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

 

As I noted last week, I have often been guilty of taking a few too many risks in my own initial squad, and this has no doubt played its part in the fact that I have generally suffered a rather poor start to the FPL season.

With me, it's a rather specific foible of getting tempted to gamble on a fringe pick, a promising up-and-comer who isn't yet quite established as a regular starter at his club, or not at any rate as a significant force in FPL. Last year, for instance, I fancied that Jarrell Quansah was likely to get a few starts, because of a minor injury problem with Konate, and that he might prove good enough in that spell to earn a regular place; instead, Slot grew disillusioned with him very quickly, and took the almost unheard-of step of yanking him off at half-time in the very first game - wrecking the youngster's confidence, and effectively ending his Liverpool career. (Though I can understand why he did it in terms of the tactical situation on the pitch, I still feel that was a mistake on the Dutchman's part: possibly gaining a marginal advantage in the immediate game-state does not outweigh the damage done by potentially ruining a young player's career and thereby depleting the club's back-up resources in central defence.)  A year or so before that, I'd been bullish about Rico Lewis's prospects with City: and indeed, he was a regular starter, and playing very well, early in the season - but, of course, Pep being Pep, that didn't last very long. Going back a bit further, I was a huge fan of the talent of Norwich's elegant No. 10, Todd Cantwell, and was convinced he could become one of the best budget midfield picks for the season - but he too fell out of favour with his manager, and his career mysteriously tanked from that moment. (Yes, I could begin to worry that I am some kind of jinx....)

A bit later in the season, you can get away with taking one or two chances like this; bringing in a player who's not yet a proven points-provider, perhaps not even an absolutely certain starter; buying them early to get them at a low price, and carrying them on the bench for a few weeks until they start to confirm the promise you saw in them.

But in the opening weeks,... there are so many other uncertainties: players who might be displaced by new arrivals at the club, players who might be dropped because of an imminent transfer away, players who might not start or might only get short minutes because they're still short of full match-fitness, players who might go down with a last-minute injury....  Yep, at this time of year, you're quite likely to suffer at least one unexpected drop-out - perhaps even two or three, if you're a bit unlucky - from your squad every week, even among the players that you'd normally expect to be certain starters. (This is one of the key reasons why it's INSANE to consider playing a Bench Boost this early in the season.)

So, you really can't afford to load the odds against yourself by including any picks who are obviously in one of those most 'at risk' categories. We knew Isak was going to be mired in a transfer wrangle - and unable to play for anyone - for weeks. We knew Eze was likely to move this week - surely too late to have any chance of turning out for his new club this weekend. We knew Sesko and Gyokeres were relatively late arrivals, and hadn't trained much over the summer, and were thus likely to get quite limited minutes over the first two or three weeks. We knew that with Marmoush, Foden, Cherki, Reijnders, Silva, Gonzalez, Kovacic and Gundogan all competing for a small number of places in the City midfield, we couldn't count on any of them being invariable starters.

It was really not smart to pick ANY of these players in the initial squad this year.

Even if new arrivals at a club do appear to be more-or-less fully fit, and have had just about enough time to start bedding in with their new teammates, they remain unknown quantities: it is likely that they may take quite a while to fully settle in to a new style of play, and it might be weeks or months before they start producing their best; some, perhaps, if they're arriving from a lower tier in England or from an overseas league, may never successfully make the step up to this most physically intense and competitive of leagues. How soon - if ever - will Eze become a starter at Arsenal, what kind of role will he play there, and can he ever have the kind of impact for them that he had for Palace?? We just don't know. Will Cunha and Mbeumo gel together at United, or are their styles and personalities too different - will they end up in fractious competition with each other rather than synergistic cooperation?? And will one of them assume the penalty-taking duties?? We just don't know. How long will it take Gyokeres, or Sesko, or Wirtz to start producing their best form in the Premier League?? We just don't know.

Players like these are watch-and-wait options. They'll probably come good at some point, maybe soon;... but they're just not good bets at the very start of the season.

Dear FPL - how about a little 'demo'?

As I mentioned in my round-up of the week's action the other day, the perennial doubt and confusion over how bonus points get allocated has been added to this year by the similar lack of transparency regarding the new 'defensive points'.

So.....

Dear FPL,

Could you possibly put together some highlights reels for a few top players each week - demonstrating just HOW these 'defensive contributions' are being counted?

There are already a lot of weird things going on,... like Ait-Nouri getting a massive 'defensive contributions' tally despite not having an obviously super-busy game, and half the Bournemouth side also racking up big numbers on this new metric, while other players, like the excellent - and very industrious - Elliot Anderson, somehow just missed out on qualifying for the extra points. 

At the moment, we don't know exactly how all the eligible actions are defined, or quite what they look like in practice,... or why some incidents might be counted as one rather than another, or not counted at all. 

Really, the release of this kind of demonstration video should have happened LAST SEASON, to properly explain the idea before it was introduced. 

But it definitely needs to happen now.

Please, Dear FPL - pretty-please-with-sugar-on-top, please give us some more clarity on what's going on with this new rule.

EVERYBODY has an AWFUL Gameweek 1

Well, almost everyone.... who's any good at the game.  

I've just done a quick survey of my long-time reference points in the game, people who strike me as making consistently smart decisions, and who - most of the time - get pretty high overall finishes as a result. Quite a lot of them are below the gameweek average this week!!!

There are all kinds of reasons why Gameweek 1 tends to be even more RANDOM - and unpredictable, and unfair - than most other weeks of the season: 

1)  A lot of people are so desperate to pull out an early lead that they'll blow one of the bonus chips right at the start of the year. (With the unnecessary extra bonus chips being thrown at us this year, that's likely to be even more common.)  These premature chip plays don't generally work out all that well (especially with a Bench Boost: my national league leader wasted his this week, only got a 10-point lift from it, with two non-starters), but they do give some extra points - and those briefly inflate the ranking of the managers who made such a foolish play.

2)  Team and individual form is extremely unpredictable at the start of the season, as players and coaches haven't had much preparation time together - and the pre-season games rarely give us any useful guide to how things are likely to go in the Premier League. There are usually a lot of surprising - and disappointing - performances on the first weekend. This time, we've seen rampant-in-pre-season Chelsea, greatly strengthened Manchester United, and always sprightly Newcastle completely dominate their opening matches - without managing to generate a really good scoring chance between the three of them! Liverpool and City, while managing to win fairly comfortably, didn't really play very well, and looked defensively vulnerable (against probably lower-half sides!). Arsenal and Villa were extremely poor. Only the Spurs and Forest games really turned out as expected: and even there, Forest's performance was a massive step up from their worryingly goal-shy pre-season.

3)  Even the refereeing is sometimes a little extra-dodgy too!  It's natural enough for match officials to feel a bit of extra nerves for their first match of the season; and they are inevitably just a little bit ring-rusty after the summer break. Mistakes are, unfortunately, that bit more likely. (Chris Kavanagh's penalty award against James Tarkowski might be one of the worst decisions we see all season. And VAR - just as guilty, just as inept - apparently did nothing to query it.)

4)  The ongoing transfer window causes so much disruption. Some players are excluded from selection altogether. Others (Eze, perhaps? Watkins?) might be somewhat distracted by thoughts of an imminent move away from a long-time home club. And most new arrivals probably haven't yet spent enough time training with teammates to be considered for extended minutes. Lineups, tactics, and team balance can all be thrown up in the air by all this uncertainty. And we have a few more weeks of it to suffer, before teams finally start to settle down into the sort of shape we can expect from them for most of the coming season.

