Sheep Picks (18)

I quite often snipe at 'The Sheep' element among Fantasy Premier League managers - by which I mean the substantial numbers (possibly, alas, an overall majority) who don't really understand FPL that well, or even follow the EPL that closely, and so make most of their decisions based on an impulsive reaction to last week's results... and/or at the promptings of FPL's own vapid pundit 'The Scout' or the many similarly unimaginative 'influencers' out here on the Internet.... or indeed just following whatever seems to be a popular pick being mentioned a lot in online discussion forums. This often coalesces into a kind of collective hysteria - where the HUGE numbers of managers rushing in to buy a certain player bears no relation to his true worth, his likely points potential over the next handful of games. The player in question might not be at all bad (though often he is); but he is not the irresistible bargain, the must-have asset that so many people seem to think

Hence, I created this occasional series of posts highlighting players I think are dangerously over-owned, are the subject of a sudden and misguided enthusiasm.

For Gameweek 13 of the 2025/2026 season, I'm afraid I have to nominate Eberechi Eze as my 'Sheep Pick' of the Week. 

There's an easy way to identify a classic 'Sheep Pick': just select the 'Transfers in (round)' metric on the FPL 'Stats' page and see who's at the top of the list. More often than not, they're a 'Sheep Pick'! At the moment Eze's neck-and-neck with Brentford forward Igor Thiago to be in first place this week; but there are good reasons for favouring Thiago - he's an in-form goalscorer facing a bottom-of-the-table side (really, everyone should have had him in their squads several weeks ago!). There are really no good reasons at all for picking Eze. It's just a classic case of that typical 'Sheep' phenomenon known as chasing last week's points. Yes, Eze played a blinder against Spurs last Sunday, and was FPL's top returner of the week with 20 points. But is there any reason to suppose that he's likely to do that again this week? Or ever again?? No, I'm afraid there is not.

I absolutely love Eze as a player, I've had him in my FPL squad several times over the last few years, and I hope to see him playing for England at the World Cup this summer. Nothing personal: I just don't think he makes any sense as an FPL pick. Here's why....

1)  His style of play. I've always been sceptical about how compatible Eze would prove to be with Mikel Arteta's footballing philosophy, and despite his extremely impressive start with the club, those doubts remain for me. I fear he's too much the maverick, too much the impulsive improviser to fit in well with his boss's generally ultra-cautious approach to the game, an approach that emphasises minimizing 'risk', building up patiently, maximizing 'control' at all costs, sticking to very detailed and disciplined team tactics. rather than going off-script on a whim....

2)  His place within the Arsenal team.  Eze's only been prospering in recent weeks because he's been able to play a freer, more central role and take on the mantle of the team's primary playmaker - during Martin Odegaard's extended injury absence. Odegaard should be fit to return any day now, though. Certainly there is an argument that Eze and Trossard have been playing so well recently that neither of them can be dropped; and if so, there would be no way back into the team for Odegaard at the moment. But Odegaard has been the creative lynchpin of the team for the last four years, he understands Arteta's tactical demands better, he's forged a close rapport with their other attacking players on the right-hand side, Saka and Timber (and White), and he's the club captain; I can't see any way he won't slot straight back into his normal position as soon as he's fully fit again. Eze, I think, is the type of player who really needs to be given space by his club to fully express himself: not just physical space, an optimum area of the pitch for him to operate in, but the psychological/emotional space of knowing that he's trusted with the responsibility of being the team's principal creator (as he always was at Palace, at least in the last two seasons since Zaha left). If Odegaard returns to his playmaker role, Eze will almost inevitably be shunted out on to the left flank, where he's likely to be more isolated and have much less impact on games (especially as Arsenal tend to heavily favour the right side for their attacks, through that nexus of right full-back plus Odegaard plus Saka plus central striker). He'll still have his moments, I'm sure; but he won't be as continuously influential as he has become during the last handful of games.

3)  His minutes-risk. If relegated to a regular starting position on the left-side of the attacking trident (and it's about the only spot on the pitch that isn't absolutely nailed down by one of Arteta's favourites), there are other players who can play there. Martinelli has more pace, is more used to holding the width on the touchline (as Arteta usually requires from players on that flank), and has looked in great scoring form recently; Madueke can also play on that wing, also has more pace, and is perhaps better at taking on and beating a defender than either Eze or Martinelli (and, as an expensive new arrival at the club, he might reasonably demand a decent number of minutes on the pitch; and he's never likely to get more than token bench appearances on the right, as long as Saka's fit); and Trossard is more adaptable, liking to break into the box to operate as an outright forward sometimes, as well as being able to play out on the wing or in the half-space - and he's absolutely on fire with his goalscoring at the moment. There is a serious possibility that, brilliantly though he has been playing, Eze might soon be sitting out a lot of games.

4)  The next fixture. They're away at Stamford Bridge on Sunday: a London derby, against one of the best defences in the league (some distance behind Arsenal's own, of course; but still, not too shabby) and one of their few title-chasing rivals, and a team who seem to be now coming back into a bit of form. It's unlikely to be an easy game. For the bookies, it looks like it's too close to call: Arsenal are only very narrow favourites, and a low-scoring draw actually seems to be the most fancied result. OK, after that, most of Arsenal's fixture-run through December looks fairly inviting. But why be in such a mad rush to bring him in this week?? Wait and see what happens with Odegaard.

5)  Competition within the club quota.  As I noted a few weeks back, Arsenal's defence is so vastly superior to everyone else's so far this season that there is now an almost overwhelming case for taking two of their defenders (but not three of them; and not their goalkeeper!). Meanwhile, Declan Rice looks likely to be at least the most consistent - and perhaps even the overall No. 1 - points producer among the cheaper midfielders, because of the number of assists he's likely to pick up from corners and free-kicks, as well as defensive points and clean-sheet points and the occasional goal. Saka, meanwhile, is pure class, and always dangerous: since his return from injury, he's been cracking off at least a few firm shots on target in every game, and is surely overdue to have one or two of them go in; he's also a likely provider of assists from corners and free-kicks, often hoovers up 'defensive contributions' too, and now he's on penalties for them as well; if he stays fit, he will almost certainly be Arsenal's top FPL points-scorer of the season. But Trossard (who I tipped as an under-appreciated gem just the other week) is actually the Arsenal player currently in the most outstanding form: he really looks like he could score in every game at the moment, and is absolutely overflowing with confidence, after registering attacking returns in 4  of his last 5 starts. Even if you were allowed 5 picks from Arsenal, Eze would barely be in the frame; when you're capped at 3,.... he should be nowhere near consideration.

6)  His optimum points potential.  Prior to last weekend's massive haul against Spurs, he'd only been averaging 6.5 points-per-game across a run of 6 straight starts. That's good, but not earth-shattering. And I think it's probably near - if not slightly above - the limit of what you'll be able to expect from him on a consistent basis, even over a peak run of returns; over a longer spell, he's not likely to get anything like that much... even if he were to retain the central playmaker role (which seems very unlikely from here on); playing off the left flank, his points prospects are likely to be significantly diminished.

