New Fantasy Premier League Transfers 2019/20 – Wan-Bissaka, Ayoze Perez and Ndombele
It’s been a relatively quiet summer here at FF247, tempered somewhat in recent weeks by the unexpected early release of the FPL game. As the site starts to awaken from its slumber with a slew of not too dissimilar RMT’s (we can all sink or swim together yeah?) its time for us to start looking at new signings. First up we have two players you’ll be familiar with who have now moved on to pastures new, and finally a look at a shiny new player, who whilst he may not be considered as an FPL asset (just yet), his recruitment may pay dividends for his team-mates in both the real world and the FPL one. So which, if any, should be in your GW1 squad and who should we keep at arms length? Read on for my two penn’orth!
Wan-Bissaka
Manchester United
FPL price: 5.5mln
AWB (you know I love a good abbreviation) was GW1 gold last season; a £4.0m starting defender who lived up to the hype. Starting 35 of Palace’s 38 games, AWB racked up 120pts over the season. When Palace kept a clean-sheet (which they did 12 times) AWB was on the pitch, and whilst he may have lacked attacking returns (3 assists 0 goals), he was partial to a bonus point or three. Indeed, no defender priced sub £6.0m accrued as many as AWB’s 18bps over the season.
A price rise was inevitable this season of course, although given that for £5.5m you could snap up his more attack-minded teammate PVA (3 goals, 2 assists and 140pts), he seemed a little over-priced. Within days of the game’s launch, however, he was off to Man Utd, a whopping £50m changing hands.
So, does that make his £5.5m price tag any more palatable? Ordinarily, a move to a top-six side and it would be a resounding yes to that question, but there was nothing ‘top six’ about Manchester United’s defence in 2018/19. Whilst AWB picked up points in all of Palace’s 12 clean sheets, over at ‘United’ they managed just 7, with just a solitary clean-sheet in their final 11 matches of the season. Grim.
Whether or not AWB becomes a solid option in FPL once more this season, may largely be influenced by Manchester United’s recruitment plans between now and the close of the transfer window. Leicester’s Harry Maguire is next on manager Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s hit-list with a reported £80m price tag being bandied about. There is no denying that ‘Blockhead’ will represent a marked improvement on ‘United’ stalwarts Jones and Smalling but will it be enough to see an upturn in their clean-sheet prospects?
Manager Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s recent reassurance to fellow right-back Diogo Dalot that he has a bright future at Manchester United should not be ignored, however you have to presume that any team that pays £50m for a player surely intends to play them more often than not.
AWB is currently the third-highest owned defender in the game (32.3%), we’ll likely see regression on this figure come GW1, but he’ll likely still be highly owned and a favourite amongst casuals, those with a penchant for nostalgia and all those ‘United’ fans we’re always hearing about.
It seems this year is once again being touted as the year of the full-back, with many FPL managers considering four or even five at the back. However, with plenty of better options at just £0.5m more and mixed fixtures that don’t look all that promising until GW10 I’m not sure I’d recommend a ‘United’ defender… just yet.
Should AWB be part of your FPL side? Whilst there is no denying his ability, it’s the defence as a whole that needs to massively improve to make me look to ‘United’s’ defensive assets. It’s a wait and see for me.
Ayoze Perez
Leicester
FPL price: 6.5mln
Ayoze Pérez is a player I know all about, having watched him plié his trade at St James Park over the last 4 seasons. He has been at times been frustrating, occasionally brilliant and overall we’ll be a worse side for his loss. Screw you fat man.
The departure of Rafa Benítez from Newcastle at the start of July was swiftly followed just days later by compatriot Pérez as he sealed a £30m move to Leicester City. Manager Brendan Rogers was quoted as saying ‘‘I think Ayoze will be a wonderful addition to the squad. He’s quick, has a good eye for goal and he’s experienced in the Premier League too. I think he’s a player who will excite our supporters, and his style is one that I believe complements the options and quality that we already have here at the football club.” I can’t argue with any of that.
Pérez is one of the handful of players reclassified in FPL this summer. Where often players are moved to a position that is to the detriment of their FPL output, Pérez’s move from a forward to midfielder only adds to his appeal. Had Pérez been classified as a midfielder in the 2018/19 season he’d have finished on 164pts and 8th in the list of top-scoring midfielders in FPL.