5)  Almost no-one's at their best yet. Pre-season is too short, and the practice matches too uncompetitive, to really get anyone back up to peak physical condition or mental sharpness for regular top-flight games. Some players haven't trained while waiting on imminent transfers. Others have joined a new club too recently to get fully integrated and up-to-speed yet. Even the earliest summer transfers - like Joao Pedro and Ait-Nouri - probably aren't yet completely familiar with the style of their new teammates and their new coach. And it might prove to be an additional problem for Chelsea and City that they were still playing in the Club World Cup just over a month prior to the new season. As players push themselves that little bit too hard when still not yet 100% fit, injuries (even - especially - in training) tend to be more common early in the season. Rotation and early substitutions to manage fitness worries are also far more common. And very few players or teams come out of the blocks in Gameweek 1 already at their very best. (A few might: we've seen magnificent performances this weekend from Gibbs-White, Reijnders, Ekitike... But they are just a handful of outliers. Most players - most of the most fancied FPL players - had pretty subdued first games.)

6)  There is no 'template' as yet. Well, there never is, as it is popularly misconceived - an obvious and incontestable 'Best 11' that almost everyone at least has heavy representation from!  But what we do often see later in the season is a common pool of perhaps 20-30 clearly superior players, from which the vast majority of FPL picks are taken, and perhaps relatively few good 'fringe' options outside of that core 'most popular' group. This results in most of the better FPL teams usually having 6 or 7 or 8 members of their starting eleven in common (not all the same 7 or 8 players, but selections from that common pool matching up in several places). At the beginning of the season, this 'pool' of justifiable selections is far wider: there are 21 players with an initial ownership of 20% or higher, a further 36 with an ownership above 7.5%; a total of 70 options with an ownership at 5% and above! And the 'fringe' of possible left-field picks for the last couple of spots in a squad or starting eleven extends quite a bit further than that. 

This far greater variety in the composition of FPL teams allows for a far greater spread of points returns - with far more room for a big return from an unexpected source to have a massive impact on the initial rankings.

In this opening week, for example, Tijani Reijnders was one of the standout performers; but a goal from him is likely to be a relatively rare event, as he's most likely to start as one of the pair of central pivots who play a mainly defensive role. And he wasn't even a guaranteed starter; and probably won't be a guaranteed starter in every game, given how many other midfielders City have to choose from (and that Rodri, when fit again, will surely always be one of the two selected for these central roles). Even at his temptingly low price-point, a 25% initial ownershp was way too high: he was a 'sheep pick' that paid off (in the opening week, with a bit of good fortune; but perhaps not in the long-term....). He's certainly a great player, and might turn out to be a great FPL pick this season; but he was a wildly risky pick for the initial squad, given the significant uncertainties about his goal potential or his starting role or the regularity of his selection by Pep.

Likewise with Antoine Semenyo, while he is often dangerous in attack, he's also been very inconsistent. I've followed him closely over the last couple of seasons, and have usually managed to have him in my side when he's hit a little patch of goalscoring; but his returns overall have been rather disappointing. There are lots of other tempting - probably better - attacking midfielders in the mid-price segment, even at his own club, and certainly across the rest of the league. And Bournemouth, reeling from the loss of so many key players over the summer, are not expected to have a great season; nor were they expected to get anything in an evening game away against the defending champions. Semenyo didn't even have a particularly good game overall; he just happened to score two excellent breakaway goals - in quick succession, mid-way through the second half. Again, 10% ownership was absurdly high for such an unpromising prospect; but that 10% got off to a very good start. (68 FPL managers apparently played their first Triple Captain chip on him - which was utterly, utterly daft, but paid off ridiculously well for them! There is no justice in this game. Or very, very little...)

Or Riccardo Calafiori, widely expected to lose out to Myles Lewis-Skelly or Jurrien Timber at left-back in this game (and very unsure of a regular start in this slot for the season) - he was extraordinarily lucky even to be on the field. But the United keeper spooned a corner into his own net (after being jostled - possibly unfairly - on the line by Saliba) in the opening minutes, and the Italian happened to be able to get his forehead to it as it crossed the line... for the only goal of the match. Arsenal somehow hung on to a clean sheet, despite being absolutely overrun by the home side for most of the rest of the game. Thus, a player who wasn't even expected to start wound up with a massive 13 points, the joint third best score of the week. Only 2% of people owned him this week - but that's at least 1.5% more than should have owned him. And that 2% got off to a flying start!

How did these players do so well, when widely - and rightly - fancied prospects like Palmer and Enzo Fernandez, Eze and Sarr, Mbeumo and Cunha, Ndiaye and Grealish and McNeil, Wirtz and Frimpong, Saka and Rice all somehow came up blank, and a few like Marmoush and Cherki and Amad Diallo weren't even given a start? How did the forwards who'd looked so good in pre-season, Joao Pedro and Watkins and Bowen, all disappoint, while the one who most definitely hadn't, Chris Wood, suddenly came good again?  That's just the luck of the draw. You can never foresee clearly what the FPL outcomes are going to be for any given week. But in the early weeks of the season, the element of unknowability and devastating surprise is even stronger than usual.

You should not be too disheartened if you had A DREADFUL START to the season.

The opening Gameweek is especially unpredictable, and a lot of weird shit happens. There is much more scope in this week than in most following ones for LUCK to run absolutely rampant.

But LUCK - for most people - has a way of balancing out over time. Better results lie ahead for shrewd and well-informed FPL managers!!

Luck-o-Meter - 25-26 Gameweek 1

The new season got off to a fairly smooth start, with Anthony Taylor having a mostly pretty solid game at Anfield on Friday night. Well, apart from the bizarre incident where Marcos Senesi committed a very obvious and deliberate handball to interrupt a Liverpool breakaway just inside his own half, which surely should have been a 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' red card (and quite early in the game), but both Taylor and VAR somehow seemed to feel that it was 'accidental'. There were no big surprises in the starting selections. Arne Slot, however, has earned the enmity of large numbers of FPL enthusiasts by committing the cardinal sin of replacing both of his exciting new wing-backs, Frimpong and Kerkez, just shy of the hour - not only robbing them of full appearance points, but also of the clean-sheet bonus they were sitting on at that point. Boo!! If there is any danger of this being a regular tactic, we may immediately have to rethink whether we want to take a chance on having either of these two players. Kerkez had picked up a fairly soft yellow card, so wound up with nul points, despite having a very good game - ain't no justice! Gakpo and Ekitike had superb games, but Wirtz and Salah made fairly little impression, and Liverpool as a whole were a little disjointed, lacking the composure and solidity they usually showed last year - an inevitable consequence, no doubt, of changing so many personnel all at once. Bournemouth often looked well in the game, and after tieing the scoreline with a brace of breakaway goals from Semenyo just after the hour, might for a while have become favourites to steal an upset win. But the home side reasserted themselves and grabbed two more very late goals. The nearly 60% of FPL managers who'd trusted their captaincy to Salah must have been mightily relieved when he finally broke his duck after nearly 94 minutes!! The other 40% were gutted....

