FPL Panic

Pick these 5 players and you’ll win FPL. Maybe.

In this post…

Save yourself transfer anguish for the next 9 months by picking players who you never transfer out
Why some of the most expensive players in each position are actually bargains
Turn the lack of fixtures into an opportunity to spot value
I attempt to establish ‘P-2’ in FPL terminology… what does it mean?
Maths bits you can skip if you want
How to win FPL (maybe)

Yes, that’s clickbait up there. But it’s not entirely unsubstantiated. We can do some maths to illustrate how certain players could really win you FPL if you pick them and keep them all season. Well, they might not win you FPL. But they’ll get you close. Maybe.

The maths bit you can skip

The basic calculation we’re using for this article is:

If all your players score an average of ‘price minus two‘ points per week over the entire season, you will get enough points to (maybe) win FPL.

So a player costing 4.5 needs to average 2.5 a week, a player costing 7.0 needs 5.0 a week, a players costing 11.5 needs 9.5 a week… you get the idea.

If you don’t want to do the maths, you can take this as a given and move on to the next section.

If you do, here’s how the calculation works:

You have to spend all your 100 budget, or near enough.
You also need to have a standard cheap bench (let’s say four players all costing 4.5).
That means you have 82 of your 100 budget on the pitch and scoring you points. But that’s quite hard to do week-in-week-out, so let’s say you average slightly under that: 81 on the pitch per week.
Every week you have 11 players on the pitch. (I’m ignoring the blanks and doubles!) If they all score two less than their price – however those prices are distributed – you’ll score (81 – 11*2) = 59 per week.
That’s 59*38 = 2242 a season. But you get a captaincy bonus and chips on top of that. Let’s say a decent but not spectacular 7 points per week from captains (actual winners of FPL tend to average a lot more), and a cumulative 50 points from Free Hit, Bench Boost and Triple Captain bonuses.
That means your final season total is 2242 + 7*38 + 50 = 2558. The 2019/20 winner, Joshua Bull, scored 2557!

I know this points total doesn’t actually guarantee anything – but in the last 10 seasons it would have won you FPL eight times, and got you very close the other two.

I also know there are far more sophisticated points-benchmarking systems out there… but this one’s good enough for my simple mind.

That’s the maths done. What do we do now?

So we’ve established our ‘price minus two’ metric – let’s call it P-2 for short. How do we actually use it to give ourselves a practical benefit in FPL? The way I see it is this:

We all spend a lot of time and energy (and -4 points hits) on transfers that don’t go to plan. It’s a familiar scenario: You keep a big-name player in your team for weeks, they keep on letting you down, then when you finally get rid of them, they immediately score two goals. Players like Aubameyang and Sterling fit this template last season: we pretty much knew they were going to hit 200 points overall, but they seemed inconsistent, so we tried to jump on and off, hitting their patches of good form. Unfortunately, half the time we hit the bad patches instead.

What if we could identify those players with the combination of fantasy pedigree, points potential and opportunity that meant we could leave them in our teams all season? The mythical ‘set and forgets’ (a phrase often used but virtually never followed). We’d get all their points hauls, reduce our reliance on transfers, and free our headspace to think about other players.

Sounds great, but we just have to be sure that those set-and-forgets are actually worth keeping. And the P-2 metric is a way of gauging that, using something a bit more concrete than guesswork.

The bigger the price, the bigger the challenge

If you go hunting for players that meet the hallowed P-2 benchmark, it won’t take long to realise that it’s far easier for cheap players to meet the standard. If there are any starting players costing 4.0, they don’t exactly have to be Lundstram to hit P-2 – they need to average 2.0 per game, which means they just need to collect appearance points and do nothing else all season, and apparently be good enough to (maybe) win you FPL. The more-common 4.5 defenders need barely more: 95 points. Last season, Egan started at 4.5 and scored 133 points – an entire point per gameweek more than his P-2 target!

The catch is that you need to spend all your budget, which you won’t do with 4.5 players (helpful though they undoubtedly are). But the higher you go up the price list, the harder you’re going to need to search for those FPL-winning gems.

As it happens, I did some searching already, and found five mid-to-high-price players who stand an excellent chance of exceeding that P-2 mark and winning you FPL (maybe).

Here they are, in ascending price order.

1. Matt Doherty, 6.0m

He’s already been an FPL gem for two seasons straight and is still somehow being overlooked in favour of cheaper defensive options. In 2019/20, Doherty was the fourth-highest scoring defender, and the highest-scoring non-Liverpool defender, in the entire game – and he didn’t even get a price rise this season!