Last season Pérez flourished when moved out to a wider position, he benefitted from playing off Salomon Rondon’s physical hold-up play, with Rondon assisting half of Pérez’s 12 goals. Should he operate in a similar position for the Foxes, he will have to adapt his game as Jamie Vardy is a very different player to Saloman Rondon. Before you all start whacking him in your GW1 draft, a note of caution, Pérez historically starts the season badly. Last season he scored just 2 of his 12 goals in game-weeks 1 to 19, the season before he scored just a solitary goal in the same period.
With similarly priced teammates Youri Tielemans (£6.5m) and James Maddison (£7.0) also vying for our attention, it’ll be interesting to see who the masses favour. Maddison is currently the highest owned of the three (16.1%) with Pérez not far behind (12.1%), a few more goals in pre-season could see that figure increase dramatically.
Should Pérez be a serious contender for your GW1 squad? At £6.5m Pérez was already an intriguing option in FPL. His positional reclassification, a move to a more attack-minded side and no longer relying on the support of the rag-tag group of bargain-basement picks and the occasional loan signing only adds to his appeal. If he can avoid his usual early season jitters then it’s a brown thumbs up from me!
Ndombele
Spurs
FPL price: 6.0mln
Winger Jack Clarke may have been Spurs first senior signing in over a year (they then immediately loaned him back to Leeds) but it was club-record signing Tanguy Ndombele (£53.8m rising to £62.8m with incentives) from Lyon that has captured the headlines and the imagination of the Lillywhite faithful.
Like me, you may not have heard of Ndombele prior to his move to North London, no surprise given that as recently as 2016 he was playing in the fifth tier of French football with Amiens’ reserve team. After graduating to the first team, his performances caught the eye of Lyon who took him on loan at the start of the 2017/18 season and then exercised an option to buy him (€8 million) after impressing in his debut season in the top-flight.
Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas compared Ndombele to former Chelsea midfielder Michael Essien; powerful with the technical ability to be effective in both attack and defence in the mould of a traditional box-to-box midfielder. In 2018/19 he played 34 league matches for Lyon, scoring once and picking up 7 assists, decent but hardly prolific. The consensus is that if he can improve his finishing he could make the transition from a very good to a great player.
Ndombele is expected to take on the spot formerly occupied by the now-departed Mousa Dembélé, with many saying he’s an almost like-for-like replacement. Whilst Mauricio Pochettino’s men may have made the Champions League final last season, they finished their league campaign 15pts worse off than their record 86pts recorded in the 2016/17 campaign. It was during that season that Mousa Dembélé was in imperious form, at one stage he went 6 months without being dispossessed in the Premier League. Crikey.
Whilst few will have memories of owning Dembélé in FPL that year, its no suprise that this period coincided with record FPL points tallies for his three more attack-minded teammates; Harry Kane(224pts), Dele Alli(225pts) and Christian Eriksen(218pts).
At just 22 there is every chance that Ndombele will only get better, if he can add goals to his repertoire then his £6.0m FPL price-tag will seem like a comparative bargain, it’s a wait and see on that front. However, if he can fill the Dembélé roll as is hoped, then we could see the likes of Kane, Son, Dele and Eriksen (if he stays) reap the rewards for both Spurs and our FPL teams.
Thanks for reading New Fantasy Premier League Transfers 2019/20 – Wan-Bissaka, Ayoze Perez and Ndombele. This article was written by Rosco
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Hello all,
Had another tinker and this is where I’m at; thoughts?
Hey Mitro nice looking team , people starting to do away with strong back line
Kane seems to be in a lot of people’s thoughts I haven’t had him in my team yet could be a mistake
Strong team
Looks good. Personally, I’m a Perez over Tielemans man but have absolutely nothing to base that on other than my gut.
Robertson/TAA/Digne will outscore Zaha for the same price or less…
If you look at a combined attacking stats and clean sheets (assists 3pts, clean sheets and forward goals 4pts, midfielder goals 5pts, etc, you know how it goes, anything between 3-6pts) to get a “full returns figure” for last season:
Defenders (obviously at 7m or under)
Robertson: 31
TAA: 30
VVD: 28
Laporte: 24
Digne: 22
Midfielders and forwards at 7m or under:
Zaha: 21
Jota: 17
Anderson: 15
King: 15
Milivojevic: 14
Maddison: 14
Basically saying play 4 at the back
Zed, I’m assuming zaha comes to The Arsenal
There’s still a mountain to climb for Zaha, Robertson 31 to Zaha’s 21… Liverpool will continue to be defensively awesome so I wouldn’t have the guts to bet on Zaha, but who knows
Cheers for the feedback, just realised I can get in TAA by downgrading balbuena to Kelly
I really like this. The best 3-4-3 I’ve seen I think
Cheers smash, how’s your team coming along mate?