7)  A one-off performance against Spurs. Arsenal and Eze were outstanding in the North London derby last week; but Spurs were catastrophically bad in every single aspect of their performance. It is hard to imagine any other opponent defending that poorly against Arsenal for the rest of the season; no-one else is going to be giving a player like Eze so many of the same sort of chances in one game. Arteta's 'masterplan' for this one was in fact stunningly simple: he just concentrated players on the right flank, regularly moving Merino and/or Zubimendi out wide along with Saka and Timber, to try to lure the Spurs dual pivots out of position. And it worked every single time: Betancur and Palhinha would both be drawn out of the centre to try to stifle the dangerous overload on the flank; but they weren't able to stop the Arsenal wide players from threading balls inside to Eze, who'd been left all on his own, just outside the middle of the penalty area. Being caught out by this 'cunning plan' once or twice would be forgivable; but Spurs somehow never adapted to it all game: they didn't realise that at least one of the pivots would always have to try to stay a bit more central, they didn't think it might be a good idea to maybe assign someone to man-mark Eze, it didn't even occur to the centre-backs that they were going to have to be more alert to rush out quickly to try to block shooting efforts from around the edge of the box. Again and again and again, Eze was invited to have a crack from 16 or 18 or 20 yards out; and he's very good from that distance - he was in hog-heaven! But this was a really freakish occurence, a truly stupendous piece of tactical naivety from the visiting side. Eze has played better games without coming close to scoring. Especially with Arsenal, with the mismatch in style and temperament between him and Arteta, I'm afraid he's just not the kind of player who's ever going to post Salah or Palmer goalscoring numbers.

There are ways I could prove to be 'wrong' on all of this. And I kind of hope I am. I'd love to see Eze enjoy a little hot streak - not least because it will bolster his chances of securing a start with England. He is an excellent player; and his confidence is through-the-roof after that hattrick.

Maybe Arteta will let him continue as the main creator, and leave his captain to stew on the bench. Maybe, even if nominally moved back out on to the left, he'll be able to come inside more, mostly play much narrower, maybe even rotate a little with Odegaard between the left-half, right-half, and central spaces - as the formation perhaps becomes less of a 4-3-3 and more of a 4-2-3-1. Maybe, maybe.... they might even be able to forge a new role for Eze, turning him into a kind of 'false 9': he might possibly get more goals like that, and it would allow both Odegaard and Trossard to continue playing in their best positions - but I fear it would be too radical a tactical departure for the conservative Arteta; and there's not much time to experiment with such an option before Gyokeres is expected back, anyway.

I think there's quite a good chance that, so long as he's still starting, Eze could pick up u few more goals over the coming month - while he's still riding the wave of elation from that massive game on Sunday. But I reckon that's all it would ever be: a short streak - that might look like a good return across 5 or 6 games, and would be enough to reassure 'The Sheep' that their selection had paid off; but Trossard or Saka or Rice might do even better, probably won't be much worse even in the short-term; and across any slightly longer run, say 7 or 8 games and upwards, one or all of those three will almost certainly do much better. And if Eze gets dropped or his points otherwise suddenly dry up and you want to ship him out again, he's cost you 2 transfers in a fairly short space of time; that undercuts his value to an FPL team as well (Saka or Rice look like they could be season-long holds).

Many FPL managers seem to find this hard to grasp, but.... even if Eze does return some good points in the next few weeks, that still doesn't necessarily make him a good pick. You have to consider a player's medium- and long-term prospects, not just the next few games; and you have to evaluate those prospects in the context of issues like club quota, budget, possible alternative uses of the transfers, etc.

But I don't think he will produce all that well, unfortunately: certainly not at anything like the rate he just managed on Sunday!

Sheep Picks (17)

I quite often snipe at 'The Sheep' element among Fantasy Premier League managers - by which I mean the substantial numbers (possibly, alas, an overall majority) who don't really understand FPL that well, or even follow the EPL that closely, and so make most of their decisions based on an impulsive reaction to last week's results... and/or at the promptings of FPL's own vapid pundit 'The Scout' or the many similarly unimaginative 'influencers' out here on the Internet.... or indeed just following whatever seems to be a popular pick being mentioned a lot in online discussion forums. This often coalesces into a kind of collective hysteria - where the HUGE numbers of managers rushing in to buy a certain player bears no relation to his true worth, his likely points potential over the next handful of games. The player in question might not be at all bad (though often he is); but he is not the irresistible bargain, the must-have asset that so many people seem to think

Hence, I created this occasional series of posts highlighting players I think are dangerously over-owned, are the subject of a sudden and misguided enthusiasm.

This is probably the disrecommendation in this series that I feel most hesitant, least confident about, but.... remember, the point of this 'Sheep Pick' category is not that these players have no merit, but that they're dangerously over-popular just at the moment. And going into Gameweek 11 of the 25-26 season, I think that certainly applies to Palace forward Jean-Philippe Mateta.

Mateta is the most transferred-in player this week, by a mile, with 435,000 new owners - and counting (still 5 hours till deadline!). 

Here's why I think those recent purcchasers are probably mistaken:

1)  They're a bit late to the party! Some may use the excuse of the injury news this week about the unaccountably popular Viktor Gyokeres (the week's second most transferred-out player since it was revealed that he was likely to be out-of-action for a few weeks, nearly 300,000 quitting on him in the last few days) giving an additional opportunity/incentive to bring in Mateta. But really, the uptick in his form has been emerging over the last few weeks, and the decisive turn in fixture-difficulty for Palace occurred last week - so, Gameweek 10 was when you really ought to have bought him, if you fancied him.

2)  His numbers really aren't that good. The Bournemouth game was really a bit of a freak result, with both sides being far more open - and downright leaky in defence! - than was expected; and he needed a very soft penalty award to complete his hattrick there, having squandered 3 or 4 of his best opportunities in the match. His chance-conversion rate is actually pretty terrible, one of the most profligate in the league: he scores in games where he gets a lot of chances - but in games where he doesn't enjoy so many chances, he's not likely to get on the scoresheet. If you discount that penalty, he's only got 3 goals in his last 3 league games - which is nothing that remarkable for an 'in-form' striker. And prior to that, he'd only managed 2 goals in 7 games - which is arguably a more accurate reflection of his typical level of performance.

3)  Palace don't have a gimme fixture this week. 'Derby' games are almost always a bit tumultuous and unpredictable. And Brighton, although inconsistent, are a very dangerous opponent, and have shown strongly improving form over the last few weeks. Most of the bookies only have Palace at about 5/4 or 6/5 for the win - and I think that's a little bit generous.

4)  He's not obviously the most appealing pick for this week in his price category. Unless you're swapping him in for Gyokeres (and, presumably, at least 135,000 of his new owners are replacing someone else with him!), the most obvious swap-targets are Nick Woltemade and Joao Pedro. They both have much softer opponents than Palace this week. Admittedly, Woltemade had a bit of a 'mare last weekend; but it looks as though that uncharacterisically 'off day' was caused by some transient problem with injury or illness; prior to that, his recent form had been outstanding. Joao Pedro has been in something of a slump, but we know he has the quality to hurt any opponent; and he has suddenly started to look back to his best in his last two outings, against Spurs and Qarabag in the past week. So, there is really not a compelling case to use up a transfer bringing in Mateta for either of them this week (next gameweek, maybe; Pedro's uptick in form may prove to have been evanescent; and Newcastle's fixtures are a bit challenging in at least 3 - arguably 5 or 6! - of their next 7 games after this week).