Costing 6.0, Doherty needs to score 4.0*38 = 152 points to hit P-2 value. Last season he scored 167. So he could actually get a bit worse than he was last year, and still be a (potentially) FPL-winning pick. This is, in a word, mad.

2. Chris Wood, 6.5m

Last season was a golden one for the mid-priced striker, and the likes of Ings and Jimenez were duly given hefty price rises for 2020/21. Burnley’s Chris Wood, however, seems to have been overlooked, and starts at the same 6.5 cost as he did last year. OK, he didn’t get as many goals as Ings or Jimenez – but that headline stat is misleading. Wood played significantly fewer minutes than either of them, and still got a higher xG – 7th highest in the entire league, in fact, higher than Aubameyang!

We are looking for 4.5*38 = 171 points from Wood. He was 35 short of that in 2019/20, but he missed around 30% of all minutes owing to injury. If he scores points at the same rate, he needs to play 3062 minutes – or 358 minutes (four matches) short of the entire season. For a clear first-choice striker, that is easily achievable if he stays fit.

3. Phil Foden, 6.5m

Picking Man City players has elicited the same dialogue in FPL managers for years: “His points potential is so high… but he could be rotated… but his points potential is so high… but he could be rotated…” When they cost 6.5, however, and appear set to be part of Pep’s plans just as much as any other member of the squad, the rotation just doesn’t matter so much.

Like Wood, Foden needs to score 171 points to be an FPL-winner for you (maybe). Last season he was a long way off, with 69 – but that was from just 888 minutes.

How many will he get this season? No one knows. Let’s estimate that he gets similar gametime to Mahrez or Bernardo Silva in 2019/20 (~2000 minutes). If he scores at the same rate as last season, he’ll finish the season on 155, slightly short of the P-2 goal.

But Foden is a player on the up. Of his seven fantasy returns in 2019/20, six came after lockdown. Given that even a slight improvement is enough for us, he seems a solid bet, and his ceiling is much higher than that.

4. Trent Alexander-Arnold, 7.5m

Not exactly a maverick pick, TAA is already 56% owned at the time of writing. But it bears repeating just how good value he – along with his fellow Liverpool defenders – really is.

TAA’s 2019/20 total of 33 fantasy returns is the sort of season that would have an attacker priced easily over 10 million the following year – but he has been priced at a modest 7.5. He might be the most expensive defender but he looks like phenomenal value nonetheless.

The P-2 formula bears this out. He needs to score 5.5*38 = 209 points this year. Last season he scored… 210. So if TAA keeps up his current performance level, he’ll return (perhaps) FPL-winning value even if you don’t captain him once.

In fact, the argument could be made to get in Robertson and VVD on the same basis. Liverpool ‘only’ got 15 clean sheets last season – a good result, but surely repeatable, especially if they don’t lose Alisson to injury again. If they end up doing similarly, Robertson is forecast to be somewhere around his P-2 target of 190 points, while VVD will exceed his target of 171. Anyone fancy the triple?

5. Kevin de Bruyne, 11.5m

This is the big one. KDB is, again, not much of a maverick pick, but it’s still a surprise that he can return value, as well as total points, at a cost of 11.5.

Wait, you’re already doing the maths… Kevin needs to score 9.5*38 = 361 points over the season, which is clearly impossible – 303 is the all-time record, and Kev got ‘just’ 251 while being last season’s top scorer.

But if we include captaincy bonus…

OK, it’s sort of cheating, but we can keep it reasonable. Someone captaining KDB every week last season would have accrued 502 points from him – goal achieved easily! But no active manager really does that.

Thankfully, all we have to do is captain KDB half the time to meet P-2. It doesn’t even need to be for his best 19 weeks – just 19 completely average weeks will bring his contribution to 376 points for our teams. Bingo!

So who do we captain for the other weeks? Here are a few suggestions…

Honourable mentions

These players didn’t quite make the cut but are still excellent value picks with good chances of hitting P-2. Again, in ascending order of value:

Mitrovic: At a priced-to-sell 6.0, Fulham’s probable talisman needs just 152 points to hit P-2. When he was last in the Premier League, he got 134. Will he improve, or will VAR-induced red cards lessen his total instead?

Mahrez: Good value at 8.5 last season, Mahrez has somehow been given the same price again. He’s excellent in so many respects, but his required P-2 total of 247 is just a little high unless you captain him a few times (which FPL players will be reluctant to do given his risk of the dreaded 1-point cameo).