Villa are a team I seem to rate much lower than most; I think they've massively over-performed for the last three seasons under Emery, but I see that momentum now fizzling out. Even with the huge lift they get from their vocal home supporters, and the pleasant last-minute bonus of the talismanic Morgan Rogers being deemed fit to start, after missing training all week with a sore ankle (though one worries that perhaps he was rushed back into service before he was quite ready), they were fairly abysmal in the lunchtime kick-off against Newcastle: they couldn't muster an effort on goal in the first half, and didn't produce a good one in the entire game. The visitors completely dominated, even before Konsa's sending-off (in the common paradox, the 10-man side actually proved more compact and effective in defence), but predictably lacked something of a cutting-edge, without Isak - and hence we got a fairly drab scoreless bore-draw.

Brighton v Fulham, though, probably took the prize as the day's dullest game. Both these clubs have managed to punch massively above their weight in recent seasons, but I suspect this time neither of them will have the class or the consistency to stay out of the bottom third. The visitors probably just about deserved a draw on the balance of play, although they left it very, very late, with substitute Muniz bundling home a corner with the last kick of the game, nearly six minutes into added-on time. In the last moments of regular time, there had been near-misses at either end, with Brajan Gruda and Kenny Tete spurning gilt-edged chances in quick succession - so, the match really might have gone either way (although Brighton really need to do something about their unfortunate habit of not being able to hang on to a lead, if they don't want to get sucked into the relegation struggle). Fulham felt hard done-by, as they'd had two half-decent penalty shouts rejected by VAR. The first, with Iwobi being toppled by Baleba, was rather similar to Porro's indiscretion against Burnley; although here, Iwobi definitely went down much too easily, and there was more of a suggestion of the two players running into each other, rather than the defender being the sole initiator. They had more of a claim on the second incident, where Ayari clipped King's heel as he cleared a ball; but it was a case of the Fulham forward interposing his leg/foot at the last second, when Ayari had already begun his kicking action; in some cases, that can be a deliberate fishing-for-a-foul (or even, occasionally, a foul itself), and in almost all, I think, it can be fairly dismissed as an 'accidental coming together'; one of those where we've seen them given, but it would have seemed a very harsh call.

Spurs might have been expected to be a bit 'leggy' after their physically and psychologically gruelling defeat by PSG in the UEFA Super Cup in midweek, but miraculously there seemed to be no signs of such, and they were again sharp, eager, and confident - and plenty good enough to breeze past a Burnley side who are already looking very likely to finish dead last. Richarlison and Kudus, in particular, were very impressive; the Brazilian notching an excellent brace, the second being an early 'Goal of the Month' contender. The one moment of controversy in the game came when Porro sent Burnley forward Jaidon Anthony sprawling with an unnecessary nudge in the back at the end of a fast break by the visiting side; the move had broken down with an overhit square pass beyond Anthony, so there was no possible reason for Porro to charge him in the back - other than cheeky petulance: it was a relatively 'light' contact, perhaps, but blatant and clearly deliberate, the weekend's only clearcut missed penalty award (so far); yet again, VAR seemingly didn't even 'look' at it. It's also a bit of a mystery as to how Spurs keeper Vicario, who really didn't have that much to do in the game, was given 2 bonus points. WTF???  The BPS is so broken.....

Sunderland got off to a dream start in front of a jumping home crowd, and might already be confirming my hunch that they will probably prove to be the best of this year's three promoted sides (after some very canny summer transfer business to bolster their squad: Adingra and Xhaka are looking like they could be major difference-makers down at the bottom end of the table). But they were only playing West Ham, who, after a moderately lively start and few dangerous moments from Bowen early on, were really pretty abject. (Their utterly superfluous new goalkeeper signing, Mads Hermansen, was arguably slightly at fault for all three goals.) I think I will (in a few weeks, after the transfer window has closed) venture a set of projections on how each club's season seems likely to pan out, and where they'll finish. West Ham, I feel, are very likely to be relegated; and Graham Potter has to be a strong favourite for the first managerial sacking of the year (heck, I was saying that even before the end of last season....).

City cruised to the top of the table with a fairly comfortable first win away to Wolves. But the scoreline flattered them: Wolves had their moments, often looking hungrier for the ball in the middle of the park, and occasionally embarrassing their illustrious visitors on the break. They weren't too far behind City on stats like goal attempts, corners won, and touches in the final third; and they could - should - in fact have been a couple of goals up inside the first 25 minutes, if only their Marshall Munetsi had bothered to learn the offside rule. City benefitted chiefly from three excellent finishes, with their final tally of 4 goals far exceeding their xG figure for this game. And even Pep gloomily observed that they looked quite poor in the second half. There were a couple of standout performances from Reijnders and Lewis - but everybody else looked pretty pedestrian; and you wonder if players like Doku, Bobb, and Gonzalez will get many more starts. The major upset in FPL terms was that unsettled keeper Ederson was a last-minute omission due to an alleged 'illness' (probably a 'headache' from having to read such a lot of contract offers from foreign clubs), and that new arrival Jamie Trafford suddenly got the nod to replace him, rather than long-time back-up Stefan Ortega. Anyone who'd punted on Trafford for the start of the season got an undeserved points windfall here! (Although, at 5.0 million, I still doubt if he'd be a great goalkeeper pick for FPL.) It was also a bit of a headscratcher as to why Marmoush didn't start...  And as to how Rayan Ait-Nouri was deemed to have done so well on the new 'defensive contributions' metric. His improbably huge tally on that meant that he edged the excellent Reijnders - every neutrals' choice for 'Man of the Match', by a country mile - out of the bonus points places. I say again, the BPS is broken. The Moroccan certainly put in a very decent shift; but Wolves weren't attacking much down his side of the pitch, you didn't 'notice'such a huge welter of blocks and tackles happening.... [It would be nice if the League would soothe FPL enthusiasts' ire and anxiety about this rule-change by putting out a few example highlights reels 'counting' some top players' 'defensive contributions' tally for the gameweek - to give us a clearer understanding of what counts as what, and to reassure us that the counts are being done carefully, accurately, consistently. At the moment, I have zero confidence on that.]

Another opening match, another superb free-kick goal from Ebere Eze denied in bizarre circumstances! That really is a most unfortunate habit to fall into...  This one was at least ultimately fairly uncontroversial (though it did seem to take rather a long time for VAR to adjudicate on it); but nevertheless baffling to just about everyone watching it. We learn that there is a rule that an attacking player may not be within 1 yard of the defensive wall (if more than 2 defending players in the wall); there is apparently no clarification as to whether this means 1 yard in any direction, or only laterally... It's apparently been on the books for 6 years; but I don't recall there being any fanfare about its introduction (perhaps it just got eclipsed by the rather bigger news of Covid starting to unfold half-way through that season); and I'm pretty sure I've never seen it invoked before (although it continues to be pretty common practice for attacking teams to try to put a man in the wall, and this is never penalised; so, I rather suspect that the League and/or PGMOL happens to have just put out a memo 'reminding' officials of this super-obscure, never-enforced rule for the start of the new season...).  That was the only real point of excitement in a thoroughly lacklustre match. Crystal Palace - especially their admirably compact defensive unit - deserve a lot of credit for completely stifling the Chelsea attack: the home side had most of the ball, and created a lot of half-chances, but didn't really have a decent attempt on goal all game (the recently superlative Joao Pedro was so ineffectual in this one that I actually had to check a match report to discover if he'd even been playing); players were getting impatient, trying potshots from distance, or snatching at a chance straight away, before there was really an opening in front of them. The best of these chances fell to holding midfielder Andrey Santos near the end, but, receiving the ball in tons of space near the edge of the box, and with only the keeper to beat, he anxiously tried to turn the ball towards goal straight away and only succeeded in scooping it harmlessly into Row Z. There was also another potential penalty decision when Sanchez appeared to miss an attempt to punch the ball clear and thumped Guehi across the back of the head instead; he was very close to getting the ball, and TV replays perhaps weren't absolutely definitive as to whether he had or not (so, perhaps VAR was giving him the benefit of the doubt?); but this was another incident where there was enough in it to deserve a long hard look from VAR - which it didn't seem to receive.