5)  Palace without Adam Wharton tend to be much less dangerous. The young midfielder is the crucial progressive passer in their midfield. He was out with an illness last week, and is reportedly still suffering with his fitness this week. If he can't start, or is well below his best because of this, it is much less likely that Palace will produce a good overall performance and achieve a good result.

6)  Palace's upcoming fixtures aren't that easy.  Manchester United, City, and Spurs - even at home - can be very challenging opponents; and Burnley, Fulham, and Leeds, away, might not be pushovers. Bringing Mateta in just for the next 2 matches, against Brighton and Wolves, would be a spendthrift use of transfers!

7)  As ever, there's a club quota issue to keep in mind as well. Palace's defensive record has been so good that most people want at least 1, possibly 2 of their defenders; and Dean Henderson is one of the most appealing goalkeeper picks too. And amongst their attacking players, Ismaila Sarr is often a tempting option - as a fairly inexpensive goalscoring midfielder. If you choose Mateta, you're denying yourself one of these - who are likely to prove more valuable to you in their positions.

8)  Even if he does produce good returns over the next month or so, Mateta might not be an optimum use of budget. He's become a bit expensive now, at 7.9 million pounds; he costs more than Woltemade and Joao Pedro (and Bowen); he costs a lot more than Welbeck, Thiago, Kroupi, and Isidor - who, frankly, have looked in much better form than Mateta. Sesko probably shouldn't be written off, either, as United seem to be slowly getting their shit together somewhat. And a number of budget forward options are suddenly getting a run of starts, and might soon come into contention for inclusion in FPL squads: Callum Wilson, Zian Flemming, Randal Kolo Muani, Igor Jesus,... maybe Liam Delap...  It is quite likely that some of the best attacking midfield talents will start producing again soon: Mbeumo and Trossard should already be 'on the radar' (if not already in the squad!!), and I think it is highly likely that we'll all soon be wanting someone like Saka, Palmer, or Cunha again. There'll be a need to free up some budget to afford players like that; and the most obvious way to do that is by going without higher-priced forwards (Haaland is pretty much essential at the moment; but you could easily go with 2 fairly cheap back-ups - ideally with nice fixture-difficulty rotation!).

9)  The times, they are a-changin'.....  Further to that last point, I think it's very likely that we'll start seeing a number of the most dangerous attacking/creative midfielders, who've been weirdly 'absent' so far this season, return to form/fitness and start producing big FPL returns again. If/when that happens - and it might be soon - we'll probably want to scale back on our forward line. At the moment, most people have built up a strong defensive roster (because that's where most of the points have been coming from so far!), and have often been starting 4 - or occasionally even 5! - of them. That seems likely to continue for a while, as most of the upcoming gameweeks have quite a few seriously unbalanced fixtures in them, and a number of teams (not just Arsenal!) will stand above-average chances of delivering a clean sheet. If we suddenly have more scoring prospects in midfield too, and often want to start 4 or 5 of them (rather than only 3, as has become quite common of late), there will only be room for 2 regular starting forwards - sometimes, perhaps, only 1 (Haaland!!). Now does not seem like a prudent time to be dropping nearly 8-million quid on a forward!

Now, I do rate Mateta; and I do think he's in decent form. He is not by any means a terrible pick, just in terms of his ability and points prospects: there is a very good chance that he will score this week, and/or in a number of the upcoming gameweeks. But in the overall selection context, I see him as an unconvincing choice - he's not clearly better than the closest alternatives, and he's just too damned expensive.

Sheep Picks (16)

I quite often snipe at 'The Sheep' element among Fantasy Premier League managers - by which I mean the substantial numbers (possibly, alas, an overall majority) who don't really understand FPL that well, or even follow the EPL that closely, and so make most of their decisions based on an impulsive reaction to last week's results... and/or at the promptings of FPL's own vapid pundit 'The Scout' or the many similarly unimaginative 'influencers' out here on the Internet.... or indeed just following whatever seems to be a popular pick being mentioned a lot in online discussion forums. This often coalesces into a kind of collective hysteria - where the HUGE numbers of managers rushing in to buy a certain player bears no relation to his true worth, his likely points potential over the next handful of games. The player in question might not be at all bad (though often he is); but he is not the irresistible bargain, the must-have asset that so many people seem to think

Hence, I created this occasional series of posts highlighting players I think are dangerously over-owned, are the subject of a sudden and misguided enthusiasm.

Yep,  in Gameweek 10, I find myself going for another goalkeeper (after nominating Nick Pope as a weird pick in this series a couple of weeks back). And many of the arguments against Pope are the same as those against Raya, or indeed against any keeper from a top club; and I already went through them in that earlier post.

Raya was already by far the most popular goalkeeper pick this year (well, apart from Martin Dubravka - who, as the only 4-million-pound starter in the position, is almost everyone's favourite back-up option); but he's continuing to gain new owners - with another 150,000 coming on board for him this week. And that really makes no sense.

1)  Raya might be 'the best goalkeeper in the league' - but that doesn't necessarily mean anything for FPL.  Great players don't always earn huge FPL points. (I think Pickford and Alisson still have a little bit of an edge over him in their consistency and all-around impact. But he's certainly 'in the conversation' as one of the best few, an absolutely outstanding keeper - who might help Arsenal to the title this year. But thoughts like that can lead to sentimentality and clouded thinking: it doesn't matter how 'good' he is, or how well his team is doing, unless that translates directly into Fantasy points - and with goalkeepers, it very rarely does.)

2)  Raya is not going to be the year's leading FPL goalkeeper. I am usually very wary of making hard-and-fast predictions; but I feel fairly confident in making that one. Despite an exceptionally strong run of results so far, and even a good number of saves in the early games (and that's another issue: we have almost certainly seen 'peak Raya' already, and his average returns-per-game will decline from here on), he's trailing Robin Roefs, tied with Nick Pope, not far ahead of Petrovic and Vicario, and being rapidly caught up in recent weeks by Donnarumma, Lammens, and Emi Martinez. Over the season, you'd probably fancy Pickford and Henderson to overhaul him as well, and possibly a few others too - the likes of Kelleher, Sanchez, Sels, and Leno.

3)  Goalkeepers tend not to give you much of a 'differential advantage' over their position rivals. Even if Raya does end up as the top-returning FPL keeper this season, it probably won't be by very much of a margin over his closest competitors. You'll almost certainly get more of a points advantage by taking a second (and maybe, some people currently feel, even a third...!) Arsenal defender rather than the goalkeeper.