Werner: I could have picked any major Chelsea asset really… Ziyech at 8.0 or Pulisic at 8.5 could prove to be excellent value. But I’ve gone for the most expensive of all – Werner at 9.5 – as a points and value pick. You’ll need to captain him a fair chunk to reach his 285-point P-2 target, but he could well prove worthy of the captain’s armband. With FPL moving players into midfield wholesale, Werner has a very good chance of being this season’s highest-scoring FPL striker.

Fernandes: Scored 117 points since his arrival in the latter half of 2019/20, which is as incredible as it is wholly unsustainable. But if he were somehow to keep that rate up for every minute of a season, he’d score a record-smashing 337 – enough to return P-2 value for a price all the way up to 10.5. His price this season? 10.5!

Aguero: The most consistent elite performer in the last decade of FPL, Aguero has inexplicably fallen out of favour, with questions over whether Jesus will get his spot. But we had those questions last season, and the season before… and it never happened. At 10.5 and *always* a captaincy option, if he’s fit and ready to play, can you really say no?

–

Thanks for reading. Here’s the small print:

This is all very unscientific! Despite how I might have made it appear, you can’t use the P-2 model to get yourself an exact number of points. But you can use it to give yourself something to aim for, and use it an an objective metric to judge your players against.
That said, I really think that sticking some players in permanently (fitness permitting) and saving your transfers for other positions could be a good thing.
Just because a player isn’t on my list (Auba, Salah, Mané or whoever your favourite is) doesn’t mean they aren’t good. Of course they are – those players are all odds-on to get big scores again. They just aren’t of ‘game-breaking’ value, in my view. But it’s still fine to pick ‘poor value’ players – in the end, you’re aiming for points, not value.
If you disagree or think I’ve missed someone, send FPL Panic a message on Twitter or Insta.
Only one person can win FPL. But it could be you. Maybe.

8 things we learned from GW1

Photo: Brad Tutterow

First, here’s how the FPL Panic team did in GW1: We scored 82 for a gameweek (and overall) rank of around 840,000.

Now, what did we learn from the first week of the 2019/20 season?

1: Don’t overreact

So, after the endless pre-season build-up, we finally know what’s what, right? Sterling is essential, Man Utd assets are underpriced, Watford are useless, Pope is the best keeper in the world, Barkley needs transferring out right away…

…no he doesn’t! Hold your horses on any post-GW1 moves other than the plainly obvious (e.g. replacing an injured player).

We’ve had one week so far – that’s one data point. Next week, who knows what will happen? For all we know, it will be the opposite of what did in GW1 – Chelsea beat Leicester, Watford win at Everton, Aguero and Bernardo start…

Don’t do what the FPL community would describe as a ‘knee-jerk’ move. And don’t assume that what happened in GW1 will happen every week.

We’re not saying any conclusions drawn from GW1 are wrong – just that they’re inconclusive. Why not give it another week to collect more data?

2: Rank is meaningless; points are better

An overall rank of 1,500,000 may be a bit poor at the end of the season, but if you’ve got it right now, it’s nothing to be bothered about. Everyone is so tightly packed, and ranks prone to switching around, that it barely matters what yours is.

As a case in point, at the time of writing (pre-update) it took 98 points to get into the top 5k. If you scored 73 points, meanwhile, you would be just outside the top 500k.

Talking in the way FPL managers might usually talk, you might say something like, ‘Ranked 500k – what a disaster! Season over!’

Nonsense – you could easily be ahead of the top-5k guy after GW2.

So instead, try saying this: “I’m 25 points off the top 5k”. Not only does it make you sound better, it is genuinely a more meaningful way to express your position.

3: Players were priced accurately

It was a good weekend for the premiums. Salah 12, Sterling 20, Kane 13, Aubameyang 6… As Ross_FPL pointed out on Twitter, every player costing 10 or more (with the exception of substitute Mané) provided a fantasy return in GW1.

Meanwhile, the FPL Panic team’s budget striker selections of Deulofeu and King not only failed to return, but failed even to play as strikers, reverting to positions on the wing.

Jota, Perez, Robinson, Barkley, Adams, Wesley and Joelinton were among the other budget-priced attacking players to blank.

Player prices may have seemed steep year but GW1 has underlined that when players are given an expensive price tag, it’s for a reason.

4: The 4.0 defender isn’t dead yet

It seemed that the dream of a playing 4.0 defender was fading fast. Then, four of them started.