Many of us had feared that this might happen to Chelsea, that their summer renascence might prove to have shallow roots, and that they might easily revert to the dreadful form they showed for most of the second half of the last league season. At the moment, it's just one poor performance, and we can try to blame it on fatigue or limited preparation after their rather truncated pre-season. But if they're this lacking in threat in the final third again next week, there's likely to be a huge FPL sell-off on all initially fancied Chelsea 'assets'.

Nottingham Forest did the exact opposite of Chelsea, While their pre-season performances had been severely unconvincing, and they'd struggled to score a goal against anyone, they suddenly seemed to start getting their mojo back against Brentford, with Gibbs-White absolutely on fire for them. They took their foot off the gas a bit in the second half, allowing the visitors to see a bit more of the ball and create a few chances; but it took a rather fortunate late penalty to give Thiago the chance to claw back a consolattion goal. Brentford have a number of new signings waiting to be integrated, and perhaps a few more in prospect before the closing of the window; but on that performance, they unfortunately look like favourites for relegation.

Arsenal nicked a goal from a set-piece early on at Old Trafford (surprise, surprise), but were barely in the game after that. United, however, although they frequently broke forward at pace, looked completely disjointed and rarely threatened any real danger. Sesko wasn't deemed ready to start, only coming on for the last 25 minutes (during which he made no impression at all), Cunha (rather than the much more physical Mbeumo) was nominally given the central striker role - which he never likes, and, on this occasion, never really inhabited, constantly drifting into his preferred left channel instead; Mount, nominally the left-sided 10, at least added some bite to the press, but didn't link up with the two new forwards at all; in fact, none of them linked up with each other. It wasn't very clear what Amorim's instructions for the game had been; or indeed, if there had been any, they seemed not to have been well understood or implemented. This looked to me like a classic example of a team who haven't yet spent enough time together, and were thus all playing as individuals instead of as a unit: players broke forward on their own, head down, advancing as quickly as possible - not knowing or trusting which of their teammates might be busting a lung to join them; then, by the time they got to within 25 or 20 yards of the goal, they'd finally look up quickly, and still not sensing anyone in the same shirt nearby to give them options, they'd have a hopeful punt from distance (Chelsea had been very guilty of this too, in their dreadful bore-draw with Palace).... which all ended up tamely in Row G. United fans and pundits have been taking a lot of encouragement that at least the 'Attack, attack, attack!' mentality seemed to be returning - and that they managed to make Arsenal look so ordinary - but, for me, it was really still a pretty dire performance; this match gave me no optimism that United, without some very big improvements, can finish in the Top Ten this year.

The goal had a slight whiff of controversy about it. Saliba pushed his marker, Mount, out of the way, and then leant into Bayindir, bundling him off-balance so that he stumbled back into his net and flapped ineffectually at Rice's corner. The general consensus is - reasonably enough - that the keeper (and Mount, and the other United defenders) should have been able to stand up more strongly against this fairly routine argey-bargey. However, Saliba did give the United keeper a shove in the ribs at the crucial moment, and that is probably straying over the line, I think; certainly enough of a potential infraction, in a moment of such huge import for the match, that VAR should have given it rather more than the very cursory review it appeared to receive. Saliba, in fact, was pushing his luck all match, committing several fouls which risked a yellow card, but were all overlooked or pardoned. The worst was when Cunha fired off a low cross-shot from an acute angle - forcing Raya to divert it past the far-post with a fingertip save; the best chance of the match - and the quality of the goal attempt probably got the Arsenal defender out of jail: Cunha was aggrieved that he'd been off-balance, overstretched as he got the shot off because Saliba had handfuls of his shirt. But the VAR attitude these days seems to be "If the attacker was able to take a shot, any interference with him cannot amount to a penalty foul" (I don't think that has any basis in the rules; it just seems to be the prevailing interpretational prejudice being applied by the game's officials). Calafiori was also a bit fortunate to be credited with the goal, since he was rather needlessly helping home a ball that the keeper had inadvertently diverted into his own net; and he didn't appear to get his head on it until it was already at least half or three-quarters of the way over the goal-line (the goal-line technology really ought to be invoked in such instances, to verify if the attacker's 'finish' has been applied before the ball has crossed the line; but it did not appear to have been here - and I don't think that is yet enshrined as the standard practice). Rice was also lucky to get the assist; last year, he surely would not have done - he appears to be the first player this season to benefit from the new more lenient approach to ascribing 'assists' (allowing them, even if the ball has been substantially diverted by a defender's touch).

Mikel Arteta joined Arne Slot in the opprobrium of FPL managers by yanking off Gyokeres and Martinelli seconds shy of the hour mark. We must hope that such early substitutions are just a fleeting aberration early in the season, necessitated by the less-than-100% match fitness still affecting many players. But if this is going to be a common trend in the Premier League this season, we'll have to radically reassess many of our selections. Amorim put some noses out of joint as well, in failing to start Sesko or Amad Diallo (who had been widely expected to be the nailed preference at right wing-back this season, but was initially displaced by Diogo Dalot on this occasion). The beginning of the season can be a real horror show when it comes to anticipating selections and form.....

And then, oh dear, Everton are playing out a turgid Monday evening draw away at Leeds (like a lot of clubs this weekend, they seemed to be mostly dominating possession, but failing to conjure any decent openings), when referee Chris Kavanagh made what might well be one of the worst penalty awards we'll see all season. Poor James Tarkowski had his arm in a perfectly 'natural position' (pretty much nailed to his side; in fact, it had been well away from his side as the ball was struck towards him, and he clearly moved it away from the ball); it wasn't easy to see on the TV replays, but it looked very much as if the shot had struck his ribcage - or ribs-and-arm, at least - rather than just his arm anyway. There was NO WAY that was a penalty; though, yet again, VAR seemed reluctant to appear 'critical' of the referee and devoted very little time to their reconsideration of the incident. And then Pickford guessed right and very nearly stopped the spot-kick... But promoted Leeds walked away with an undeserved win. (And in FPL-land, the greater significance was the impact on Tarkowski's points, and the fact that Pickford too, and other Everton players [Ndiaye and Grealish also quite popular early picks] were thus unjustly denied a clean-sheet bonus).

