This season's 'early MADNESS'

 

Every year in FPL, we seem to get one or two particularly common 'ideas' floated in the last days of pre-season that are.... little short of BATSHIT INSANE.

This year, the front-runner seems to be the bizarre notion of dropping the Bench Boost chip in Gameweek 1. That would most definitely be popping the cork.... prematurely.

I discover that some folks in FPL-land think this is not so bizarre, and indeed a 'legitimate tactic' that you might contemplate in any season. (FPL actually rounded up a bunch of its so-called 'experts' to discuss this, and they nearly all claimed it was at least an option worth considering; but the reasons they gave were all so daft that they inadvertently made the case against perhaps even more strongly than I will now attempt to do.)

Now, OK, there are two unusual factors this year which might make the idea superficially tempting, for a moment.

The first is that we've just been given TWO Bench Boost chips for the year, for the first time - one of which has to be used in the first half of the season. Faced with this unfamiliar and unexpected bonus of an 'early' Bench Boost, a lot of FPL managers are completely bamboozled as to what it might be any good for (most have always bought into to the not-unjustified but dangerously overestimated benefits of playing the Bench Boost in one of the Double Gameweeks at the back-end of the season, and have no conception of how to take advantage of it in any other circumstance), and are being tempted to just get it out of the way.

The other is that the opening weekend's fixtures do look somewhat enticing for a few of the top clubs and players: Arsenal face nearly-relegated-last-year Manchester United (although United have always remained capable of springing the occasional upset, and they are at Old Trafford for this one), Liverpool are at home against a Bournemouth who've had almost their entire defence poached from them over the summer, newly crowned Club World Champions Chelsea have a moderately enticing home fixture against Crystal Palace (although they've had a limited 'pre-season', and might still be a bit knackered from playing in that big tournament only a month ago), Spurs are at home against promoted Burnley (but they had much the best defensive record in the Championship last year; and a lot of promoted sides make a spirited start to their EPL careers, even if they usually then soon slump towards certain relegation), City are up against Wolves (but again, that's away, and Wolves can be a very dangerous side; while City are in a bit of a rebuild, and still looked hopelessly vulnerable to the counter-attack against Al Hilal last month). Forest are at home to transfer-ravaged Brentford, Newcastle meet defensively shakey Villa (though that's away, and Villa usually enjoy a big home advantage; and the painful Isak transfer saga has blighted the Toons' pre-season), while Everton and West Ham face the other two promoted sides (but those fixtures really might go either way: the established sides are both away from home - and they're hardly the pick of the Premier League crop; both, in fact, might be in relegation trouble again this season...).

So - that's an OK set of fixtures, perhaps, but not a really great one.

But there are more important reasons why it's plainly bonkers to blow the Bench Boost chip in Gameweek 1:

1)  It's one of the most uncertain gameweeks in the entire season. Major transfer activity at a number of clubs means that, even more than usual at this time of year, it's a real toss-up as to what the opening lineups are going to be (some players might still be in the midst of transfer discussions as the first FPL deadline passes, and be omitted from a squad because of that, even though they're still at their current club; while recent arrivals probably haven't trained with their new teammates enough to get an immediate start). And increased rotation/shorter minutes for top players is also a much greater risk, when players are not yet quite back to full competitive fitness for the season. Injuries are also far more common at the start of the season, as some players push themselves a bit too hard, when still well short of optimum fitness; so, the risk of last-minute dropouts is perhaps slightly higher in Gameweek 1 than at any other point in the season. Having all 15 squad members looking certain to start is the first essential for a successful Bench Boost. In Gameweek 1, it is very, very unlikely that you will have all 15 players start.

2)  As well as the questionable match-fitness issue (almost no-one is likely to be at their best on the opening weekend, even if they do get a start), we don't really get any reliable indications on team or individual form from the mostly very uncompetitive pre-season games. So, we're all betting blind on the opening set of Premier League games: we really don't know what's going to happen with any degree of confidence - and there are often a few big surprises on the opening weekend of the season.

3)  Budget is so tight at the start of the season that no-one can afford a really strong bench. After just two or three months, shrewd FPL managers have usually managed to grow their squad value by 4 or 5 million pounds, at least 2 million of which might go to the bench. Also, quite often, you'll find that you can do without one or two of the premium picks you wanted at the start of the season - suddenly expendable because of form  or injury issues - and that can give you a huge amount of extra money to redistribute through the rest of your squad, including the bench. In Gameweek 1, you probably haven't got more than 17 or 18 million pounds' worth of talent on your bench; but quite soon, you could conceivably have 20 millions' worth, or even a little bit more. Which of those benches is likely to earn more points?

4)  Even if there weren't all these uncertainties about form, fitness, and lineups - the first weekend's fixtures just aren't that good.

And, as I just observed to one of these poor Bench Boost nutters on a forum: "Knowledge of how a gameweek is likely to play out is crucial to achieving a good Bench Boost (along, of course, with a high degree of confidence that all 15 players will start). Thus, literally EVERY gameweek after the first is a better week to try the Bench Boost."

There are obvious, incontrovertible benefits to waiting on the first Bench Boost a while - until you've built a slightly stronger bench, until you're more confident who's going to start and who's in the best form, until you come upon a really good set of fixtures. There are no conceivable benefits - and many likely, almost inescapable hazards - to gambling it in the opening Gameweek.

DON'T DO IT!!!

A little bit of Zen (54)

 

"More is lost by indecision than by incorrect decision. Indecision is the thief of opportunity."

Marcus Tullius Cicero

"Between the great things we cannot do and the small things we will not do, the danger is that we shall do nothing."

Adolphe Monod

What a 'differential' is NOT

I touched on this in the introduction to my fuller post on 'differentials' this morning. But it's so important that I think it merits briefly highlighting in a post of its own here.

Many FPL managers (the vast majority, it would appear - from the online forums, at least) seem to have fallen prey to the self-harming delusion that 'differential' means prioritizing players who are less-owned.