Hanley, Rico, Lundstram and Kelly all made it into the line-ups for their respective teams. Not that we’d advocate a transfer to bring any of them in, but it does make a team structure with a super-cheap bench a bit more doable.

In particular, Lundstram acquitted himself well (and scored a bonus point!) so may have earned himself a few more weeks in the Sheffield United team.

Kelly got a clean sheet, but you have to expect he’ll lose his spot to Cahill before long. As for the others, Hanley scored -2 after an own goal and Rico saw his clean sheet disappear at the last minute. So overall, though having these guys start is a huge help, you can’t expect big things from them. See rule 3 for more on that one…

5: Chelsea are strangely intriguing

They may have lost 4-0 but the Chelsea team surely contains some underpriced assets, who provide a budget route into a top-six team.

We knew that before GW1, admittedly, but we didn’t know who would actually make it into the starting line-up.

As it happened, Abraham (7.0) got the nod up front and hit the woodwork early on. Popular punt Barkley (6.0) got the start, but more interestingly, so did Mason Mount (also 6.0) and both were lively, at least while they were on the pitch (Barkley departed at 58 minutes).

It’s too early to bring either of them in, but one player caught our eye far more: Emerson (5.5), who got selected ahead of Alonso and appears to have inherited the Alonso role wholesale, hitting the woodwork once and drawing a smart save from de Gea (who got a 10-point haul reminiscent of his 2017/18 glories) shortly after.

He could be a huge source of value – if Chelsea find a rhythm and manage to shut out the smaller teams. To be confirmed…

6: VAR is going to have an effect

The answer to the question ‘is VAR good or bad?’ seems to depend on whether it has recently benefited or disadvantaged your FPL team. Certainly Sterling owners were decrying it after it ruled out a Sterling-assisted goal for an offside by a margin of one micro-millimetre.

What we’ve learned so far is that you can’t celebrate a goal straight away, because VAR could disallow it a minute later. But it goes further than that: It could benefit some players, in particular the regular penalty takers like Aguero.

Kun was handed a relief on Saturday when VAR forced a retake of his missed penalty due to defender encroachment in the box. He scored at the second time of asking.

Honestly, pretty much every penalty gets taken with the keeper off his line or someone else running into the box. So we may see a lot of retakes, and a lot of goals.

7: These guys looked good…

Let’s start with a reinvigorated Man Utd. Rashford (8.5) scored two, but more importantly, took a pen with Pogba on the pitch. Wan-Bissaka (5.5) has settled into his new team instantly, and was a force. Martial (7.5) was playing up front – but relies a bit more on service than Rashford, who has that FPL-friendly selfishness about him.

Digne (6.0) was a highlight for an uninspired Everton, and set Sigurdsson up for a good chance, which he missed.

Coleman and Zinchenko (both 5.5) both acquitted themselves well and may get a few more weeks to hold off the respective challenges to their starting spots.

Despite Dunk outscoring him, Montoya (4.5) was the one to watch for Brighton, continuing to bomb forward even when they were 3-0 up.

Robertson (7.0) blanked, unlike his teammates van Dijk and Alexander-Arnold. But Robbo spent long periods in the opposition box and appears hungry for goals. All three of the well-owned Liverpool defs seem like an attacking force and it’s hard to choose between them. Hold whoever you have.

McGinn (5.5) took his goal well amid an impressive Aston Villa attack. And Norwich, despite losing 4-1, played well – Pukki (6.5) takes the headlines but Cantwell (4.5) was very mobile and could be a good budget option.

Barnes got a double, but has some poor fixtures coming up. Pencil him in for GW5?

8: Seriously. Don’t do anything

We mean it! Unless you have Alisson, Bernardo or Trossard, our strongest advice is don’t do anything and hold the transfer. You’ll get another week’s worth of info, and two free transfers to put that info to use.

Sign out of FPL. Take up cross-stitching. Go on an island retreat. Come back next Friday evening with your mind refreshed… and team untouched. You’ll thank us.

What we really think about Zinchenko

Photo: @cfcunofficial (Chelsea Debs)

With the GW1 deadline upon us, there’s one player who’s been the subject of more FPL speculation than any other.

Salah? Sterling? Kane? No… it’s Manchester City’s 22-year-old left-back Oleksandr Zinchenko.

Previously a back-up to Ben Mendy, the Frenchman’s perennial injuries have seen Zinchenko get plenty of game time – he started 10 of the last 12 games in 2018/19. During that time, City kept eight clean sheets – and Zinchenko managed to accrue three assists while he was at it.