4)  It is 'saves' points, and the Bonus Points that come with them (keepers rarely get in Bonus Point contention for a clean sheet alone), that differentiate goalkeeper performance - rather than the number of clean sheets. Despite an unusually strong start to the season in this respect, with 7 saves credited to him in the opening game at Old Trafford, Raya has only managed 9 more saves in the 8 games since, and has crashed out of the Top 12 for the number of saves; Roefs, Dubravka and Sels have recorded twice as many. His Bonus Points total is likewise a very modest 3 points so far; almost all the top keepers have now managed 2 or 3 Bonus Points - but Robin Roefs is way out in front with 6 points. Arsenal are so good defensively at the moment that David Raya doesn't look likely to earn points for anything except clean sheets - and that is not enough to make him a top FPL keeper pick.

5)  If Arsenal rack up a huge clean sheet total, that will be more of an advantage to their defenders. The remarkable record of 24 clean sheets set in Mourinho's first season at Chelsea has stood for 20 years now, and will probably stand for a lot longer. In recent years, it has been rare for many teams even to approach achieving 1 clean sheet in every 2 games across the season: 12-15 clean sheets is usually a very good total for the top defensive sides. However, Arsenal are currently at least looking favourites to be well out in front for keeping the most clean sheets this year, and they might have a chance of getting above 20 for the season. If they manage that, all of their defenders might have as many as 5 or 6 more clean sheets than any other defender. (Of course, Raya will also have that advantage over every other keeper, and that's presumably what all his FPL owners are getting so excited about. But for him, it is of less significance, because he is likely to do so poorly from saves and Bonus Points.)  All of their defenders are likely to pick up more Bonus Points than Raya (because they rack up consistent BPS credit from being on the ball so much during build-up play), they will sometimes get an extra lift from the new 'defensive points' (in games like the Manchester United one, where they find themselves under the cosh for long periods; it probably won't happen to them all that often, but, when it does, it will still give their defenders more extra points than Raya is likely to be earning from saves), and all of the Arsenal defenders currently look quite likely to chip in a good number of attacking contributions too - because one or both of the full-backs frequently push forward to support the attacking line, and the centre-backs are the main target men at their highly productive set-piece routines. Any Arsenal defender who starts regularly looks likely at the moment to significantly outscore almost any other defender at any other club; Raya does not look likely to outscore all the other goalkeepers.

6)  With a top side, you must weigh the 'opportunity cost' of going without one of their outfield players. This is the ultimate reason why it is almost never a good idea to take a keeper from one of the title-chasing clubs. In addition to the superior claims of any/all of Arsenal's defenders over Raya, you also have to consider whether you might want Bukayo Saka at some point in the season (almost certainly!). or Declan Rice, who is looking like he might be the most consistent provider in the 'cheap 5th seat' midfield slot. And they have a number of other players who might be worth considering if they hit a patch of hot form: Trossard, Martinelli, Eze, Havertz, Gyokeres. You might indeed want to keep one of your 'Arsenal slots' open for such an eventuality, limit yourself to taking just 2 of their players most of the time, so that you can always easily bring in a third pick whenever you choose to. That flexibility, in itself, could be worth going without Raya.

7)  There's also a price/value-for-money issue with Raya, or any top-price keeper. There's not only an 'opportunity cost' measured against other players you might pick instead within the Arsenal club quota, there's one with other players you might pick within the overall budget allocation. You almost always (no - always) get a bigger points-lift per 100k spent from the outfield positions, especially goalscoring midfielders. Therefore, it never makes sense to go for one of the premium-priced goalkeepers when any of the alternatives half a million or a million cheaper have a decent chance of at least getting somewhere near their points total.

I really do not have anything against David Raya. I think he's an absolutely superb keeper (he was a mainstay of my squad when he started out with Brentford a few years ago). And he is assuredly odds-on to win the Golden Glove this year. But for FPL, he really is quite a terrible choice of goalkeeper.

It might not be readily apparent just how bad a pick he is; particularly if he manages to stay up near the top of the goalkeeper points rankings. But however well he may do, it is absolutely certain that other Arsenal defenders - and perhaps also Saka or another of their attacking players, when in peak form - would have done even better for you if you'd chosen them instead.

Sheep Picks (15)

I quite often snipe at 'The Sheep' element among Fantasy Premier League managers - by which I mean the substantial numbers (possibly, alas, an overall majority) who don't really understand FPL that well, or even follow the EPL that closely, and so make most of their decisions based on an impulsive reaction to last week's results... and/or at the promptings of FPL's own vapid pundit 'The Scout' or the many similarly unimaginative 'influencers' out here on the Internet.... or indeed just following whatever seems to be a popular pick being mentioned a lot in online discussion forums. This often coalesces into a kind of collective hysteria - where the HUGE numbers of managers rushing in to buy a certain player bears no relation to his true worth, his likely points potential over the next handful of games. The player in question might not be at all bad (though often he is); but he is not the irresistible bargain, the must-have asset that so many people seem to think

Hence, I created this occasional series of posts highlighting players I think are dangerously over-owned, are the subject of a sudden and misguided enthusiasm.

Yes, for my first nomination of the 2025-26 season, I'm going for Newcastle keeper, Nick Pope.

As I usually say with these posts, I have nothing against the player himself. He's a fine goalie, and he's been (mostly) in excellent form this season. Anyone who does pick him as their first-choice keeper for FPL might not be dramatically disappointed.

But you only get to pick one (regularly starting) goalkeeper for FPL, as against multiple players for all the outfield positions; and you don't usually want to change your goalkeeper too often, if at all. So, it's really important to get the right one. And I don't feel that Nick Pope is the right goalkeeper for FPL this year.

And yet he is the most transferred-in goalkeeper since the end of Gameweek 7, with 170,000 new managers piling in for him (already; it's likely to be even more by Saturday's GW8 deadline); and the 12th most transferred-in player of all, which is pretty remarkable, given how little transfer activity goalkeepers typically generate.

The only reason I can see for this is that he happens to be top of the FPL goalkeeper rankings at the moment.  Yes, he's kept 5 clean sheets so far. But... Newcastle have had a fairly kind opening run of fixtures: 4 of those clean sheets were against pretty abject opponents - Villa, Leeds, Wolves, and Forest - who barely mustered a decent effort on target between them.

Pope only ranked 8th= as a shot-stopper in the Premier League last season. He's up to 5th at the moment on that metric - but well behind Henderson, Roefs, Sels, and Johnstone. For saves so far this season - which are typically just about as important to a goalie's total FPL returns as clean sheets - he's only 5th=, again behind Sels and Roefs, but also Dubravka and Vicario; and no better than Petrovic, Leno, and Kelleher (all of them cheaper). He's only earned 4 'saves points' so far this season - 4 times in 7 starts: good, but far from outstanding (and in 2 of those games he barely squeaked over the line, being officially credited with exactly 3 saves in each, just enough to qualify for the points).

Paradoxical as it may seem, if Newcastle do turn out to have one of the tightest defences this year (and I think they might), that's not necessarily good for their goalie's FPL prospects. An ideal FPL keeper hits that sweet spot between his defence being good enough to help him avoid conceding too many goals too often, and come through with a decent - though it doesn't have to be world-beating - number of clean sheets,... while also being in a team that is weak enough or inconsistent enough to struggle against a lot of opponents, and hence give him lots of opportunities to make saves.