There were 5 or 6 other potential penalties, before the Tarkowski fiasco on Monday; all of those were perhaps fairly 50/50 incidents - but I feel VAR should have been giving them a careful review, and that didn't seem to happen. I would have awarded spot-kicks against Porro for his gratuitous shoulder-charge in Anthony's back, and Saliba for shirt-grabbing on Cunha as he was shaping to shoot. And Senesi should surely have been sent off for an egregiously deliberate handball on Friday night. By the atrocious refereeing standards we've suffered over the past couple of seasons, that would actually have counted as a pretty good gameweek - though still a long way off ideal. But the Tarkowski decision was just ludicrously AWFUL. On top of these game-turning potential errors, we've had a lot of the typical early season curve-balls of unexpected selections, early substitutions, and teams/players just not playing very well. And the tallying of 'defensive contributions' for potential extra points this year is adding to the sense of confusion and injustice we almost invariably feel about the bonus point allocations. A pretty random 'Team of the Week' this time as well, with very few of the most fancied players gaining inclusion (and who, really, would have picked Semenyo or Riley or Lewis or Calafiori or Ballard, or even Raya for the opening week??). I was originally inclined to rate this gameweek only a 4 (very nearly a 5!) for the 'LUCK' factor, but if David Moyes protests that it was generally "a bad weekend for referees", then who am I disagree? The Tarkowski incident unfortunately bumps it up to a 7 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

So nice to have it back...

Sometimes - even with a summer tournament to fill part of the gap - the break between football seasons can seem to drag on an awfully long time.

There is something reassuringly familiar and nostalgically warming about having football to look forward to on our Saturdays.

That feeling is beautifully encapsulated in this wistful monologue by 'Ron Manager', an elegiac reverie on Saturday afternoon football that is almost poetic in its evocation of nostalgia for England, the BBC, my long-lost 1970s childhood. (It was indeed my weekly ritual to huddle in front of the TV at 4.40 on a Saturday, ready to record the day's results in a newspaper so that my dad could check his Football Pools - when he got back from watching our local team.)

Ron, one of many wonderful characters created by legendary comic actor Paul Whitehouse for the '90s BBC skit comedy The Fast Show, was a kind of quintessential 'old school' English football manager, scratching a living in his dotage from TV punditry; although borderline senile and rarely at all coherent in his meandering pronouncements, his patent love of the game was nevertheless powerfully endearing. Here's another great little snippet of his, expressing his appreciation of Ryan Giggs.

Saturday afternoon is football. Isn't it? Mmmm?

Back home, we'd be just getting ready to watch a game about now. But where I live, we still have three-and-a-half hours until the lunchtime kick-off.  (Must try to resist temptation and not start drinking beers just yet....)

IT BEGINS again....

 

The first game of the new season should kick off back in England in just under 12 hours.

That means we've got barely 10 hours to get our Fantasy squads sorted out before the first deadline. (And since the FPL website has been glitchy-as-all-hell all this week, I really wouldn't take too many chances by leaving your submission until right before the cut-off; the site can get overwhelmed by peak traffic volumes and will occasionally stop working altogether at a crucial moment. Not a good way to start your season!)

Now, at last, it is reasonable to start compiling that INITIAL SQUAD.

I generally like to do mine late on Friday afternoon, with a tranquil river view to relax my mind, and a cold beer or two to keep me refreshed.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

My greatest WEAKNESS

 

Although I generally do pretty well at this game of FPL,.... I never do quite as well as I'd like.

Many of the factors that clip my performance are external handicaps which I can't do much about. [I live in a distant timezone, with limited availability of coverage of the games (often none with English commentary); and usually a slow and unreliable Internet connection, to boot! Also, I spend a lot of time travelling, which throws all attempts to maintain any regular routines out of the window, and occasionally even makes me miss an FPL deadline altogether. And I really think it's a huge disadvantage simply to be living anywhere outside the UK; there is such a rich immersion environment over there - it's almost impossible not to be aware of every little snippet of breaking football-related news, by a simple osmosis. Anywhere overseas, trying to root out that sort of information can be very effortful.]

But, yes, of course, there are occasional faults in my decision-making too. 

And I think the worst of them is that I tend to take a few too many chances in my initial squad.

I almost always have a pretty poor start to the season; and often, a very, very, very poor - 'Might as well give up now...' - kind of start!

 

And while a large part of that can be attributed to simple BAD LUCK, I do acknowledge that often I'm partly bringing it on myself. 

I like to take chances on players that I rate highly, but are perhaps not yet fully established in their team set-up - only recently elevated to the first team from the reserves or youth ranks, or just joined a bigger club,... perhaps haven't previously shown any sustained FPL form.

Now, I think one of my greatest strengths in the game is that I am in fact a very astute judge of a player. Almost always these more speculative picks of mine do come good in the end; just not quite as emphatically, and almost never quite as promptly as I'd hoped.

I think probably the core of the 'problem' here - the reason why this innocent little foible of mine seems to have become more and more damaging to my results in recent years - is that modern football managers are usually far more conservative than they were in the past; most of them do not like to 'take risks' on emerging talents,... when they know exactly what they're going to get from their veteran warhorses. (Pep Guardiola didn't think Cole Palmer was going to cut it in the Premier League??!! Ethan Nwaneri will probably be in his mid-20s before Mikel Arteta will give him more than 1,000 minutes in a season...)

And perhaps that excess of caution is partly driven by the extraordinary physical demands of the modern game. Selections now are often made for reasons which are completely opaque to the outside world - reasons that probably have far more to do with 'fitness' than a player's raw talent or game intelligence. 

Not that many years ago, my assessments of young players' ability usually accorded very closely with when they were about to break through on the big stage. These days, they rarely do. And it's not just the disappointment of my FPL hopes that saddens me about that....

So, I probably should try to curtail my predilection for including two or three such optimistic selections in my opening-week squad.

Or should I???

This game of ours is essentially a kind of gambling. Each week with our selections we are placing bets on unknown - and unknowable - outcomes. And sometimes you have to bet big to win big.

One day, perhaps, all of my 'emerging star' punts will play in the first game, and will all have blinders!! And I'll be off to a scorching-hot start for once!!

Maybe you have to be prepared to endure several years of mediocre starts, in order to enjoy one really good one? And maybe you have to endure several mediocre seasons, before you get a really successful one?

Maybe.  I'm not sure about this...  Ask me in another ten years or so!

[And, yes, my other great weakness is Vietnamese coconut coffee. Whenever I spend a month in Vietnam, I pile on a couple of kilogrammes through overindulging in these bad boys! It's really a blessing-in-disguise that this is still almost impossible to find anywhere else in Asia.]

The Sisyphean labour begins again...

 

"We must imagine Sisyphus happy."

Albert Camus

This game we so love and hate does seem very like the famous mythical punishment in Hell: endless toil, constant setback... ultimate futility.

We must learn to value the effort expended for its own sake, to celebrate the endeavour to achieve, rather than achievement itself.

Only about 14 hours to go now until the first kick-off of the new season:

 Liverpool v Bournemouth - at 8 pm, UK time. 

Stand by your boulders....

[Yes, this is a re-post from this time last year. But it is so inescapably appropriate that I'm probably going to use it every year.]

A little bit of Zen (55)

"If you compare yourself to others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself."

Max Ehrman  (from his poem 'Desiderata')

EVERYTHING you always wanted to know....

 

.... about FPL.  (But were afraid to ask??!!)

I've been quite busy over the past couple of weeks compiling content that - I hope - might be helpful in selecting a first Fantasy Premier League squad for the new season, about to commence tomorrow.