With Mendy out for a bit longer, and despite the arrival of back-up Angelino and right-leaning (positionally, not politically) Cancelo, Zinchenko is the number one choice to start at left-back again in 2019/20.

Plus, he’s been priced at 5.5 – less than Digne, the same as a Spurs defender, and the same as the best midfielders Sheffield United and Aston Villa have to offer.

It’s a dream situation for FPL owners… but how long is it going to last?

Mendy might be back in a couple weeks – he’ll miss the first gameweek for sure, but after that it’s anyone guess. Zinchenko’s defensive weaknesses were exposed (by Salah, but still) in the Community Shield, and with Sané out for a long time, Mendy may be brought back quicker as Pep Guardiola looks to shore up the left side.

All of this means the phrase ‘transfer waiting to happen’ is regularly being employed in relation to young Zin.

So is he worth it?

Stock options

To help solve this issue, we’re going to employ a slightly laboured metaphor.

You know that risk warning you hear relating to buying stocks and shares: “The value of your investment may go down as well as up.”

It’s true enough, but a more accurate expression would be, “it will go down as well as up.” You invest in stocks because they offer the biggest upside – they can make you a lot more money than investing in other ways – but they carry an inherent degree of risk, can go wrong unexpectedly, and you can’t rely on them as your source of ready money – you may find that at the time you need it most, it isn’t there.

If you’re considering picking Zinchenko, think of him like one of those high-risk investments. It’s not that he might get suddenly benched – he will get suddenly benched. Probably in a week where City have a plum fixture and you really want him to play.

That’s the downside. The way to play with the likes of Zinchenko is not to hope the downside never comes around, it’s to acknowledge that it will, and assess whether the upside more than makes up for it.

In Zin’s case, you get to buy into the league’s best team, who kept 20 clean sheets last season. And you get a full-back to boot, so there’s some assist potential there.

If he realises that potential and puts in a couple of big scores, you’ll be far enough up on the decision that you won’t mind if you have to transfer him out right afterwards.

In summary…

Treat this as a cold and calculating ‘upside vs downside’ equation. Don’t cross your fingers for a miraculous run in the team, or dream of unrealistic returns.

Accept that you’ll have to spend a transfer at some point, and assign a value to that transfer. Perhaps 4 points – the cost of a hit. Now work out how much of an advantage Zinchenko gives you over the alternatives at his price point. If that advantage is greater than the value of the transfer, go for it.

Not sure? Stay on the safe side and invest a bit more to get to Ederson on 6.0 or Laporte on 6.5.

FPL 2019/20: Here’s what you might have missed before Gameweek 1

In this post…

Overview of what player prices are like this season
Whether there are any essential cheap or out-of-position players out there
Where to find bargains in a seemingly expensive player list
Do the promoted teams offer any hot prospects?
And scroll to the bottom for a summary of the steps you need to take to build your opening squad for the season.

[featured photo: By Кирилл Венедиктов – https://www.soccer.ru/galery/1054364/photo/731520, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70118526%5D

So it begins! Er, began. A month ago.

It was possibly the earliest start ever for the FPL game, as it opened for 2019/20 on 29 June, sending fans into a frenzy of player analysis and points projections. Well, a few fans anyway. The rest of us were still firmly stuck in the summer routine of gardening, B&Q visits and day trips with the kids. And let’s face it, they do deserve our attention for two months of the year.

And so our re-entry into the FPL world was delayed.

Sound familiar? Well you’re not the only one – the number of teams in FPL rose to over 6 million last season, while at the time of writing this blog post, the number for 2019/20 is barely over 2.5 million. So there are 3.5 million of us still crawling the aisles of B&Q looking for wood stain for the garden fence.

But time rolls on and we have just a week until the Gameweek 1 deadline (that’s right, for the fourth season running, the first deadline is 7pm on Friday. DON’T FORGET!) And we have a whole 15-strong squad to pick between now and then. So who do you pick? Did you miss some key info in the last month? And for a ‘fun’ game, why does it always feel so daunting at the start?

In this blog post we’ll help demystify the initial squad selection process by running through the common questions FPL managers ask before the season begins. It’s rather long, so if you’re short on time, feel free to skip to the bullet-point summary at the end.

What are player prices like?

The big news in 2019/20 is that players are expensive. Clearly those at FPL HQ have learned from last season when the likes of Doherty and Alexander-Arnold were underpriced and ended up in everyone’s teams – and decided to go wayyyyy in the other direction. Among the dizzying price rises are the aforementioned Doherty (6.0 this season from 4.5 last season); Wan-Bissaka (5.5 from 4.0), Mané (11.5 from 9.5), Jimenez (7.5 from 5.5) and Wilson (8.0 from 6.0).