But at the moment, we really don't know what we're going to get from Newcastle this year. Despite some decent results, their form has looked erratic, unreliable so far. They are once again struggling to adapt to the additional demands of midweek Champions League football. And they seem to be perpetually hobbled with injuries in their defence; currently, full-backs Tino Livramento and Lewis Hall are set to be out for a medium-term absence.

They don't even have a great run of fixtures coming up next. Under Eddie Howe, they have become notorious for being much less formidable on the road; and 4 of their next 6 matches are away from home (3 of them against sides who, though defensively flakey, are capable of producing danger in attack; and the last one against Everton, a side who lack a bit of incisiveness up-front, but are looking defensively very strong this year). And 2 of their next 3 home games are against City and Spurs! Who really is betting on Newcastle to keep many - or any??? - clean sheets in that run?! (Yes, maybe he'll do really well for saves over that run of games. But that's a dangerous thing to gamble on. And really, even over a fairly short sequence of games, you need an FPL goalkeeper to be picking up some points for both saves and clean sheets.)

On no criterion - performance stats, team form, team consistency/reliability, selection stability of the teammates in front of him, fixtures - does Nick Pope look like the best goalkeeper prospect for FPL over the next couple of months,.... not anywhere near.

So, we must assume that The Sheep are - as so often - simply being dazzled by the high points total he happens to be enjoying at the moment. (Without having given any thought to how he acquired that points total, or how likely he is to continue scoring at that sort of rate in the upcoming games...)

And a final observation on selecting goalkeepers: in addition to finding that sweet spot of being in a team that keeps a fair number of clean sheets (so, not Forest this year, by the look of it - not unless they get another change of manager soon; nor probably Burnley, or Brentford, or Sunderland, or Brighton, despite their impressive keeper performances so far) but is a team that is also sometimes vulnerable enough to leave its keeper needing to make lots of saves (so, not Arsenal; nor - despite being a bit flakier now than at their peak - City nor Liverpool), you also really want to take a keeper from a team that you're never likely to want 3 outfield players from. (That's because an in-form outfield player - particularly a forward or a goalscoring midfielder - will almost always give you a much bigger points-lift over the next best alternatives in their position than the best goalkeeper will over his rivals. And you want to retain flexibility to bring in another such player from a good team whenever that hot run of form appears to be emerging....  Taking the goalie from Arsenal or Liverpool or City or Chelsea - or even Spurs or Newcastle or Bournemouth - rarely yields any more points than good mid-table options like Henderson, Pickford, Leno, or Sels; but it is potentially blocking you from being able to bring in a player like Trossard or Eze, or Gakpo or Frimpong, or Marmoush or Doku, or Enzo or Estevao, etc., etc. when you might want them.)

It is quite likely that we'll want (at least) one Newcastle defender at some point this season; currently, Woltemade is starting to look perhaps the most appealing mid-priced forward option; Guimaraes and Tonali are potentially 'in the conversation' for a cheaper midfielder who gets occasional goals as well as good 'defensive contributions' points; and Gordon (or Barnes or Murphy or Elanga) will probably have a good points-scoring run at some point.

Hence, even if there were very strong reasons for fancying Nick Pope as the best goalkeeping option at the moment, I'd hesitate to pick him on club quota grounds; however good he might be, there are probably going to be other Newcastle players you'll want more. It's not as overwhelmingly powerful an argument as it is with Arsenal and Liverpool, but it is a point that should be kept in mind. But there are currently no strong reasons for fancying Nick Pope as FPL's best goalkeeping option.

SOMETIMES the Sheep get lucky!!!

Now, I said at the weekend, just ahead of the Gameweek 6 deadline, that I thought all the enthusiasm for risking the Triple Captain chip on Haaland against Burnley was probably misguided....

And look what happened!  Yes, I was very soon proved 'wrong'!!

Except.... I carefully said 'probably'. And I was specifically criticising the reasons given for this pick (exaggeratedly denigrating Burnley's defensive abilities; and that on the basis of a single  - misinterpreted, misrepresented - statistic!), and reviewing some strong counter-arguments for waiting for later, potentially better opportunities to use the chip (on Haaland, or someone else).  In fact, I explicitly acknowledged that this chip play on Haaland might turn out OK!

But still I get pilloried by the online dingbats who insist that I made a foolish, ill-informed and obviously incorrect 'prediction'.  I did not. I just pointed out a few facts they were wilfully overlooking, and they got pissy about it; and when things work out OK for them,.... they then want 'revenge'!!!  Petty people.

Actually, things worked out much better than merely 'OK': a 16-point haul might well prove to be Haaland's best return of the entire season; and there probably won't be too many other scores much better than it. It did, as it happens, turn out to be potentially the best Triple Captain return for the season (or at least for the first half of it, since we now have two of these chips).

But the people who gambled their Triple Captain chip this week didn't know that was going to happen. And most of them are doubly stupid, because they think they did know. Trebly stupid, because they think that a successful outcome proves the 'smartness' of the original decision. It does not: it only proves that they were lucky - very, very lucky.

These people appear to fall prey to the common fallacy that if something happens, it must have had a 100% probability of happening at some point long prior to its happening. That is not so.

No-one ever has quite a 100% probability of even starting a game (because there are so many little last-minute accidents-of-fate that might thwart that - how often have we seen players pull a muscle in the warm-up, for example?). In this case, given that Haaland had missed some training earlier in the week with a back-muscle problem, he can't have been much better than a 95% probability to appear from the beginning, perhaps much less; there was surely a good chance that Pep would prefer to leave him on the bench as a super-sub option, against a team who were not expected to be very difficult to beat.

And the probability of him playing most of the game was perhaps no better than 60% or 70%, given that recent injury concern, and the fact that Pep almost invariably withdraws him as soon as a game looks safely won - especially when there is a European match coming up the following midweek. And the likelihood of him being left on until the final whistle can't have been more than 50%.

While Haaland does produce a fair few assists, it's still a relative rarity: usually only about a 25% chance in any given game. (And last year the assists really dried up for him; so, with this evolving City set-up, we might expect that probability to be even lower at the moment.)

And then, of course, he ended up getiting a brace - right at the end of the game, when he could not reasonably have been expected to be still on the pitch. Even a very poor defensive team (and Burnley are not that....) will rarely make two 'errors leading to goals' in the same game; and the chances of them both occurring in added-on time, and both being converted by the same player are vanishingly small.

Haaland's 16-point return in this game was a completely unpredictable freak event!!

Sure, City were favourites to win, and win fairly comfortably. There was a good chance they might score 2 or 3 goals against them (all of this I acknowledged in my discussions of the prospects for the match). But there was no compelling reason to suppose they would obviously be able to score a lot of goals (and really, Burnley were on top for a lot of this game, nearly took a 2-1 lead early in the second half; they didn't deserve to go down this badly), nor to expect that Haaland would claim more than 1 of any they did score (and he didn't - for nearly 90 full minutes of regulation time, which must have been agony for all those TC punters!!). There is always a range of likely points outcomes for any player in any game; and this result for Haaland was way, way above the median of that range this week.

Those who now smugly proclaim that they predicted "exactly what was going to happen" in this match are lying to themselves and everyone else. 