Here's a list of links to all the resources I've so far assembled (including a handful of key 'How to....' posts from earlier in the blog's history):

How to choose the INITIAL SQUAD

A fairly comprehensive guide to all the principles you need to keep in mind for squad building.

And a checklist you could run over that squad afterwards: How should you judge if your squad is any GOOD?

Possible Picks [Pt. 1]

My roundup of the most promising options this year among the goalkeepers and defenders.

Possible Picks [Pt. 2]

The companion piece on the most tempting possibilities in the midfielder and forward categories.

A few HINTS & TIPS

A helpful catalogue to my 'In a Nutshell...' series: a collection of 'shorter' posts on key points about the game of FPL that I've learned over the past several years.

And.... This year's EARLY 'Sheep Picks'

A warning against some of the most popular picks among the premature drafters - tempting selections that might be better avoided...

The shape of things to come...?

A heads-up on some of the less expected changes we need to watch out for in the new season!

The ONES you should be watching...

Some recommendations for the tactical analysts (NOT 'FPL experts'!!) I find most helpful in improving my understanding of the game.

From longer ago....

Pounds EQUAL Points

An explanation of how BUDGET works (amazingly, very few people seem to properly grasp this!).

Goal setting

Some thoughts on the kind of 'targets' you can set for yourself to gauge your FPL performance. (Subsequently revisited, and somewhat expanded, in this post.)

And a brief rundown on typical 'levels of achievement':  What counts as A GOOD SCORE?

A couple of key early posts: Why people are BAD at FPL...  and  How to get better...

A warning about all the ways that LUCK can impact your FPL outcomes: What's LUCK got to do with it?

And finally...  my ultimate guide to how to get better at the game:

Are you a good FPL manager?

BEST OF LUCK FOR THE SEASON AHEAD!

Possible Picks 2025 [Pt. 2]

 

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

Midfielders

Amongst the 'outright goalscorers' ('forwards-in-disguise') in the midfield ranks, Salah still reigns supreme; although, after his record-breaking season last year, his price has now been upped from an already wince-making 12.5 million to a probably no-longer-viable 14.5 million. At that price-point, I think he certainly can't be regarded as a season-long hold. Although, given his propensity to start strong - particularly in the opening game! - I think it might be tempting to try to crowbar him into the initial squad,.... but with a view to possibly moving him out quite quickly, once we've seen firmer evidence of who the best alternatives might be. (I'm always a bit sceptical of 'records' in particular fixtures, too. And I wonder if Liverpool's opener being an evening game this year might disrupt the apparent pattern of Salah's scoring-in-the-opener; evening kick-offs are severely disruptive of the usual conditioning and preparation routines, and rarely see players produce their very best.)

Also, however good Liverpool prove to be this term, however dominant they may become, it's probably still going to be undesirable to double-up on them in one position. And that may mean that, before long, we'd rather have Wirtz or Gakpo (or perhaps even Szoboszlai or Macallister) than Salah [NB: That doesn't mean they'll be better than Salah; but they can still be better picks than him. This is the main thing people have to grasp, before they can start becoming good at FPL.] - especially given the extensive upgrades we can carry out throughout the rest of the squad with the money we'd save by getting rid of Salah.

There's a similar problem now at Manchester United, where Mbeumo and Cunha are both certainly very tempting - but you probably have to pick one. And perhaps that's another selection where you can wait a while, to see which (if either) emerges as the stronger prospect. There are inevitably some worries as to how quickly they may find their feet at a new club and develop a productive understanding with each other (particularly when the club has been so dysfunctional for the last several years, and other areas of the team that urgently need upgrades have thus far still been overlooked in the current transfer window; an awesome new front-line might still struggle if the rest of the team behind them is still a train-wreck....). One might worry also about how they'll adapt to no longer being the ONE BIG HERO at their club. Cunha expected to be the primary, almost sole creative inspiration at Wolves; but at United Bruno Fernandes (and Amad Diallo) already fills that role. Mbeumo was used to being the primary goalscorer for Brentford over the past two seasons; but now he's going to be sharing the goal output with 2, 3, 4 other top players. There's also an uncertainty as to who might now be taking penalties for United, which can give a hefty boost to FPL returns. I think, frankly, both the new guys are (even) better penalty-takers than Bruno Fernandes, and, as strikers, have a strong case for taking over that duty from him. But Sesko might have something to say about that as well. And it's not impossible that they might split penalty-taking between them. We just won't know until they've been awarded two or three. At the moment, the general assumption seems to be that Bruno will retain the responsibility for penalties; but, to me, that feels like the least likely outcome.

With Jarrod Bowen being bumped into the 'forward' category this year (boo!), the only other contender among the 'primary goalscorer' group is probably Iliman Ndiaye at Everton. I think the just announced prospect of Grealish joining the club on loan is particularly exciting, because this would presumably free Ndiaye from having to 'hold width' on the left (and track back...), and allow him to move forward into the inside-left channel more, perhaps even evolving into an outright striker. He has oodles of talent and a nose for goal, and could be one of the breakthrough stars of the year, I fancy (although, playing for a bottom-end club like Everton, that is going to be a pretty tall order).

Oh, I'd missed for a moment that Omar Marmoush had been reclassified as a 'midfielder' this year. He's definitely got a lot of points in him, but he's priced rather high at 8.5; and there must be some doubts about how often he'll start.

Amongst the wide attackers who also have major goal potential, Newcastle have the strongest lineup, with Gordon, Barnes, new signing Elanga, and Jacob Murphy (who had an outstanding season last year, especially in the second half). It's unfortunate, there, that we don't know for sure who will be the most favoured starters from that quartet; and, almost certainly, there'll be a bit too much rotation between them for any of them to have any reliable value in FPL this time. Gordon had been one of my mainstays for a while; but he had a mostly rather subdued season last year. I'd like to think that he's due a bounce-back; but it might be that he peaked early, and has somehow lost some of his early fire. There's also a lot of doubt about how disruptive and destructive the now seemingly inevitable loss of Alexander Isak will be. Having a bunch of very dangerous wide attackers is not going to be much good if they don't have a top striker working with them to convert a high proportion of their potential assists.

Bukayo Saka, though I fret that his true potential is hamstrung by Arteta invariably insisting on tethering him to the touchline (and also, he and Arsenal become far too predictable by having so much of their attacking funnelled down his side of the pitch), is clearly in a different class to almost anyone else in the wide positions, and - as long as he stays fit (and, last season's serious hamstring tear notwithstanding, he does generally appear to be superhumanly resistant/resilient to injury) - he's probably a near-essential, as he notched over 100 points in the first third of last season (and there didn't seem to be anything freakish or out-of-the-ordinary about that; that's just what he does....). A lot of people seem to be hanging fire on bringing in Saka at the start of the season - perhaps because of concerns about the number of games he missed last season, or because Arsenal have quite a testing run of fixtures at the start of the year. But I think that would be a mistake. Arsenal, as would-be major challengers for the title, really should not fear anyone; and Saka is a big game player. I am not by any means an Arsenal fan; but I believe they are well capable of beating Liverpool, Forest, City and Newcastle - and, if they do, Saka is likely to play a big part in that.

The other wide players at Arsenal, though, (largely because of the massive bias towards playing down the right to try and take advantage of Saka) are far less consistent in their impact, and tend to get rotated with each other from time to time: Martinelli, Trossard, Madueke, and indeed young Ethan Nwaneri could all be worth considering if they hit a nice vein of form and enjoy a consistent run of starts - but that's a rather big IF, unfortunately.