That is UTTERLY BLOODY POINTLESS.

A less-owned player is only valuable to you if he's going to earn you more points than the more highly-owned alternatives. Which is rarely, if ever, the case....

And NOTE, the unfortunate corollary here is that high-owned players are to be distrusted and avoided. But, ahem, there are reasons why they're so high-owned: and those reasons usually include the fact that they've been producing scads of points!

The allure of the 'differential', conceived like this, is illusory. A decent player who's low-owned may have the occasional brilliant week; and, once-in-a-blue-moon, perhaps one of those rare great weeks of his will correspond to a week in which all the more popular picks fail to produce much. In that week, the owners of the 'differential' will feel terribly smug, as they temporarily gain rank because of their 'brilliant' pick; so smug, in fact, that they can overlook the fact that in almost every other gameweek of the season they have done much worse than the managers who went with deservedly more popular picks.

Any rank-gaining benefit you may occasionally reap from a 'differential' of this kind is also inevitably short-lived - because, if such a player really is wrongly overlooked and undervalued, is indeed coming into hot form and about to display huge points potential,.... lots of other FPL managers are quickly going to come onboard for him, and his ownership level will have shot up within two or three weeks.

It is not impossible to find this sort of 'differential' advantage occasionally; but it is very, very rare - and really not something worth making a primary focus of your game. Particularly if that leads you to chase every low-owned second- or third-tier player who looks like he might be such a prospect after one good haul....

The 'Cult of the Differential' usually leads to people desperately chasing points in the most reckless and stupid ways, and perversely ignoring more sensible picks.

Forget about ownership level, and concentrate on points-potential.

The true meaning of 'differential'

I have been meaning for a long time to address the topic of 'differentials'. It is one of the most infuriatingly overused terms, one of the most pervasive - and most destructive - myths in all of FPL-land.

The essential problem with it is that it's become such a jargon term that many people use it completely unreflectively, without even considering what they really mean by it - much less what it really ought to mean.

The most common, and dangerous, misconception that has become attached to it is that there is somehow an automatic advantage in choosing less-owned players.

THERE IS NOT. There is only an advantage in identifying less-owned (and/or cheaper) players who are going to score more points than the more highly-owned (and/or more expensive) alternative picks.

The much-abused term 'differential' is, however, highly relevant, meaningful, and useful in a number of other applications - which rarely or never seem to merit explicit consideration in FPL circles. 'Differential' value is actually crucial to all selection decisions; but it operates in a number of different ways.

Where the 'differential' concept actually MATTERS:

1)  Price differential:  Is the player you're targeting a better points-prospect than all other players available at the same or similar price-point?

2)  Position differential:  Is the player you're targeting a better points-prospect than anyone else you can afford in the same position category?

3)  Club differential:  Is the player you're targeting likely to give you a bigger points lift over the next best alternative than another player at the same club would give you over their next best alternative?  [This is the chief - and almost invariably unappreciated - argument against selecting David Raya; a fantastic goalkeeper, but not that much better than any of his rivals in FPL terms - while a number of his Arsenal teammates are (at least, sometimes) much better than most of their rivals.]

4)  Price-step differential:  Is the player you're targeting likely to give you a bigger points lift over the best alternative one price-step cheaper (usually you're focused on a positional comparison, but occasionally it might also be in the context of a club quota) than the points lift that an alternate pick might give you over their closest cheaper competitor?  At the start of the season, all price-steps are 500k, but later on, an interval of even 100k or 200k can sometimes make a big difference. [Most of the time, you'll just be looking at the possible impact of a one price-step difference between two options. But sometimes - particularly at the start of the season, when choosing the initial squad - you might be weighing up the advantage of spending 1 or 1.5 million more on a particular slot.]

5)  'Value' differential:  Is the player you're considering going to give you a better points-per-pound return than the alternatives? This is particularly relevant when you're choosing your initial squad, as you'll usually be running short of budget for at least the last 3, 4, or 5 spots and you really have to squeeze every possible point out of each of those picks - even if you expect to be able to leave them on the bench most of the time.

6)  Transfer differential:  Is the player you're bringing in likely to give you a bigger points lift over the guy you're replacing than other transfers in your squad might produce?

7) Team differential:  Does your overall team selection (and squad selection - because you will often need to draw on your bench) offer you a substantially better points-potential than the likely global average score this gameweek, and (perhaps even more importantly) than the selections of the key rivals in your mini-leagues?  [I prefer to maintain my team differential advantage by trusting that my opponents will make some bad picks, rather than by avoiding taking their good picks for myself.]

Ownership level has no bearing on any of that! The ONLY THING you should be interested in is whether a player (more properly, in fact, a group of players, in the context of each other) is offering you the best points return for the money you have available. 'Differential advantage' is all about identifying where you can get the most points, assessed within a number of different frames of reference.

'Ownership' will only become relevant for breaking a dead-heat: if you really can't decide between two possible picks, they seem to you to have absolutely equal prospects by all criteria - then you can go for the less-owned one. (But that NEVER happens.)

NO-ONE is a 'set-and-forget'

 

It is common in FPL for managers to suppose that their best players can be relied on for the entire season.  Indeed, many of the more naive FPL managers seem to expect that almost their entire squad should be able to be relied upon for the entire season!  Newsflash: it ain't so.

Now, if we go for a super-premium player like Salah or Haaland or Palmer, then, yes, we hope they're going to stay fit and in-form all season.

As I outlined the other day, in order to even approach justifying their enormous price-tags, players like these have to satisfy some extraordinarily demanding criteria - and, really, almost none ever do; not over the season as a whole.

Last year, Mo Salah enjoyed a freakishly good season, even by his freakisly high standards, and shattered the record for total FPL points in a season. But that was a real outlier of a performance, an order-of-magnitude better than even he has managed previously. That might be the only occasion in FPL history when a player has unequivocally been worth owning - and starting - in every single game. (And even then, he had a bit of a tailing-off in the latter part of the season that, really, made him no longer essential....)