They made a risky bet, a brave bet - that paid off. Puffing themselves in those terms would be acceptable. But to pretend that it was 'a safe bet' and 'a shrewd decision' and so on is fatuous nonsense. You had no idea how that bet was going to turn out: it could have gone very, very badly instead of very, very well. But it just happened to go very, very, very, very well. Thank your lucky stars - and shut up about it.

And there is still a chance that another TC bet over the next three months will pay out even bigger.....

[And yes, that sheep does appear to have 8 tiny legs!! AI is not ready to take over the world quite yet....]

ONE statistic proves nothing

 

This week, The Sheep's big stampede is towards punting their Triple Captain chip on Erling Haaland.

There are a few reasons why this might not be such a great idea. It's still very early in the season, and - even with this new second Triple Captain chip only available until the end of December, there will be many more, possibly better, opportunities to gamble it on Haaland, or another player. The big lad's been suffering with a back strain and missed a lot of training this week (now expected to start, it seems; but quite likely to get pulled off early, if the game's in the bag [as Pep usually does anyway; but may now go for very early], especially as City have an away trip to Monaco on Wednesday in the Champions League), and he's probably not going to be quite at his best.. And, well, although they're steadily improving, City still haven't yet looked anywhere near their dominant best of a couple of years ago.

Ah, but the primary reason behind this TC choice seems to be that Burnley are supposedly "the worst defence in the league."  And the sole piece of evidence cited for that momentous assertion is that they're currently top of the stats for 'shots conceded'.

A few problems with this:

1)  One statistic in isolation very rarely tells you anything.

2) Statistics this early in the season for anything can't tell you very much, because one 'untypical' game can massively skew the overall figures. And also, nobody's form has really settled down yet, and we've seen some wildly erratic performances and unexpected results so far this year.

3)  The 'shots conceded' number is more a measure of the quality of the opposition you've faced than the quality of your defence in dealing with that threat. And Burnley have had a particularly demanding opening run of fixtures, facing Spurs, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Nottingham Forest so far - all very good attacking teams (damn, yes, even United played quite well against them).

4)  On a range of stats that more accurately reflect 'defensive quality', Burnley actually look quite impressive. One of the most persuasive of all is their xGC 'delta', the gap between their 'expected goals conceded' and the actual number conceded - that's an enormous 2.3 in the right direction. They're keeping more goals out than almost any other team!

So, it's early in the season, and the stats can easily get skewed: Burnley have twice conceded 3 goals in a match, which makes their defensive record look terrible. They've also had 2 penalties awarded against them, which makes their goals conceded total look a bit worse than it really ought to. They looked rocky at the start of the season, when they were easily taken apart by Spurs, but have improved steadily since. Against United, they left themselves open by chasing a game they thought they could win, and were desperately unlucky to concede a late penalty to lose the points. They beat fellow promoted side Sunderland fairly comfortably, and kept a clean sheet. They played well enough to deserve a clean sheet and a point away from home against Liverpool, and were again desperately unlucky to be thwarted by a very late penalty. And they contained Forest very well - after conceding a goal out-of-nowhere barely a minute into the game.

You need to consider a range of relevant statistics, never just one on its own. And you need to put those statistics in context, to consider the story of each individual match that has produced them.

Just saying, "Look how many shots Burnley have faced! They must be rubbish!!" is NONSENSE.

This post isn't really about Burnley. Or Haaland. It's about how people deceive themselves with superficial, lazy readings of statistics.

Burnley are a weak team overall: they can't control the ball enough or create enough threat to stop the stronger teams in the league from dominating them. But their defence is, arguably, in fact one of the best in the league at the moment.

And, realising the hopelessness of their chances against City, they'll probably sit back in a low-block all game and try to tough out a draw. They so nearly made that work against Liverpool - who are, at the moment, a much, much better-looking team than City.

I don't think Burnley will beat City, and even a draw is a very long-shot for them. Heck, I think Haaland can probably pick up a goal, even if he only plays 55 minutes or so.

But Burnley's defence (and keeper!) are actually pretty damn good. They are - thus far, anyway - the most impressive-looking of the promoted sides; and also - so far - way, way better than West Ham,.... or Villa,... or Wolves.

This is not a fixture that looks like a pushover, a guaranteed multi-goal party.

People are only playing that Triple Captain chip now because they're getting impatient. (And impatience in FPL is - usually - a very bad thing.)

I'd rather wait until Haaland has clearly shaken off this injury worry,.... and is facing a genuinely weak defence (he has Villa, Leeds, Sunderland, Fulham, and West Ham coming up between now and Christmas).

Even more, I'd rather wait until one of the goalscoring midfielders (who can give you a better return) like Saka or Salah or Palmer, or maybe Mbeumo or Cunha comes into a hot streak of form. All rushing to drop the Triple Cap on Haaland the first time he plays a promoted side is classic sheep behaviour.

(Now, Erling has been in tremendous form so far this season; and he is really the only player at the moment who regularly looks capable of scoring more than 1 goal per game. And he might pull that off again against Burnley; he might even get a hattrick [very, very unlikely; but he might]. That won't mean that playing the chip on him this week was a smart choice; that would just make it a lucky choice. All the evidence points to there being better opportunities for this chip a bit later on.)

[Ha! As it turns out, Haaland did manage a huge return in this game. Though he had to rely on being gifted 2 goals by bizarre defensive errors at the end of the regulation 90 minutes! As I acknowledge at the end of this piece, there was indeed a reasonable chance that he'd pick up a goal in this game, maybe even two; but there was no very strong reason for supposing that this was much more likely than in many other fixtures he'll face, much less for expecting that he was 'almost certain' to bag a multi-goal haul. The outcome here, while not beyond the bounds of expectation, was very much at the uppermost limit of the range of such expectation - it was very, very LUCKY!]

This year's EARLY 'Sheep Picks'

 

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

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

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

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

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

Most owned FPL players ahead of the 25/26 season

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The 2024-25 'Sheep Picks' revisited

During the course of the year, I highlighted a number of unduly popular selections - 'sheep picks' - that I thought were misguided and unpromising, for a variety of reasons. Now that the season is over, I thought I'd quickly review those disrecommendations, to see if I was badly off-the-mark on any of them.

My first nomination, going into Gameweek 2, was Everton defender Michael Keane, who was a popular 'budget-enabler' early in the season - as one of the few 4.0-million-pound players who was actually getting a start. However, you don't want to be having to use transfers to replace such a low-value squad-filler; for that sort of spot, you really need someone you can rely on to be at least a starter all season; and Keane was obviously only ever filling in short-term for the injured Jarrad Branthwaite. Now, Branthwaite's injury kept him out a bit longer than first expected, and then quickly recurred; so, Keane actually played a full match in 9 of the first 10 games. And he did bag 2 excellent - but, for him, extremely untypical! - goals in that spell; so, people who had bet on him got rather lucky! Everton predictably took a battering from Spurs, leaving Keane with a nul-pointer in the first game after I warned against this pick: and they were so ropey at the start of the season that they couldn't beat Villa either,... or even Leicester - giving Keane just a solitary point in two of the next three games, before Branthwaite initially returned. 31 points over the next 9 games - including a 14-point bonanza for his screamer of a late winner against Ipswich - turned out to be a pretty decent return for a cheap defender; but over the 4 or 5 games immediately following, it was much less so. He was not objectively a good pick at that point, even for the price (people like Wout Faes and Taylor Harwood-Bellis were playing better, and were looking much more nailed starters for the season).

