Value for money and points for free…

Value for money and points for free…

“Play air guitar with MTV
That ain’t workin’, that’s the way to do it,
Points for nothing & chics for free.
I want my, I want my, I want my FPL.”

No, I can’t do anything about partners for free, we ‘re talking someone who can’t score in a house of ill repute the night after winning the lottery here.
But through many Sunday mornings of a sore head from trying to work out how 3 pints and a poppadom with the lads cost me £70 I am now well equipped to advise on spending a bare minimum, even if it does severely limit your social life; but hey this is FPL not Love Island.

The way fpl bumps up the price of every player who remembered to tie his laces before going on the pitch means our wonderful polished end of season teams would now cost well over £110m.
Last season I was in Dire Straits spending weeks poring over reports of pre season versus the likes of Hicksville Galaxy and DownUnderChunder FC for who would be coming out the gates hot and who not. Yeh that’s right, I guessed, crossed my fingers, then despairingly Wildcarded in GW2.

Needing to squeeze £10m+ out of a team is not going to be easy, so knowing who was a banker & who was a late season luxury could be a vital guide.

To do this I used points per game rather than total points on the basis we transfer out players if they are injured or not getting in the team. We need players who were scoring at least 4 points per game each and to be averaging over 5ppg across the team to get a good OR. This is looking for the core of a squad, so bench fillers and rotators are not in consideration, hence I set a base of 4 points per game to consider. If they aren’t listed below, they weren’t a 4 pointer, and don’t get looked at.

To give a ‘valuation price’ for each player a base value of £5.5m for 4points per game, with an increase of £2m for each extra point per game gives a good comparison to actual cost.

What we are looking for are players whose actual price comes in lower than this valuation or at least not much over, to get as much ‘valuation’ over our £100m budget as we can.

Players priced well over the valuation need to have some compelling reason they will seriously out perform next season to be chosen otherwise we are overpaying for points on one player that will cost us heavily elsewhere..

All initial prices given are their points per game valuation in millions –

Forwards
Kane £12.5
Jesus £11
Lukaku £9.5
Aguero £8.5
Vardy £7
Firminho,Defoe,Llorente £6.5
Austin £6,
Ayew, Giroud £5.5

Taking away those overvalued by more than £1m, & showing actual price leaves only four -:
Kane £12.5,Jesus £10.5,Austin £6.5,Ayew £5.0

Kane & Jesus have high points per game and their valuations are equal or less than actual price so they are definitely the best choice here, I need to balance that cost with a cheap but still 4 pointer and so select Ayew at £5. Their total actual cost £28m. Added value in points per game +£1.0m

Midfield
Sánchez £11
Hazard £10
Eriksen, Alli £9.5
Mane £9
Coutinho, DeBruyne £8.5
Son, Ozil, Stanislas £7.5
Siggy £7
Pedro, Sterling, Lallana, Antonio £6.5
Zaha, Walcott, Phillips, Fabregas £6
Wijnaldum, Mata, Barkley £5.5

Some are heavily overpriced but there is quite a bit more value to be found here.
More of a problem is that if you take the luxury of Sanchez then its a hard squeeze to find any value with the cash left.

At actual price without £1m overprice are-:
Sanchez £12, Hazard £10.5, Eriksen, Alli, Mané £9.5, Coutinho £9, Sané £8.5, Son £8,Ayew, Fabregas £7, Stanislas, Phillips £6
With Hazard initially injured I chose to have mid/fwd value mix from top 5 teams and go
Eriksen, Mane, Fabregas, Stanislas 4.5m. Total cost £38 . value from points per game +£1.5

Defence
Alonso £9m
Cahill, Rose, Milner £7m
Azpi, Ake, Bertrand £6.5m
Valencia, Walker, Trippier, Bailly £6m
Baines, Daniels, Luiz, Aldo £5.5m

Better value here, with none overpriced. Though only one at the value 7.5+ that we really need to be hitting top OR.
Alonso at actual £7.0 is simply a must have. After that I have to select mainly on not overspending but still gaining value in points per game.
I chose Ake £5.0, Bertrand £5.5, Trippier £5.5 and a 4.0 for actual cost – £26m Added value in points per game +£5.0m

To justify this I’m classing Alonso as a MID and having 4-4-2 as my initial default base line-up.
The players in midfield below 7 (actual price) of good value are too few to choose over having Alonso + 3 good defenders.
(This likely changes some weeks in when one or two of the cheap MIDs turn out to be gold dust)

Goalkeepers
Heaton,Lloris £6m, Adrian,Butland £5.5m
Given the initial fixtures, I am plumping Hart £4.5 (actual cost) & a 4.0 for £8.5m Added value in points per game +£1.0m

My Final Team
Based upon the above information my team looks like this, so far…
Hart, (A 4.0)
Alonso, Trippier, Bertrand, Ake (A 4.0)
Mane, Eriksen, Fabregas, Stanislas (A 4.5)
Kane, Jesus (Ayew)

Team actual spend £99m, Added value in points per game +£9.5m.
This means I should be getting 5 points extra every game week than if I wasn’t using this method.
Over the season that’s about 200 points for nothing, but no chics

It’s going to be tighter than a gnats chuff, & the big call for now looks to be Kane &/or Sanchez.

Thanks for reading Value for money and points for free…. This article was written by Takasaki Tiger

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