In most seasons, Salah has suffered the odd little injury niggle, or a few fallow spells here and there; and every other year, he goes missing mid-season to take part in the African Cup of Nations. Last year, Haaland suffered a long run of poor returns as City's form began to crumble, and then had a couple of injury absences. At the very beginning of the season he was outstanding, and he started to do quite well again in the closing months; but for a long run in the middle, it was sheer madness to have hung on to him. Likewise, Palmer started the year very hot, but... his points returns tanked after Christmas, and it proved unwise to have retained him too far into the New Year.

Those are somewhat extreme examples. admittedly. But the general point holds: even the very best players rarely escape injuries or major dips in form in some phase of the season.

And even if they maintain modestly consistent performances and points returns, the competitive landscape around them constantly shifts: there may be other players who come into such hot form for a while that they're worth bringing in at the expense of your 'best' current players - even, perhaps, a Salah or a Haaland.

It is unwise to allow yourself to get wedded to the idea of set-and-forget players, picks from your initial squad that can be left in place all season. You never know who's going to suffer an injury or a loss of form, fleeting or long-term.  Some players may end up staying fit and being consistent enough to be worth keeping all season; but you can't predict that before the season starts - it's just a pleasant surprise, not something you should expect to rely on.

Although FPL managers tend to most often dream about their key attacking players having a dream season where they could be a set-and-forget, in fact it's usually only defenders or goalkeepers who wind up sticking in your squad for all 38 gameweeks.

This is partly because they tend to get injured rather less often than attacking players who have to run around a lot more. But it's more down to the fact that there isn't really a lot to choose between them: the differential points spread between the 'best' and 'second best' defenders (and keepers) is usually relatively small. And the best returners will usually be fairly consistent across the season; so, you can't often obtain much benefit by rotating in fresh players who've hit better form (as you most definitely can in the 'midfield' and 'forward' positions!).

But even here, injuries - and suspensions (far more common for defenders) - are a factor; and, even more so, shifts in fixture difficulty, since the attacking strength of opponents is a main determinant of defensive returns. Often you'll be able to hang on to one of your keepers and one or two defenders for the whole season; but rather more often, you won't.

It is a very RARE - and very, very lucky - circumstance if you manage to hang on to any of your initial squad for the whole season (other than Salah, in one of his most god-like years....).

And in fact, if you do end the season with a number of ever-presents, it's more likely a sign not of exceptional good fortune, but of laziness and stubbornness - of having obstinately (or inadvertently?!) hung on to players that, at some point, you really should have ditched.

Filling the bargain slots

 

At the start of the season, budget is usually very tight. And in order to make it stretch so that you can accommodate some of those more expensive - premium or super-premium - players that you covet, you're inevitably going to have to go for a few super-cheap choices to balance up your spending, so-called budget-enablers.

In general, I recommend going for TWO 4.5-million-pound goalkeepers, rather than anyone more expensive. Though, if you can find find any good starters at only 4.0 million  (rare, but it can happen), it's probably worth taking at least one of them.

Since even the best defenders don't offer very high overall points, you rarely want to be starting more than THREE of them. Hence, you can save money in the initial squad by going for a very cheap 5th defender,... and perhaps even a very cheap 4th as well (though you should always make sure that both are at least guaranteed starters). Your 4th defender will be needed as emergency back-up (if one of your starting three is an unexpected omission) and for occasional rotation (if someone is out with a suspension or a short-term injury, or is just facing a really daunting fixture). But, with luck, you will never need to call on your 5th defender (you should be prepared for the worst; but it may not happen...)

A good 5th midfielder almost always produces more than all but a few of the very best (and hence unaffordably expensive!) 'forwards', so you can also afford to go light on your 3rd forward spot; but never on your 5th midfield spot!

There are always good value options to be found amongst both 'forwards' and 'midfielders', and you can certainly save some money in the last two slots in both positions - but not at the lowest possible price-point: those players will almost certainly be very weak options, if not reserve players who will rarely or never get a start. Players like that are just dead-weight - who will probably leach value out of your squad. Cheap players should still be good players.

Beware of double-ups and treble-ups

 

With a few very high-performing clubs, who boast strong attacks and strong defences,... and several big players - well, it gets mighty tempting to gobble up as many of them as you can for your FPL team. Often we hear people online griping about how the club quota limit is unfair, unduly restrictive; how 4 or 5 players per club ought to be allowed.

We really ought to be grateful that that isn't the rule!

Reasons why we should be very wary about taking our full quota of players from any one club:

1)  If you're maxed out on a club, you're restricting your flexibility to bring in anyone new from that club (unless the player you want who's newly returned from injury or suddenly hit a hot vein of form is the same position and similar price to the same-club player you're willing to sacrifice for him - that change is going to require additional transfers).

2)  You haven't spread risk very well: if you have 3 players from one club, you're very exposed to the danger of having a terrible gameweek if that club has a bad day at the office. (Yes, we have often seen occasions where, for example, Van Dijk gets set off early in the match, and Liverpool go down to a team they ought to have beaten easily.... Shit happens!).

3)  Doubling up from the same club in the same position is usually redundant, and particularly risky. In the attacking positions, at least, players essentially share a finite pool of potential attacking points, and it usually ends up being a zero-sum outcome: a better return for one player means a poor or nil return for the other. There is almost never a team that creates such a huge pool of potential points and has such an equitable distribution of those points that two of their attacking players will both do really well in the same match (and you want all 6 or 7 of your attacking players to do well in the same gameweek, or at least to have a really good chance of that). And with two defenders, the upside is limited - while the downside from an unexpectedly disastrous result can be very, very dangerous to your FPL returns: clean sheets are such an uncertain outcome to chase, even with the best defensive teams, that the chance of picking up the occasional double clean sheet from your defensive three rarely outweighs the certainty of very poor defensive returns whenever the club you've taken two of those defenders from has a poor game.