Now with TAA – still ok?
Currently this but it’s changing all the time. I could get Vardy instead of BSilva I guess
That’s a strong team!! I’m also thinking of going with holding instead of dunk!
Hi everyone, welcome back for hopefully an amazing season for one and all.
Played around with my squad for a few weeks but first rmt please.
Pope and Heaton
Robbo, vvd, laporte, digne and awb
KdB, siggy, perez, noble and dendoncker
Kane, rashford and king
Thanks
Jamie
Hey Jamie, I think my starting point for any draft would be two premiums who will be your go-to captain picks. I think it’s crazy to go without Salah, but to go without Sterling too is too much. I would look to get one of those two players in if you’re sticking with Kane up top. The obvious place to take money from is Rashford who I don’t think warrants a place given his end of season form. I’d also decide what your formation is and finance your team accordingly. I think your bench is way too expensive, I’d be looking to spend a max of £18m, at the minute your cheapest bench will be £19.5m – too much IMO. Apart from that, I like it! 😉
Like that defense a lot but like Rosco says one of Salah and Sterling is a must, I’d preferably have both as I strongly believe both will outscore Kane this season! But that’s up to you obviously, but anyhow get two of Kane/Salah/Sterling/Aguero and with that defense you’re good to go, easy to chop and change the rest of your attack according to whoever hits form and buy whoever becomes this season’s Jimenez or Fraser…
And get cheaper bench like Rosco says! 😉
If anyone here likes the Bundesliga and wants to try their hand at the fantasy game just shout as I am in a league with a couple of twitter guys and the fantasy game is very good. Can get anyone the code if they want in.
Hey all if you still have a spot open and have a twitter account, here is a chance to jump in a league. The twitter account is run by Swirly who writes for the site and tweets the articles for the site.
Here are the details on how to join, very simple stuff.
Hi all,
I hope you’re all keeping well, long time no talk!
Here’s my first draft, if anyone has any suggestions then feel free to fire away. I’m firmly on the fence between a big defence or Kane up top. I feel that going for a cheap defensive rotation and big forwards has killed me early on in previous years, hence my back heavy side this season.
I do like it, although I’d like to have some sort of plan to sell Wilson or King for an emerging 6.5m striker as the double up wouldn’t be ideal for too long, also double Brighton defense is a bit of a no no for me
but I realize it’s only a budget of 100M 
Hi Zed, I’ve been toying with the idea of Laporte to Zinchenko and Wilson to Vardy, but Bournemouth’s first two games are too inviting! Thinking of swapping out King for whatever 6.5 is hitting form early, I’m really not fancying the budget forwards this year
Oh, and I’m banking on a Dunk transfer, if not he’s a placeholder for another 4.5
Nice touch with the grav. #hesonly goneandscoredathird
You know that will be the way it goes, if I bought a duck it would drown
Nice to see familiar names popping back up here, I gave up towards the end of last season so I stopped posting here for advice and giving advice, I did still visit though.
I am going to try and resist making so many changes this season, I have a few teams laid out (so I don’t forget) I don’t want to reveal my team yet, I have asked about GK’s though and posted my bench, as the teams are not final yet it is a bit early to nail down a team, however I did put in a team in the first hour the FPL was live
I am going to do everything I can to refrain from using my itchy trigger finger!
As I mentioned the other day I have refreshed my profile and I know that there are some here from the old FFF website.
Maybe there could be a Welcome back / Early bird thread here for members to reacquaint after the break?
Break? what break?
I missed trying to talk you out of insanely premature transfers (knowing that you’d already made them).
You will do a lot better if you hang on a few days before making a transfer – and do some forward planning.
The changes were in hast I admit but there was the money issue, I didn’t want to miss out on a move that I hoped would improve my team, if the price did rise I would have missed the hype-train
Just because it says ‘sale’ it doesn’t mean that you should definitely make a purchase. 😉
I’ve never let the money side of things worry me too much. And the hype train is just that – getting this week’s hyped players won’t allow your squad to ever settle.
Welcome back .. never give up!! We’re here for you bro!
There you go, job done, there’s your thread, not sure we need a school reunion after a 2 month break #welcomeback 😉