[Spare a thought for Alexis Sanchez who, amid all this, has tumbled in price to 7.0… sympathy pick? Nah.]

Notably, it’s exceedingly hard to find basement-price players this year. Nearly every goalie or defender from a decent team has been saddled with a 5.0 price tag instead of the customary ‘cheapo price’ of 4.5.

Don’t get down about it, though. Everyone starts with the same 100 to spend, and the same player prices to spend it on. We’re not disadvantaged in terms of rank. Plus, with no obvious ‘essential’ players, we may see a more interesting game with greater squad variety between players.

The first thing you need to do is to select a squad of 15 that comes within budget – no matter who’s in it. Get that squad in, then look to refine from there, rather than trying to get it ‘perfect’ first time.

Want to get there quickly? The golden rule is to stick to a maximum of two ‘super premiums’, i.e. players costing over 10, i.e. Salah/Mané/Sterling/Aubameyang/Aguero/Kane (that’s all of them!)

So which premium players do I pick?

We’re not telling you. No really, it’s impossible. Ask people on Twitter if you like – you’ll find out their individual preferences, but there’s no answer as to who’s the best. We think it’s fine to follow your gut feeling here.

All the advice we can give is: Make sure whoever you pick is likely to be your captain at least a few times in the next 10-ish weeks.

You don’t need rigorous analysis to work this out. Here’s a shortcut: Apart from your gut feeling, check out the big guys’ fixtures and look for the plum ones. You’ll soon notice that Salah has an appetising fixture (NOR) in week 1, and so does Kane (AVL). So if you pick Kane, who’s getting the armband in week 2 when he travels to Man City?

Follow this train of thought, find a pair of premiums with a good captaincy rotation, and you’re off to a good start.

Any super-bargains out there?

Everyone wants to find the equivalent of last season’s Wan-Bissaka, who starts and performs well for a rock-bottom price. Find ’em and it makes a massive difference to what you can achieve with your meagre 100 budget.

Well, cold hard reality has set in this season. There’s no one at 4.0 who is expected to set the league alight.

Best we can do is Rico (BOU) who could be handed the starting slot at left-back while Charlie Daniels is out. His rival for the position appears to be Lloyd Kelly – also 4.0 – but Kelly has suffered ankle ligament damage so that surely cements Rico’s place in the team. He’s not known as a legendary defensive force, rather like Bournemouth as a whole, so don’t expect shovelfuls of points – but as a player to sit on your bench, he gets the FPL Panic seal of approval.

Other 4.0 options include another Kelly – this one playing for Palace – though he may lose out to Ward (4.5) in the battle for a starting spot. And Lundstram (SHU), who according to Blades fans is really a midfielder – so could be an out-of-position 4.0 mid if he gets a starting spot. If!

In common with previous seasons, you’ll have to spend at least 4.5 on all your mids and forwards. Bad news first – there are no forwards even at 4.5 who will start for their teams, and (for now at least) you’ll just have to settle for Greenwood (MUN) or Wickham (CPL) and their infrequent 1-pointers off the bench. If young Mason ever wrests the starting spot off Rashford, expect a pile-on of epic proportions…

The better news is that there’s a highly desirable 4.5 midfielder: Dendoncker (WOL), more-or-less nailed on to start for a team that finished 7th last season. His bargain price will be down to the defensive position he occupies on the pitch, but despite that, he does manage a few goal attempts, so in terms of chance of returning points, he’s probably punching a little above his weight.

But really, that’s about it. Slim pickings!

Oh, come on. There must be some bargains!

There are – at mid-price.

The 6-7.5 bracket is particularly fertile ground for good-value players this season.

You might remember Barkley (CHE) from last season –specifically his brief periods of promise followed by punishing sequences of blanks. Well, we’re back for more punishment. There’s actually a lot to recommend Barkley right now – playing well in pre-season for Chelsea, occupying a number-10 role and even taking penalties.
He’s not nailed to start and, well, it’s Barkley, so he has to be classed as a punt. But for a price of 6 (i.e. the same as some Aston Villa mids), do you have a lot to lose?

With Son suspended, Lucas Moura (7.5) is a good short-term way into an attacking position for a potential top-four team. But it’s anyone’s guess as to whether he will keep his starting spot from GW3 onwards. If you want security, you’ll have to go up to Eriksen at 9.