4)  You create more work for yourself if the club is affected by a Blank Gameweek. This is particularly the case where the 'blank' is unexpected - perhaps the result of a last-minute postponement due to 'severe weather' issues like high winds, thick fog, or heavy snows. Remember, it happened last year, with the first Merseyside derby called off just hours before the FPL deadline because of concerns about Storm Darragh, leaving many FPL managers panicking and burning through transfers to rebuild their squads (because some, unaccountably, had not only been carrying 3 Liverpool players, but also 2 or 3 Everton players?!).

So, in principle, trebling-up on one club is best avoided. I wouldn't say NEVER do it; but I would advise being very, very cautious about doing it. And I would try to avoid doing it with more than ONE club (and certainly not with more than TWO!!).

You have to be careful with doubling-up as well: you don't want to add too much to the risk that a couple of cancelled fixtures could wipe out 5-8 members of your squad,... or that an uncharacteristically poor performance from just a couple of the teams you have representation from could completely sink your FPL Gameweek.

The super-premiums aren't usually worth it

 

I just pointed out that, in the defender category, the value of players priced at 6.0 or 6.5 million, or even at 5.5 million, is often very dubious - when there are usually several options at 5.0 or 4.5 who may do very nearly as well, or perhaps even sometimes a little bit better.

The same is true - even more so - for goalkeepers.

In the 'midfield' and 'forward' position categories, though, the most expensive players have usually been priced that way for a good reason, and do usually offer a much higher points-prospect than any of the cheaper alternatives: there is a tempting potential differential points-gap over the competition.

And yet.... when you get up towards the extreme end of the pricing scale, it's no longer just about direct comparison with a single best alternative; it becomes about the broader opportunity cost of having to go short throughout much of the rest of the squad in order to afford such an expensive player.

These super-premium players are just about never 'worth it' in pure value-for-money terms. Even Mo Salah, in his record-smashing season last year, was well outside the Top 20 on 'points-per-pound'; Haaland's ranking on that metric, in his two huge seasons preceding, was absolutely abysmal. But as I pointed out this time last year (in this comprehensive post on how to choose an initial squad), some players are so good that they can become 'above budget'.

However, for a player to merit this kind of special consideration, he needs to fulfill the following criteria: 

1)  Be an ever-present. Must be 100% 'nailed', not at any risk of rotation. Must also have supreme fitness levels and near-superhuman immunity to injury, and exceptional resilience to be able to recover from slight knocks very quickly. If you're paying 10 million or more - and especially if you're paying 12 million or more! -  for a player, you don't ever want to have any anxieties about whether or not they might start the next game; you want to be really confident that they will play almost every single game of the season.

2)  Must offer the prospect of at least a few really huge gameweek returns, and several double-digit returns over the season.

3) Must be incredibly consistent: rarely going more than a couple of gameweeks without some sort of additional points return, and never producing a run of more than, say, 4 or 5 'blanks' in a row.

4)  Must offer a strong prospect of a season total at least up around 250 points, with a reasonable chance of approaching or exceeding 300 points.

5)  And, most importantly, they should be likely to outscore their best rival high-priced players (at similar or lower price-point) by at least 30-50 points, and the best of the more modestly priced alternatives by at least 80-100 points.

[Now, they might not play the whole season. And you might well not want to keep them for the whole season, even if they do. But they should at least track for those kinds  of numbers - hence demonstrating a clear, consistent, and massive advantage over just about any other player, while they are starting regularly.]

Salah just about met those criteria last season. But only just. And his main rivals, Haaland, Palmer, and Saka, in contrast, all had very 'disappointing' seasons. And he only cost 12.5 million last season! This year, he's up to 14.5 million...  Last year was a freak; he can't possibly get up to that kind of enormous total again (especially as he's likely to be missing a month or so mid-season for the African Cup of Nations; and remember, in the last one of those, he picked up an injury,... took quite a while to fully shake it off,... suffered a bit of a crash in form as a result,.... and eventually started getting dropped occasionally, which led to very public friction with Jurgen Klopp... Even Super-Mo has his off spells!). And there might be several other players challenging his position at the top of the points chart this season.

I think Salah last year might have been the only player in FPL history - certainly one of only a very, very few - to categorically justify a price tag of over 12 million pounds. In other seasons, great as he's been, he's often not been massively ahead of his closest rivals; and he's often had little - or not-so-little - spells of injury or dips in form where it became reasonable to stop thinking of him as a must-have, a season-long hold.

I think - I hope - Salah will have another outstanding season this year. Haaland too. I expect them to be almost certainly the top points-scorers in the 'midfield' and 'forward' categories again.

But just having the top points-scorers is not enough. (FPL managers with a very naive view of the game, and a very limited grasp of mathematics, never seem to get beyond this....)  If their differential advantage over the next best picks in their positions is not that much, and if the differential advantage of being able to upgrade several other spots in your squad if you do without them could be absolutely HUGE,.... then they're just NOT WORTH IT.

Highly - very, very, very highly - as I rate both of them, I feel that, at the astronomical pricings of 14.5 and 14.0 million, Salah and Haaland are priced out of contention in FPL this year.

And indeed, all such super-premium priced players are usually worth avoiding. However massive the points hauls they can offer you, they're unlikely to be worth the cost of beggaring the rest of your squad.

[But.... there are no hard-and-fast rules in this game. Given how both Haaland and Salah have tended to 'start hot' in recent seasons, and rack up some enormous points in the opening few games, it is probably worth having a punt on one of them from the start of the season. If they enjoy such an early points bonanza again, and there's a wave of new owners rushing to buy them as a result, you might be able to take a quick transfer-trading profit by dumping them out after a month or so. It is always a lot easier to offload a very expensive player than it is to bring one in (which usually requires multiple additional transfers to juggle your budget).