The following week, I called out Noni Madueke - a classic case of 'chasing last week's points', as nearly 1 milllion managers rushed in for him after his hattrick and 20-point haul against Wolves. Another goal - for a 10-point week - against Forest in GW7 dragged him up to 22 points over the next 5 games, which would be a barely adequate return, perhaps; but then he blanked in the next 6 games after that, quickly dropping 200,000 in price again. It was always pretty obvious that he was unlikely to become a regular goalscorer.

And in Gameweek 4, I went for the low-hanging fruit of poor Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Over 200,000 managers piled on him after a good game and a double-digit haul against Bournemouth. Now, he did actually score again against Villa in the next game, and perhaps some FPL managers would be satisfied with that. But he followed that up with 9 blanks in a row, and only scored once more all year - just before succumbing to a season-ending injury in January. Everton were in pretty awful shape at that point, and Dominic has never managed to produce sustained goalscoring form - so, it was a clearly daft selection.

For Gameweek 8, I picked on Rayan Ait-Nouri. He'd just notched up a goal and an assist against Brentford, but Wolves's defensive form was so abject at that point that this performance had only earned him 9 points, and barely dragged him above 20 points for the first 7 games of the season. Wolves had City up next; and even though the Champions were just starting to stutter a bit, there was no way Wolves were going to beat them. Ait-Nouri did in fact come up with a goal in the following game against Brighton, and then managed a clean sheet against Southampton two weeks after that - for a so-so return of 14 points from 4 games; but a miserable run after that yielded just 4 net points from the next 6 games.  And even with the sharp upturn in Wolves's results after Vitor Pereira took over in mid-season, Ait-Nouri was still often being used in a more purely deefensive role, and he only produced 1 more goal and 4 assists - and 85 points - in 20 games under the new manager: pretty good, but still not great; and that didn't start getting going until the end of December, nearly three months after this post.. His return of 18 points from the next 10 matches from here was dismal.

In Matchweek 11, I queried the choice of Dominic Solanke. Again, over-excitable FPL managers were responding to an excellent performance against Villa in the previous game, where he picked up 2 goals and an assist,... and to the prospect of facing promoted Ipswich next. Of course, he blanked in that following game, as Spurs were well beaten by the plucky East Anglian side; and he only produced 1 assist in his next three outings. Postecoglou's Spurs were floundering, and Solanke was mostly playing an unselfish facilitator role rather than being a primary goal outlet for them: he only managed 3 more goals and 3 assists, and a fairly modest 42 points, over the 11 games before he picked up an injury in January. I rate Dominic very highly as a player; but in that team, in that moment,... he was clearly not a strong FPL points prospect.

In Matchweek 12, I cast doubt on whether we should get too excited about the prospect of a 'new manager bounce' for Manchester United under Ruben Amorim, and whether his first really good haul of the season could be taken as the beginning of a 'hot streak' for Bruno Fernandes. Just as with Spurs in the previous week, Ipswich proved not to be a pushover, battling to a draw in front of their home fans, as Fernandes blanked. And although he picked up another 2 assists in a good win against still floundering Everton the following week, he would blank 8 more times over the next 12 games - as United failed to find any consistency under their new coach. Maybe some Bruno adopters would have been happy with three 9-pointers from him over the next 5 games (but he did follow that up by getting himself sent off against Wolves in December); but his return from Gameweeks 12 to 25 was a modest 56 points. In recent years, this has tended to be the problem with Bruno: like Son Heumg-Min, he will produce several decent hauls - and probably a few very big ones - every season,... but there will be long runs of blanks in between these, which make him hard to justify as a long-term hold. It would have been great if you could get on him for his run of 46 points from 4 games from Gameweeks 26-29; but for the season as a whole, he was not a good pick this year.

I nominated Bruno again in Gameweek 30, when over 1.25 million had bought him either side of the preceding game against Leicester, when he did indeed produce his season's best haul of 17 points. However, Manchester United's form was in a death-spiral by that point. Bruno had been trying to keep them afloat single-handedly, but he couldn't keep doing that forever. The Leicester match was in fact the end of a 4-game run of big returns; after that, he only managed 22 more points over the last 9 gameweeks.

In Gameweek 13, I turned my scepticism on Matheus Cunha - a great player, and one I have sometimes had in my own squad over the last two seasons. But it seemed crazy that over a million managers were scooping him up after two big hauls back-to-back towards the end of November. Those achievements were only against Southampton and Fulham, so not necessarily strong evidence of better prospects against the majority of forthcoming opponents; and although the immediately upcoming fixture-run looked quite promising, after Christmas they were facing a really brutal succession of opponents - and indeed, despite a strong improvement in performance under new coach Pereira, they only won 2 games in 10 in this sequence, and Cunha only produced a haul 3 times in that run. My main argument against him at the time was, why would you use transfers on a striker who probably only represents a good points-prospect for a short run of games - particularly when he's now become quite expensive, and there are so many cheaper forwards also in good form? Cunha's prospects didn't look strong enough to be worth swapping out whoever you currently had in that position. And in fact, despite facing that series of weak opponents in late November and early December, Wolves lost all 4 of these games, and Cunha only returned in the last of them, against Ipswich. And that was the game in which he got involved in some ugly argey-bargey with an Ipswich steward, and was looking likely to receive a LONG ban (it was amazing, and frankly, unjust, that he did not). Two more good hauls immediately following the Ipswich game - when, by rights, he should not have been playing - fortuitously made this look like a good pick for a while; but again over the longer term, Cunha's returns disappointed: his temperament was a recurring problem, as he caused tension in the dressing-room and with his coach, getting rested or given only short minutes a few times, and picking up another extended ban for fighting Milos Kerkez. He got a fairly healthy 46 points from the next 7 games after I queried the rush to buy him; but only another 67 in the second half of the season. And despite a very decent December for Cunha, there were other forwards who did about as well - and would continue to do so for longer.

Ahead of Gameweek 26, I questioned why over 1 million managers had snapped up Omar Marmoush in just a few days. Of course, it was because he'd just bagged an excellent hattrick against Newcastle. But City's form was still looking flakey, and it looked like Haaland was going to be out for a little while with another injury; and they had Liverpool up next, and a few other potentially tough fixtures approaching too. I was favourably impressed with Marmoush's potential, but I wasn't convinced how regular an impact he would have with this season's struggling City side. And so it proved: he blanked in the next 3 games, and then managed only 4 more goals and a solitary assist over the final 10 games of the season.