And although defenders have generally risen in price, don’t be fooled – there are a lot of bargains at the back. To take one example – Robertson scored more than 210 points last season, and is now priced at 7.0, which would buy you a mid-table 150-pointer in midfield. Yes, the joint most expensive defender in the game really is a bargain. Load up!

Zinchenko and Stones (both 5.5) might be ways into the Man City back line, with potential injuries to Mendy and Laporte. Just bear in mind that when those two come back, you may be forced into a transfer out – and Guardiola doesn’t give much away, so it’s hard to tell exactly when that will be. Still, Man City can beat anyone and keep clean sheets against anyone, so you’d be getting a week-in-week-out starter for your team, which may be worth it even considering the downside.

Getting even riskier, Walker-Peters (TOT) may edge ahead of Aurier and Foyth for a starting spot. If he does, he’s a dream at 5.0. But how much of a gamble are you willing to take?

Is anyone playing out of position?

Not quite such bleak news here, as the FPL gods have shuffled a few players around, in particular when it comes to the perpetual question of whether attacking wingers should be listed as mids or forwards.

Happily, Zaha (CPL) has returned to midfield status, and with the introduction of VAR could be winning even more pens for Milivojevic to convert. Or have VAR overturn them all for diving… We’ll see, but at 7.0 he’s a player who could return a lot of points, especially as Palace have some appealing fixtures in the first eight weeks.

Elsewhere, Perez (LEI) has moved to midfield in the player list. Plus, he’s a hugely attacking player, who scored 12 goals last season while playing for Newcastle, has now moved to a vastly superior team and still costs just 6.5. Early fixtures aren’t brilliant but there could come a time when he’s in everybody’s team.

Did we mention Newcastle? Ritchie (NEW) is listed as a defender but more like a midfielder – and he’s the only defender likely to take penalities. He is a 5.5 defender playing for Steve Bruce’s suicide squad, though, so must be classed as a punt.

As a bit more of an alternative pick, Trossard (BHA) is likely to play in a Salah-esque position, on the wing in a front three for Brighton. He’s 6.0, which is rather a lot for a player on one of the poorest teams in the league, but perhaps there’ll be a new manager bounce, and of course, attackers can score points regardless of how poor a team is overall.

And did we just mention Salah? He might be the most obvious player in the game but we can’t avoid mentioning that basically-a-striker Salah (LIV) can be selected as a mid again. Happy days.

Who’s good from the promoted teams?

Common advice is to stay away from promoted-team players at the start of the season. Their performances are too unreliable and they may end up being hopeless relegation fodder.

Then again, bargain players are hard to find this season and there are surely some players of genuine promise, at low prices, within the ranks of Villa, Norwich and Sheffield United. The problem is you’re casting into quite a large pool where realistically only a couple of players will pay off – so chances are you’ll pick the wrong one. All we can do is offer vague advice –proceed with caution…

Villa’s back line are priced at 4.5 without a single exception – perhaps it was 4pm on a Friday when the FPL decision-makers came to price them up. “Meh, they’re all crap, right?” Well, maybe. In their promotion season, Villa actually had quite a leaky defence, so they’re ostensibly not overpriced. That said, they have reworked their team significantly and anything could happen. None of their defenders are making it anywhere near the FPL Panic team, but new GK Heaton is of interest.

It’s in the more attacking positions that Villa provides the real potential – specifically midfield. Grealish, McGinn and Hourihane have been touted around, but El Ghazi at 5.5 is our pick of the litter.

Sheffield United offer another keeper worth consideration in the form of Henderson (4.5). There’s the aforementioned Lundstram in defence too. In attack, their signing of Lys Mousset (5.0) isn’t exactly a thriller, but Callum Robinson (5.5) could be playing out of position as an attacker, pending the effects of the signing of McBurnie, who at the time of writing is still to be added to the game.

As for Norwich, Pukki (6.5) is getting a lot of talk, but in all honesty we wouldn’t pick anyone. I guess it’s a case of “let’s not be having you”.

Which formation is best?

Starting with a formation before you’ve picked players is the tail wagging the dog. Much better to list out the players you really want in your squad, then see which positions are bursting with options and which are light.

As probably hinted by the recommendations above, the FPL Panic squad is currently full of defenders and midfielders and is putting out a 4-5-1. That’s not necessarily the best formation, though, and certainly not the default.