At this price level, though, I'd say you definitely can't afford both of them. And it is an entirely legitimate choice - probably the sensible, optimal choice - to go without either,... for the majority of the season, anyway.]

Defensive premiums aren't usually worth it

There is a certain special glamour, a mystical 'aura' of invincibility attaching to a few giants of the game in the defender category: Van Dijk, Gabriel and Saliba, and, last season, Milenkovic and Murillo. Plus, of course, in most seasons, there have usually been at least a few progressive full-backs who seemed to offer the prospect of significant attacking returns: Trippier, White, Alexander-Arnold, Munoz, Gvardiol, Porro, Ait-Nouri.

Very nice to have for your club in real-world football; but this can be of tenuous benefit, if any, for FPL.

Attacking returns from defenders have been on the decline over the last several years, and particularly so in the last two or three (arguably Pep's influence, again), as it's become more common for progressive full-backs to tuck into central midfield, rather than pushing all the way down the flanks to overlap the wide attackers and try to supply balls directly into the box. Even the best of them haven't really lit any big fires in the past couple of seasons. If a player of this type has a really good season, they're still likely to be out at the front of the defender rankings - but probably not by the kind of big margins we've sometimes seen in the past; they might only be posting 10-15 points more than the best centre-backs.

And the best centre-backs, the Van Dijks and Gabriels.... will sometimes get outstripped not only by a couple of outstanding full-backs but by a few fellow centre-backs who are less well-known, less fancied (like Milenkovic last year).  Even when they do stay head-and-shoulders above the field,.... well, that head-and-shoulders gap over the best of the rest might not actually be that large. And the differential advantage might not be worth it, when some positional rivals who cost 1.0 or 1.5 million less are posting returns very nearly as good. That extra money spent in midfield will probably buy you more additional points.

It's also worth remembering that most defensive points are earned collectively; so, the weakest and/or cheapest member of a back-line will get almost exactly the same points as its strongest link. If Ibrahima Konate is cheaper than Virgil Van Dijk, you're probably better off going with him; if Micky van de Ven is cheaper than Pedro Porro, you're probably better off going with him; if Jake O'Brien is cheaper than James Tarkowski, you're probably better off going with him.

A few teams do have such a massively greater prospect of clean sheets than the rest of the league that it may be worth paying 6.0 million for one of their defenders: Arsenal and Liverpool this year are very tempting again, of course, and probably also Chelsea and Nottingham Forest,... maybe Newcastle. I'd usually consider getting 1 or 2 defenders around the 6.0 million mark - but not more than that. And if you can find decent alternatives at 5.5 or 5.0, go for them instead.

[Things are complicated this year by a slight upward shift in overall defender prices. I haven't had time to attempt a full breakdown of this, but it looks like there are considerably more players than usual priced at 5.5 and 5.0, rather than 4.5 this year - presumably to reflect the slightly enhanced points prospects created by the introduction of additional 'defensive points' this season.]

Attacking returns will still (usually) beat 'defensive points'

 

FPL has thrown a major spanner-in-the-works this season - by introducing (for the first-time ever) a significant adjustment of the game's basic points system.

As I already complained at some length, this revision - like nearly all the changes the FPL hierarchy has foisted on us in recent seasons - is ill thought-out, clumsily implemented, and utterly unnecessary.

The reason it's so discombulating at the start of this new season is that FPL has given us almost no information on which to assess just what sort of an impact it's going to have (nothing, in fact, beyond a few token illustrations of the additional points that would have been earned by a handful of top defenders and defensive midfielders last season - as in the table above).

However, the indications from this scant information - and from our own observations of the game - are that this rule change won't have too substantial an impact.

These new points are hard to earn (you need to reach quite a high threshold of varied 'defensive actions' in order to qualify), they are capped at a single award per game (so, you only get 2 extra points, no matter how many of these 'defensive actions' you complete), and are most likely to be earned in games where the player's team is having a hard time of it (and hence the player is unlikely to earn clean sheet points - or any other points - in the same match).

The change will make a difference for very active defensive players who regularly register significantly more tackles, interceptions, etc. than their peers. But all that is going to do is elevate some defenders to the upper ranks for that position, who might not normally be at the forefront like that. If these players are at lower price-points, and seem likely to do rather better out of the new 'defensive points' than certain of their more premium-priced peers, then they should take priority in the selection of your defensive roster. But that's a pretty big 'IF'; most of the players who are most likely to benefit from these points are already the most popular - and most expensive - defenders. (And the few who might not have been, like Tarkowski and Lacroix, have had their prices bumped up a bit this year!)

And the sample statistics grudgingly released by FPL seem to suggest that only a handful of the very best defensive players will earn these extra points as often as once every two games; most, presumably, will do no better than once every three to four games.

And 4 of these points over 5 games, for instance, wouldn't be worth more than - or, probably as much as - a single assist (which is likely to reap more bonus points as well). Plus, of course, more attack-minded defenders like Kerkez and Cucurella are quite likely to be picking up 'defensive points' as well from time to time (if not quite so often as the monsters like Milenkovic and Caicedo).

And it doesn't seem likely that these new points for defenders will raise anyone over 150 or 160 points for the season - which is nowhere near what the best midfielders and forwards produce. So, contemplating a formation shift to start more defenders - which some poor fools have been floating in the online forums - is just RIDICULOUS. Even optimum rotation of defender picks for form and fixtures can't get you up to more than 170 or 180 points for each starting slot; whereas you can realistically hope for more like 200 points, or even a little more from good rotation in the other outfield position categories. [Admittedly, that hasn't really been the case in the first half of the 2025/26 season; but that's because there have, for various reasons, been freakishly low returns from midfield players so far, not because defenders are doing that much better this year.]

