running-order - the order in which you'll be willing to sacrifice them if you have to.

And since deciding whether or not we can afford to do without Erling Haaland this season is a HUGE question for everyone at the moment, and one that's causing most of us a lot of difficulty, I also suggest... compiling TWO provisional draft squads: one WITH Haaland and one WITHOUT. Put them side by side, and see which one calls to you more....

OK, that's it.   SORRY it got so LONG.....

And SORRY: I really didn't want to encourage anyone to start picking their squads just yet. As I explained in this subsequent post, I think the beginning of August is WAY TOO EARLY to be giving any thought at all to your selections; you really don't want to start doing that until as late as possible before the BIG KICK-OFF.

GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE  FOR THE SEASON AHEAD!!!