Consider flexibility – how easily you can switch it about if, say, an expensive FWD becomes a must-have and you need to free up money.
Here’s an example. If you are fielding a 5-4-1 with Wilson up front, and Kane bangs in braces for the first two games, you’ll find it impossible to get him in because you’ll need to free up at least 4.0 – maybe 7.5 if you decide to upgrade one of your cheapos. But downgrading one of your defenders will release a maximum of 3.0, so you’re looking at 4-point penalties or a wildcard. Ouch.

Technically, the most flexible formation is 4-4-2 as it has one bench spot in each position, so you have equal ability to move in any direction. But that’s not to say it’s the formation you have to pick.

All we’d really say is: Disregard the outdated idea that 3-4-3 is the ‘standard’ formation, and don’t shy away from spending money in defence. Once upon a time we might have scrimped at the back to fill our teams with big-name forwards because ‘obviously’ they were better, but not only have many managers moved away from that mode of thinking, they’re getting more points for it too.

Oh, come on. Just tell me who to pick.

Fine. Here are some players we think are worth a mention.

Man City have been woefully under-represented in this post, given that they’re The Best Team Ever™. Ederson (6.0) is nailed to start and get clean sheets, but he’ll rarely get save points or bonus, so your budget may be better spent elsewhere. De Bruyne (9.5) is hugely appealing but in FPL Panic’s books goes down as a wait-and-see.
In the realms of the truly obvious, Sterling (12.0) is our number one pick to be FPL’s top scorer this season, and Aguero is strangely overlooked at 12.0. If only we could have them all.

Digne (EVE) is in loads of teams. With money tight, we may be more likely to pick Coleman for 0.5 less. He’s hugely attacking and proven in the Premier League. Sigurdsson (8.0) is on pens and a good scorer, though priced slightly too high to be an easy fit into most GW1 teams.

Wilson (BOU) is in a lot of teams, but 8.0 for a Bournemouth forward? We just can’t do it and would honestly go for King (6.5) instead. That 1.5 can be put to a lot of use – the decision really isn’t just Wilson v King, it’s (for example) Wilson + Diop vs King + Walker. Easy!

Fraser (7.5) is the alternative, and just about affordable in a packed midfield price bracket. Felipe Anderson (WHU) is 0.5 cheaper and has some good fixtures after the very first one – probably because of that GW1 fixture, he’s not in a lot of teams, which in our opinion makes him an excellent prospect to gain a few points on the masses. And Martial (7.5) is right in that price equation too, plays for a top-six team (it’s Man Utd but still), and is a top fantasy player with an attacking outlook. He didn’t get the minutes last season, but if Solskjaer rectifies that, he’ll be on for a big total. We prefer him to Pogba and, though we likely won’t have him for GW1, really want to get him in soon.

Slightly up the price scale, Pepe (9.5) is a new arrival at Arsenal and too expensive for most to consider him right away. But Aubameyang (11.0) is going in some teams, and there’s a chance they could play in the same position (attacking winger either side of Lacazette), with Pepe getting an extra goal point and clean sheet point into the bargain. Verdict is probably wait and see.

And we’re all in on Vardy (9.0), a seemingly fixture-proof forward who’s the main man for an attacking Brendan Rodgers team.

In Summary…

What do you mean, this is a long post? If this was a recipe blog, you’d still be scrolling now. But not to worry – here’s our brief guide to assembling your Gameweek 1 team:

It’s all about money management right now, so be prepared to bring a Scrooge-like miserly approach to your squad, and squeeze out every 0.5 that you can.
Pick your two favourites from Salah, Mané, Sterling, Aubameyang, Aguero, Kane (you won’t have enough funds for any more)
Grab one mid-pricer – 6.0-8.5 – in each of midfield and attack.
Sack off most of your rotation options – an expensive bench is a luxury you probably can’t afford at this stage. We recommend a 4.0 waste-of-space keeper, a 4.0 playing defender if you can find one, and a Dendoncker.
Now that you’ve done all that scrimping, you can splurge in defence – it’s a lot harder to waste money here. Try a defensive five with prices along these lines: 7.0, 6.5, 5.5, 5.5*, 4.0. [*We’re not saying you have to go with four at the back, so feel free to downgrade this fourth def and upgrade your Dendoncker instead.]
You’ve got one starting mid/fwd, one bench mid/fwd, and your starting goalie to go. Prioritise the first one, and just use whatever’s left on the GK. If you can afford Ederson, great. But we couldn’t.

In just a week, all the pre-season angst will be dispelled and we’ll be on with the game. We’ll be back between now and then with more insight. Until then, good luck and don’t forget to have fun picking your team.

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