In Gameweek 29, I poured my scorn on the nearly 500,000 managers who'd brought in Erling Haaland. Admittedly, that was the big Blank Gameweek of the season, so a lot of them were probably only doing it on their Free Hit, because so many of their usual big-hitters were missing that weekend. But neither his nor City's form had been that great (3 defeats in the previous 6 games, and 3 blanks for Haaland); and they were now facing Brighton, who can be a very problematic opponent. And so it proved: the visitors battled to a 2-2 draw, and really should have won the game. Haaland at least yielded points for converting an early penalty, but didn't do much else in the game. And he went down with an injury the following week, which would rule him out for over a month. I didn't anticipate that, of course; but there had been good reasons for doubting he'd get big points in that particular game. And his record of 70 points in 12 starts over the second half of the season, as City slowly improved again, though extremely respectable - is a long way below peak Haaland.

In Gameweek 30, I called out Palace's Ismaila Sarr for being a daft pick. Now, he's a player I like very much; he's a hard worker for the side, but without ever looking likely become a regular or prolific goalscorer. He'd just bagged 3 goals - and 26 Fantasy points - in the previous 2 games, and he had a pair of Double Gameweeks approaching. But he obviously isn't the kind of player to repeat that kind of scoring feat too often, and the two double-fixtures weren't all that inviting. He provided 3 more assists over the season, and came up with another goal on the final day against Liverpool; but he only returned 7 points and 3 points from his two double-fixtures in GWs 32 and 33, and only 36 points over the last 10 games of the campaign. His teammate Ebere Eze, clearly a much stronger prospect from Palace in this period, produced 17 points from the back-to-back doubles, and 62 points over the last 10 games. This is the most clearcut one of the lot! Why would anyone choose Sarr over Eze??

In Gameweek 35, I warned against Ollie Watkins. Another pretty baffling one. Again, a very good player - but neither he nor Villa were showing any really solid form at that moment (they'd ground out a good sequence of wins over the past couple of months, but without actually playing very well: most of them were narrow and/or rather lucky victories, and mostly against weaker teams). Ollie did in fact manage a goal and an assist in the remaining games, for a respectable but hardly world-shattering 18 points from 4 starts. However, while not a resounding return - surely, far less than his new owners had been hoping for - it was actually pretty good in the context of the other leading forwards: though few might have predicted this, every other forward player faltered to some extent over the last few weeks of the season, and even the best of them - Isak, Wood, Marmoush, Welbeck - only managed around 13, 14, 15 points from the last 4 games, while the likes of Cunha and Mateta finished really poorly. Somewhat surprisingly, Watkins turned out to be not a particularly great pick here, but the least worst.

In Gameweek 36, I wagged my finger at people rushing to buy Josko Gvardiol. Folks were again under-estimating bottom-of-the-table Southampton - who did here rouse themselves to a heroically obstinate defensive effort and hold their illustrious visitors to a goalless draw. (At least Gvardiol picked up yet more clean-sheet points; but I think there had really been a pretty good chance Southampton could have scored in this one - if they'd had the guts to go after the game a bit more.) Their final two opponents after that, Fulham and Bournemouth, weren't at all straightforward, either; although, fortunately for City, both played quite poorly at the close of the season. So, Gvardiol's 2 clean sheets in 3 games here was very much at the upper end of what might have been hoped for from him in these games. However, my main argument at this point was not that he was definitely not worth having, but that it was ridiculously late to be joining the party: many people had owned Gvardiol all season; I'd been wary of him at first, because I doubted he'd be scoring a goal every other week, knew his defensive points weren't likely to be that great with City; and also, he didn't seem likely to be an ever-present, since Pep's defenders almost never are; but he had in fact become one of City's most nailed-on players this year, and he'd grown into a much more persuasive pick as City's defensive performances slowly improved from the turn of the year onwards. In the 7 games prior to this, he'd racked up 5 wins, 2 draws, 4 clean sheets, and 32 Fantasy points - people really should have bought him a month or so before this.

Finally, in Gameweek 37, I raised doubts about going in for Ebere Eze so late in the season. Yes, he'd been looking gee'd up rather than physically and emotionally drained by his team's recent success in the FA Cup Semi-Final, and had managed 3 good hauls back-to-back in the league. But as with Gvardiol above, the argument this time was not so nuch that he wasn't worth having, but that his peak returns were most likely over, and it might not be worth using a transfer on him now. He did in fact get a goal that week in a spirited win over Wolves, despite only coming on for a short spell at the end - in the wake of playing a victorious FA Cup Final at the weekend just a few days earlier. But he was more subdued in the final game, and earned no bonus points for either appearance. 9 points in a pair of games isn't too shabby - but there were almost certainly far better things you could have used your penultimate Free Transfer on.

Sometimes The Sheep wind up happy. Michael Keane got a much longer first-team run than had initially been expected, and came up with two fabulous goals out of nothing during that spell; but Everton's defence was so leaky early in the season that he still didn't produce particularly good points. His owners may claim that he was only ever meant to be a bench-filler (though I saw a lot of people starting him!), but you don't want to have to use transfers to change your bench-fillers; ideally, they'll be set-and-forget for the whole season, or a good long chunk of it. Bruno Fernandes got 3 decent hauls in the next 5 or 6 games after I first warned against him - probably enough to keep his owners happy,... although his season-long returns definitely weren't. Ditto Matheus Cunha, who did manage a few good hauls over the month or so after I voiced my misgivings about picking him. Even Erling Haaland at least came up with a goal in Blank Gameweek 29, which was OK - for people who'd only ever planned to move him in for that one week. Josko Gvardiol, somewhat contrary to expectation, picked up 2 further clean sheets in a tricky run of opponents over the last 3 games of the season; again, not great, but probably good enough to content his recent purchasers. Even Eze scored in a 10-minute cameo off the bench, in the wake of his FA Cup triumph - again, hardly expected; really, rather an undeserved piece of good fortune for FPL managers who'd brought him in only that week. And Ollie Watkins, while not lighting any fires, got a slightly better return over the final few games of the season than any of the other forwards.

Even here, the 'good' outcome was surely far less good than the adopters of these players had been optimistically expecting at that moment in the season. And in most cases, these returns didn't come immediately, in the next game - the one for which their new owners obviously had such high hopes - but just a little bit later. And in each case, I would say, there were a number of interlocking factors at play which combined to produce a highly fortuitous, far-from-expected set of events. Sometimes you get lucky; sometimes, very, very lucky; but that doesn't retrospectively make a rash decision into a wise one.

I'm very happy that so many of these posts of mine this season criticising over-popular picks proved incontestably correct: Madueke, Calvert-Lewin, Ait-Nouri, Solanke, Marmoush, Sarr. But I'm also pleased that some of them proved to be less clearcut: I think those potential 'grey areas' are places where there's scope for more interesting analysis and debate. But ultimately I feel equally vindicated in most of those more challenging instances: even though they performed well above what should have been a good average expectation of them in the coming fixtures,... it still wasn't quite good enough to justify the pick. Moreover, they usually didn't do very well over a longer run of games; and in many cases, they didn't do as well as some cheaper alternate picks.

'Collective action', 'group mentality' is all too often sadly deluded. I wouldn't advise never going for a suddenly popular FPL pick; but I would say - you should always question it very, very carefully; because popularity, on its own, is perhaps more often a bad thing than a good one.