Bournemouth also have an intriguing roster of dangerous 'support strikers' who sometimes play as a main central forward, with Kluivert, Tavernier, Ouattara, and Semenyo all looking promising picks for spells last year. I think Kluivert (usually on penalties, too) is the most consistent threat; but it's a problem that they all tend to blow a bit hot and cold, and none of them was a really strong prospect for more than a month or two at a time.

Kaoru Mitoma at Brighton (pure class, a stunningly creative player; but he does seem to have appalling luck in FPL - he's been denied so many points by bad refereeing decisions, awful finishes by teammates, strange non-attributions of assists,...), Neto or Gittens or Estevao (tremendous talent, but not, I suspect, a regular starter this year) or Garnacho or Simons at Chelsea (the latter two particularly exciting, I think, if those rumoured moves come off), Alex Iwobi and Adama Traore at Fulham, Amad Diallo at United (who looks like he might get a regular start at right wing-back, where he has proven he can flourish, although he probably won't be as potent an attacking threat with three new strikers playing ahead of him this year; and it's a pity he appears to have been shunted out of the right-sided 'twin 10' slot, where he really looked dangerous), Hudson-Odoi at Forest, Kudus, Kulusevski (when he's fit again), Johnson, Tel, and Odobert at Spurs (lots of promising young talent there, but you probably can't expect any of them to be regular starters), and Bailey and Malen (who's had an impressive pre-season) at Villa, maybe Schade and Carvalho (if he can finally unlock his enormous potential on a consistent basis) at Brentford, and very possibly Jack Grealish at Everton (if he settles in quickly and becomes a regular starter) could also have an impact. Although these are the sorts of players you probably need to be rotating regularly in and out of your squad as they come into hot form. Brighton have a fat roster of such players, with Yankuba Minteh emerging as one of the most exciting of them last year; but unfortunately, none of them are likely to get regular enough minutes to make them an FPL prospect (Adingra has been mentioned as a possible loanee to one of the promoted sides: he could well become an appealing cheap 5th-seat choice, if that comes to pass; and if it does, Minteh or Gruda could become more compelling possibilities at Brighton). I wonder, too, if we'll ever see the best of Solly March again, after that dreadful knee injury. And I really like the skills of Marcus Edwards, who joined Burnley in February this year, after a few pretty good years at Sporting; at a promoted side, there's perhaps little chance he can really make much of an impression - but I'd like to think he's worth keeping an eye on as a possible dark horse pick at some point. I'm also quite excited about the Colombian Jhon Arias joining Wolves (he was stupendous for Fluminense in the Club World Cup, but it might take him a month or two to find his feet in the English game).

Amongst the 'playmakers' Cole Palmer is probably a must-have again; after all, he was well on course for a 300-point season for the first half of last year - and even though his output tanked as Chelsea's form collapsed around Christmas time, he still wasn't playing badly in that second phase of the season. Chelsea's Club World Cup triumph, and some impressive pre-season performances, suggest that they have now turned a big corner under Maresca. And Palmer's immediate rapport with Joao Pedro is looking frankly terrifying. I fancy Palmer could well be the top-returning FPL player this season; and, if he doesn't get injured, is absolutely certain to be among the top four or five.

Ebere Eze is the only other player at the moment who carries anything like that potential in that sort of position (and I worry that he might squander that potential if he gets tempted to accept a move to a 'big' club; at Palace, he will start every game he's fit, and always be the centre of everything they do; at an Arsenal or a City, he'll just be another cog in a machine, given a trammelled role to play, and constantly rotated in and out). 

I'm not sure that anyone else in that role stands out any more, though, with Maddison looking set to miss most of the season with an ACL injury, DeBruyne having moved on, and Phil Foden seeming, sadly, to have lost his way. While I love Martin Odegaard, and appreciate how pivotal he is for Arsenal, he just doesn't score goals consistently enough to quite get up into the FPL reckoning. (Though perhaps he could again; last season was a bit of a subdued one, by his standards.) Likewise, the two Morgans, Gibbs-White and Rogers, are terrific players, but probably don't carry quite enough consistent goal-threat to be interesting for FPL. Rayan Cherki seems conspicuously under-priced at 6.5 million; but I suppose there are some legitimate concerns about how well he can bed in at a currently rather unsettled side, and how regularly he will start. Mikkel Damsgaard emerged as an all-around threat for Brentford last season, but his impact might be curtailed now by the loss of such crucial collaborators as Norgaard and Mbeumo. Harry Wilson has often looked very dangerous at Fulham, but I'm not sure he's ever going to be an invariable starter, even when he can stay fit; likewise Emile Smith Rowe is fantastic on his day, but can be very inconsistent, and struggles with fitness. Dwight McNeil and Carlos Alcaraz at Everton have a lot of potential this season, too, I think. Young Lucas Bergvall at Spurs is a hell of a talent; and if he gets a run of starts, I can see him emerging as a tempting budget option. And I really like Georginio Rutter at Brighton; we only saw the best of him in fits and starts last year, but if he can get a steady run of games this time, I think he could establish himself as Brighton's key creative force, and perhaps elevate them to challenging for the lower European places. It is rumoured, too, that a couple of the best of last year's promoted players, Omari Hutchinson and Bilal El Khannouss, might be returning to the league. But these would all be somewhat hopeful, speculative picks for the start of the season: players with the raw talent to do a lot, but not yet the proven record of having consistently done so for a long period.

Bruno Fernandes, on the other hand, has the past record, but not, to my mind, the future prospects. He now looks set to play mostly in a deeper midfield role, and cede most of the goal-scoring duties to the impressive new forward trident they've just bought (and might have to give up penalty-taking duties too...?).  He's never been a really good FPL pick since his first couple of seasons, anyway: his big points tend to be concentrated into a few really hot but really short streaks, with often long, long droughts between them; it's nice if you can get on him when he's producing fat returns, but he's generally been a terrible long-term hold. 

There are some midfielders who might be seen primarily in a more defensive light, yet do also have a strong attacking element to their game; and most of these should now get a strong lift to their points tallies from occasionally racking up impressive numbers of 'defensive contributions' - Sandro Tonali and Joelinton and Bruno Guimaraes, Rodri (if he stays..), Reijnders (altthough I think people are getting carried away by his recent brace of goals in a friendly: that was against Palermo, who are these days a pretty mid-rank Serie B side - I think I could score two goals against Palermo!!), Wharton (absolutely magnificent in the Shield game on Sunday), the two Sarrs - Pape and Ismaila (the latter looking particularly sharp against Liverpool at Wembley), McGinn, Caicedo (and Lavia, if he can ever stay fit for more than a month or two; and maybe Andrey Santos, if he can't?), Macallister, Andreas Perreira, Elliot Anderson, Joao Palhinha (likely to be an absolute monster on these new 'defensive points', and could get very, very tempting if Frank should put him on penalties as well), and possibly Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall after his move to Everton (perhaps going to replace Doucoure in the more attacking central role?). 

However, I think the two big options in this category, players who have shown the potential to be pretty frequent scorers and assisters of goals as well as regularly putting in huge defensive shifts, are Enzo Fernandez and Declan Rice. Those are two players who should probably now be near the head of the queue for possible inclusion as the 4th or 5th-seat midfielder.