There is a chance that a few really high-performing defensive midfielders might get up into contention for the budget 5th midfield slot as a result of these new extra points; but I think that's only likely to happen with a player who also gets a decent number of goals (and/or assists) - which, at present, means.... probably only Declan Rice (maybe Palhinha,.... if he's on penalties?!). But as I pointed out yesterday, that 5th midfield seat is so important that you're probably still going to be better off concentrating on more attacking players who have hit a hot goalscoring streak (and rotating often, to keep bringing in the most in-form options).

The new 'defensive points' will significantly enhance the prospects of a few defenders and defensive midfielders - but probably not to the point of making them priority starting choices. Thus, the impact of the rule change on squad and team selection is likely to be pretty minimal, I think.

[But I could be wrong. It's hard to envision just what's going to happen with any confidence before the season's under way.]

A scale of prices

 

It is helpful to think of FPL player pricings in general categories. We must also keep in mind, of course, that the range of prices - and the average price level - varies for different positions. Value/price corresponds (or should correspond...) to points-potential; so, the different price strata across the different player positions are indicative of where most of the FPL points are expected to come from.

Also, it's really useful to keep in mind who seem to be the best options within each price category (and position) at any given point of the season, because it should be relatively easy to use your transfers to swap similarly priced players for each other, when one seems to be coming into better form than your present incumbent.

For defenders and goalkeepers, 4.5-4.9 million is mid-price, 5.0-5.4 is upper mid-price, 5.5-6.5 is premium (although I don't think I've ever seen a keeper priced higher than 6.0, and ir's pretty rare for defenders too); anything over 6.5 is super-premium. (there are rarely more than 1 oe 2 defenders who get priced at this highest level each season; this year, there are none). Under 4.5 million is cheap.

For midfielders and forwards, 6.1-7.0 is mid-price, 7.1-8.5 is upper mid-price, 8.6-9.9 is premium, 10.0 and over is super-premium; while 6.0 and under is cheap. (You can occasionally find some vaguely tempting prospects in these positions at only 5.0, or even 4.5 - but they're not usually worth it, except as short-term placeholders at the very start of the season, when budget can be super-tight; if you go for such a pick at first, to stretch the budget, you have to plan to move them out for an upgrade as soon as you reasonably can.)

With midfielders and forwards, there is usually a slight skewing towards higher prices for the forwards, with not only the few top-returning strikers being priced very, very high, but also most of the mid-price and upper mid-price options being a little higher than their equivalents in the midfield category. However, this is rather less pronounced this year, as fewer players than normal in either category have been assigned prices in the premium or high upper mid-price range.

You can't really afford to indulge in more than 5 or 6 premium or super-premium priced players; and no more than 2 or 3 of those can be super-premiums (arguably, none of them should be.... at least in certain years).  And you'll almost certainly have to 'pay for' those more expensive picks by getting a good budget option from the cheap price bracket (or the bottom end of 'medium price') to balance each one of them.

Often, at the start of the season, you glance through the roster of players, and think, "Oh, I'd like a, and b, and c, and x, and y, and z,... and j and k and...."  Guess what? You can't afford all of them! Budget is a beast! You have to make some hard choices at the start of the season: some players you really, really, really want... are going to have to be left out.

The fifth midfield slot is where the value lies

 

As I outlined yesterday, FPL's scoring system is so stacked in favour of midfielders - and so many of the game's 'midfielders' are in fact outright forwards, or at least frequent goalscorers - that it makes no sense to play fewer than 5 of them (except in rare cases).

Moreover, there is such a plethora of midfield choices at the lower end of the price scale that you can usually find very good points prospects for only 6 million (and often even better options at 6.5 million; although 6.0 is usually all you can afford in the initial squad), and sometimes at 5.5 or 5.0 (though just about never at 4.5!!).

However, among these 'less formidable' players (there's usually a good reason for their price being so low...), even more so than with more premium options, you are very unlikely to find someone who scores consistently well for a long period - much less across the season as a whole. In this price-bracket, you tend to find players like (last season) Alex Iwobi, Justin Kluivert, Anthony Elanga, Antoine Semenyo, and Jacob Murphy - who blow really hot for 4 or 5 or 6 games (maybe 8 or 10, if you're really lucky),.... and then lapse back into comparative anonymity again for a while.

More expensive players in the other midfield positions tend to be more consistent: they get really high weekly scores more often, contribute at least some additional points very frequently, and rarely or never suffer an extended string of 'blanks'. Because of this, they are worth sticking with, even if they do blank a few times (unless there are stronger indications than just the FPL returns that they and/or their team have suffered a serious crash in form). Also, you tend to be a bit locked-in to your more expensive players, because it is cumbersome to transfer very expensive players in and out (you generally have to burn through additional transfers and/or leave a significant amount of money unused in the bank for a week or three...; both of which are highly undesirable); and, if you want to buy them back again later, you may suffer a heavy hit from 'transfer tax'.

None of this is true for the cheaper midfield selections. It is easy to move them in and out of your squad at will. And you will want to, because it is highly unlikely that any of them will sustain a long run of good returns.

You should be constantly rotating your 5th midfield slot (and perhaps your 4th as well!), every month or two, to bring in whoever in that price category is hitting a hot run of form.

[Last year, a lot of people went for Morgan Rogers early in the season, and were sufficiently satisfied to hang on to him for the whole season. This was a HUGE mistake. Although he produced consistently enough to amass a very respectable points total for the season, his big returns were quite intermittent: he never put together a run of big-points weeks in succession, while numerous of his position rivals in the 'cheap' midfielder category did. Rogers was rarely even the best midfield performer overall in that price bracket (he was, narrowly, for the last couple of months of the season; but then got overtaken on the last day by Semenyo!); and he was never the best - not usually in the top 3 or 4! - over any short run of games. His season return of 161 points was barely more than the best defenders, and pitiful alongisde the best midfielders. You really want closer to 200 points for every starting position in your squad - even more for midfielders, since that is where most of your points come from! - if you are to have any hope of attaining the upper strata of the global rankings. You could achieve that if you succesfully rotated through all the best budget midfield options when they were in their best form; you can't get anywhere near it by sticking with a player like Rogers for the whole season. (Which is not to say anything against Rogers. He's very, very, very good as a real-world player. He's just not a season-hold for FPL. That's an important difference.)]

The ONES you should be watching

 

Not players you should be watching out for (still far too early to be giving much thought to that!)... Rather, the online 'experts' I think are most worth giving your attention to.

As I've said a few times before (most notably here), the self-styled FPL 'gurus' are mostly moronic charlatans (and even the handful of 'good' ones aren't really all that brilliant or insightful) and are best avoided. The people I look to for help in understanding the game are online tactical analysts. And these, I believe, are the best of them.

My Top Youtube Resources for helping with FPL

Chirpy Geordie Adam Clery remains my No. 1 favourite: amusing as well as informative - and he doesn't go on too long. He was doing regular tactical breakdowns for FourFourTwo's Youtube channel over the past couple of years, but a few months ago he launched his own Adam Clery Football Channel (ACFC), in partnership with the UK's The Independent newspaper.

A very close second is Cormac McAinsh of Football Meta.

I also rather like the style of DK Falcon, although his output is a bit more intermittent - and he puts out a lot of more 'broad topic' pieces reviewing, for instance, the evolution of Pep Guardiola's tactical ideas. He's done quite a fun one of the overall history of football tactics from the game's inception in the mid-1800s to the present.

I think Chris French's Football Made Simple is also very good - although he also tends to do more broad overview discussions than breakdowns of individual matches. Also, some of his videos run just a little long, and - for me - I find that he sometimes gabbles a bit, racing on just a little too fast in his delivery, without enough appropriate phrasing or pausing to give us time to fully grasp what he's saying (particularly as he swaps very quickly to and fro between talking about the attacking and defending sides in a match, and seems to assume that you will have memorised the entire lineup for both teams as thoroughly as he has!). So, yes, he can be just a little bit hard work at times - but worth it. [He's recently started running an online Introduction to Tactical Analysis course. Unfortunately, I can't currently spare the time or the money to give it a try myself, but it looks very interesting. He also puts out an occasional newsletter via Substack that you can sign up for.]

I really like the Tactical Football Fanatic too, although his posting has been very sparse over the last year.

Football Manager Insider also has some good stuff (a bit of a Liverpool bias lately; but that might be down to them being champions, favourites to retain the title, and hyper-acive in the transfer market this summer - rather than a personal affection!).

Zekko Football is also sometimes worth a look; although he's another presenter who tends to rush his delivery a bit, and his diction is so poor that I often find it impossible to follow him without cueing up the closed-caption subtitles! He is perhaps a bit over-prolific too; I don't find his content compelling enough to be worth checking in on two or three times a week. He does a lot of breakdowns of recent games - especially in the Premier League - which can be informative (perhaps particularly useful if it's a game you happened to miss!); but I find most of his pieces fairly superficial, describing what happened in some detail -  rather than teasing apart how and why it happened.

Finally, one of my more recent discoveries in this field that also shows a lot of promise is Tactics Dojo.

Alas, I find most of FourFourTwo's Youtube content these days very dull and obvious (though the print magazine is still very good), and The Athletic isn't much better (the weekly 'podcasts', in particular, usually hosted by Ayo Akinwolere, are just painfully over-long...), but their occasional tactics or squad-building episodes with J.J. Bull and Jon Mackenzie are still worth a look. (I wish J.J. would branch out on his own. I think he could give Geordie Adam a run for his money as the most entertaining and accessible content-creator of this kind.)

I have a strong affinity for The Purist Football as well, though this is more of a 'general interest' channel than one that's ever likely to be directly useful in the week-to-week trench warfare of FPL. He only puts out a video every month or two, at most, and they tend to be more philosophical essays on the state of the game than dissections of particular teams or players. For me, this video on the impact of Guardiola's ideas, good and bad, is essential viewing.

I also have a soft spot for Alex Moneypenny's The Different Knock. He's an Arsenal uber-fan, so his channel is pretty much exclusively focused on The Gunners. But his breadth of knowledge and tactical acuity are very impressive; so, often the observations he has to offer on Arsenal will have direct or indirect relevance to other Premier League teams as well.

I thought The Football Analyst had looked very promising; but he soon seemed to give up on his Youtube platform, after posting some interesting stuff early last year. However, he's still posting some good pieces on his website. [I would particularly recommend an article of his from this time last year on Fabian Hurzeler's 'tactical identity', and this most recent one assessing the prospects of Benjamin Sesko.]

I also often enjoy The Athletic's Tifo sub-channel on Youtube, for more general observations on the game. They've recently started a fun little mini-series on The Entire History of Football.

I really think any of these channels - even frivolous little Tifo!! - will help your football understanding (and hence, your FPL prospects!) far more than following any so-called FPL 'experts'.

Stack the midfield

 

This is one of the most basic principles of FPL - yet still somehow many people deny it, or wilfully ignore it. They get seduced by the showy glamour of top strikers banging in goals every other week. These days, some star defenders have an alluring 'aura' too: fans may be convinced that a big-name centre-back like Van Dijk or Saliba is somehow going to give you more points than a strong fifth midfielder.

The thing is.....

The game has historically focused on goalscoring, and not much else. (There's been a significant shift this year with the introduction of additional 'defensive points', but I doubt if it will make that big of a difference.)

However, many of the most prolific strikers in the game are actually classified as 'midfielders' rather than 'forwards'. And there has been a general shift in tactics and playing styles over the last few decades which has blurred the distinction between 'midfielders' and 'forwards' anyway: many central midfielders are at least sometimes encouraged to push forward into the front-line, and to try the odd shot from around the edge of the penalty areaa, and even occasionally to time a late run into the six-yard box to poach a goal (Frank Lampard was a monster for this back in the day, occasionally scoring as well as many outright forwards; Enzo Fernandez and Declan Rice, although regarded as primarily 'defensive' midfielders, have sometimes shown similar potential today...); and, of course, the more creative midfielders, usually floating in the 'No. 10' space between the forwards and the midfield, have almost always had some goalscoring dimension to their games. But the BIG points-producers are always players like Salah, Mbeumo, Diaz, Bowen*, Son - who are primary goalscorers, earning points at the 'midfielder' rate.