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

At least I've pared the choices down to a few dozen that I think seem most promising, from the getting on for 400 available in this category.  

If you're finding it really difficult to choose,...you might as well just write all the names on Post-It notes, stick 'em to a wall, and throw darts at them blindfold.

Forwards

Lots of tumult and uncertainty in this category (even more than usual!).  Haaland, down from last year's record price-level, but still an unfeasible 14-million, is priced out, I'm afraid. If he stays fit, I think he will probably be the top points scorer among the forwards - possibly by a fairly large margin. But that doesn't matter. 

Naive FPL managers assume that the game is just about finding the players who produce the most points over the season. But IT'S NOT: it's about finding the group of players who will produce the most points within the constraints of your budget (and over relatively short stretches of time, not the entire season).

With a super-expensive player like Haaland, there is an enormous opportunity cost - in foregoing substantial improvements in half a dozen or more other slots around your squad, if you'd redistributed all that money you spent on him more evenly across the totality of your selections. However many points he gets you, it can almost never make up for all the points you're probably sacrificing by going light in so many other positions in order to afford him. That is going to be true of Salah too this year, I'm sure; but it will be even more true of Haaland, because City are not the imperious, unchallengeable force they were a few years ago; and they're now entering into a rebuilding period. (And the big Viking might find himself having to share the goals a bit more, with Marmoush, and a few others.)

The other big hitters of last season might also 'disappoint' somewhat. Isak now seems certain to miss the opening weeks of the season, as the transfer wrangling over him drags on and on. And if he goes to Liverpool (or another 'big club'), he'll have to face a 'settling in' spell, and quite possibly some rotation, and almost certainly find himself not enjoying the exclusive spotlight of being the main goal outlet any more (that's going to be Salah at Liverpool for a while longer yet; everyone else is just a support player....).

Chris Wood just had an exceptional, freak-ish season (massively out-performing his xG, often nabbing a goal from only one or two half-chances in a game): no-one could be expected to repeat that. Particularly not a rather technically limited forward who's about to turn 34 years of age. It's probably unreasonable to expect the other veterans who enjoyed brief resurgences of youthful vigour last season, Raul and Danny Welbeck, to sustain those kinds of performance levels either. They might yet prove worth having for a spell here or there; but I wouldn't want to gamble on them at the start of the season - especially as Raul and Welbeck don't have very inviting opening fixtures. I suspect Forest's athletic back-up Taiwo Awoniyi or their new signing Igor Jesus may soon be getting a lot more minutes - but we'll have to wait and see on that.

I don't have much more optimism about Ollie Watkins at the moment either. He is rumoured to be looking for a move away from Villa - and I think that would be good for him, as the Midlands side seem to be struggling a bit with recruitment, and don't look likely to ever rise above the level of a good, occasionally slightly over-performing mid-table side. And Watkins is turning 30 around the mid-point of this season; he perhaps doesn't have too much time left at the top level. If he stays at Villa, and continues to perform for them at the level of his last few seasons, he'll definitely be a strong contender. But I think his pricing is a bit mean: I'd be all over him if he were only 8 million, or perhaps even 8.5; but 9 is really just a bit steep for an aging striker with a mid-level side.

Jarrod Bowen was a tremendous midfield option last year; but being reclassified as a 'forward' strips away a significant chunk of his points returns from the last few years. Also, he's only once managed more than 15 goals in a season, and sometimes has struggled to get into double figures. He's really more of a 'support player' than an outright striker, and not exactly prolific. And West Ham really look like a club who might struggle to keep themselves out of the relegation mire this season: that kind of struggle tends to erode the confidence of players in all positions, and undermines the performance of forwards as much as defenders. If he gets on a hot streak, sure - bring him in for a while. But, except against the promoted sides, I struggle to imagine where West Ham are going to pick up any points this season.

Most of last season's other (at least occasional) contenders are also looking unpromising for this new season: Nicolas Jackson (very good at the start of last year) has now tumbled way down the pecking-order at Chelsea, and is looking for a move away, Yoane Wissa is unsettled at Brentford and embroiled in transfer stories, Liam Delap doesn't look to have a guaranteed start at Chelsea, Rodrigo Muniz is still languishing behind Raul in the running-order at Fulham (and is again surrounded by talk of loans or transfers), Beto doesn't seem to have the full confidence of David Moyes (and might perhaps be displaced as the centre-forward by Ndiaye, or a new signing...), Darwin Nunez has left the building, Richarlison and Eddie Nketiah have injuries....

It's a long, long time since there's been a start to the season so confused and disfigured by frantic transfer probings; a long, long time since we had such comparatively few clearcut forward choices available to us (i.e., players we can be really confident will start, who don't have a cloud of doubt and dissatisfaction and speculation hanging over them).

Of last year's sigificant goalscoring assets, only Jean-Philippe Mateta (excellent in pre-season), Evanilson, and Jørgen Strand Larsen seem to be currently in contention. I was in danger of overlooking Dominic Solanke, since he missed big chunks of last season, and never fully found his feet at a floundering Spurs. His prospects might be very much improved if Spurs can develop a more effective attacking style under Frank this season. But my concern about him is always that he's rather too unselfish, really rather more of a facilitator than a primary goalscorer; none better at hold-up play and leading a vigorous high-press, but.... he never seems likely to offer much more than 15 goals a season - which isn't quite enough to get excited about for FPL.

Joao Pedro is suddenly everyone's darling, after his sensational appearances to help Chelsea clinch the Club World Cup; but as I pointed out the other day, with the depth of the squad at Stamford Bridge, there must be some doubts about how often he will start, or how fixed his role might be. I think I'd probably take the chance on him; but you have to recognise that, at this point, it is still taking a chance.

Brentford's Igor Thiago and West Ham's Niclas Füllkrug present intriguing cheap options for the 3rd seat, as they seem to have finally emerged from a long succession of injuries that wiped both of them out for most of a season. But they're both a bit of a punt - still completely unknown quantities, as far as their potential in the Premier League goes. And Leeds's Joel Piroe (5.5 million) looks like the only attacker coming up from the Championship who might have a chance of making some impression in the Premier League (although records in the second tier rarely translate to the elite level: Burnley probably won't keep many clean sheets this year, and Piroe might struggle to reach a double-digit goal tally). Chelsea's Spanish teenager Marc Guiu going on loan to Sunderland might also become a promising budget option; although he has been a bit injury-prone, and it's not certain he'll be an immediate starter - so, it's very risky to go for him just yet...

The main excitement in the forwards discussion at the moment is focused on the three new arrivals: Hugo Ekitike, Benjamin Sesko, and Viktor Gyokeres (who I'd take, for now, probably in that order).  The problems here are that Ekitike is being undermined immediately upon his arrival by all this talk of trying to get Isak in (inevitably to replace him as the no. 1 starting choice at centre-forward), Sesko will be having to share the goalscoring with at least two other very talented producers (and if you choose to go for Cunha or Mbeumo in 'midfield', you probably won't want to be doubled-up on the United attack anyway), while Gyokeres is going to have to feel his way into a side who have got used to playing without a conventional No. 9 at all for some years now. I think they'll all ultimately settle in fine, and probably have pretty good debut seasons; but this first month or so might have some very rough spots.

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

GOOD LUCK!!!