And FPL's scoring system is heavily biased in favour of 'midfielders': they get 5 points rather than 4 for scoring a goal; and they can occasionally pick up a 'free' extra point for a team clean sheet, which 'forwards' do not. Moreover, because of their playing style (the game assigns position categories based on a player's 'heat-map' for the previous season, with the 'midfielder' classification indicating that they play predominantly in wider and/or deeper spaces, where they must play a major creative role as well as looking for goals), they tend to pick up far more assists than the game's outright 'forwards'.

Moreover, the best of them tend to be rather more consistent in their returns than the 'forwards'. Outside of a handful of 'premiums', they are generally more reasonably priced too, and. in particular, offer a lot of good value at the lower end of the price spectrum. And there are more to choose from.

In the overall player rankings for a season, you rarely find more than 1 forward in the Top Five - or more than 3 or 4 in the Top Ten (or the Top Fifteen, Top Twenty....).  And NO defenders!!  Draw the obvious conclusion: it is correct.

While there might be particular circumstances of form, fitness, or fixtures that prompt you occasionally to field a third forward or a fourth defender, it is NUTS to ever regard anything other than 3-5-2 as the optimum default formation for FPL.

And it is NUTS to skimp on your 4th and 5th midfield picks: that's where most of the differential value in points potential lies.

* NB: Jarrod Bowen has been moved into the forward category in FPL this year. Such reclassifications of players are quite common, and you have to watch out for them. Players being shifted from 'forward' to 'midfielder' is good for their FPL prospects; players moving from 'midfielder' to 'forward' is BAD. Bowen has been a top pick as a midfielder for the past few seasons; but he's likely to be quite an anonymous option among the other forwards in the game at the moment.

A little bit of Zen (53)

"The miracle, or the power, that elevates the few is to be found in their industry, application, and perseverance - under the prompting of a brave, determined spirit."

Mark Twain

Yep, that's what we all need for the approaching FPL season.

A few HINTS & TIPS for the coming season

 

Although I always strongly advise against doing anything about actually choosing your initial squad until close to the Gameweek 1 deadline,... since that is now only just over two weeks away, I thought I would start dropping a few posts (mostly shorter, hopefully!) over the next week or so on some of the most basic principles I believe you need to follow in this game of Fantasy Premier League.

You might start with some of the similar posts I wrote around the beginning of last season:

A good rotation pair beats a premium keeper

A very basic point about goalkeeper selection - but many people seem to fail to grasp it!

Two mid-price picks beat a premium and a dud

While this point is not as invariably and incontrovertibly true with other positions as it is with goalkeepers,.... it is very nearly so.

You NEED your Bench!

Many people ignore and disparage their Bench. But it is super-important, and it is foolish to 'go light' on it - even at the start of the season.

'Dead men' earn NO POINTS; and they LOSE VALUE

In particular, you cannot afford to leave empty seats on your Bench - with injured or non-starting players.

And always keep in mind THE MOST IMPORTANT THING about the game!

More soon......

Yep, over the subsequent week or so, I've added several more entries to this 'Essential Tips' series:

Stack the midfield

Why you have to prioritise your midfielders over other positions in building an FPL squad.

The fifth midfield slot is where the value lies

You can't afford to skimp on the 5th seat in midfield. In fact, you should be constantly rotating it, to wring the most value from players who've hit a run of scoring form.

A scale of prices

A simple guide to categorising the major price steps in FPL, and their implications for building the initial squad.

And this slightly later companion piece...

A scale of points

How thinking of season-long points-equivalent performance, and points-performance categories can guide your squad-building.

Attacking returns will still (usually) beat 'defensive points'

My analysis of the likely impact of the 'defensive points' newly introduced into the FPL scoring framework this season.

Defensive premiums aren't usually worth it

Sorry, Virgil - but I maintain that you can almost always find 'better' defensive picks at slightly cheaper price-points.

The super-premiums aren't usually worth it

Brilliant as Mo Salah and Erling Haaland are, it is just about to impossible to justify the prices that FPL has set for them; you can earn so many more points from the rest of your squad by redistributing that money across several positions.

Beware of double-ups and treble-ups

There are a lot of risks inherent in taking multiple players from one club; risks that are, for the most part, better avoided.

Filling the bargain slots

What to watch out for in filling up the last few - cheaper - positions in your initial squad.

NO-ONE is 'set-and-forget'

Here, I explain why it is foolish and unhelpful to expect to be able to rely on any player for the entire season. Sometimes it happens that you can: but that's a rare and pleasant surprise, not something you should be planning around.

Don't take a chance on uncertain starters (or new arrivals)

There are so many uncertainties at the start of the season, such an elevated risk of unexpected dropouts from your starting line-up, that you simply cannot afford to take risks in the initial squad on players whose playing minutes - or successful transition into a new club - are in any doubt.

The true meaning of 'differential'

What most FPL managers seem to understand by the overused buzzword 'differential' is a dangerous delusion. I offer SIX more appropriate and useful ways to consider the concept.

What a 'differential' is NOT

And in this follow-up post, I emphasise why regarding a 'differential' as being merely a less-owned option is so misguided and self-harming.

And finally.....

Remember - it's mostly LUCK!

People are extraordinarily resistant to this obvious and undeniable truth about our game of FPL. There's no getting away from it: outcomes are determined far more by luck than by skill, especially at the upper end of the rankings. That doesn't mean there's no point in trying to get better. But it does mean there's no point in attributing every success to your astonishing brilliance.