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
The Fixture Tracker…
Morning lads, good to be back, good to see you all again, no more than 20 days to start again, although we have a long summer here, i live in Greece you see.I always consider the value for money theory but i find it difficult to choose all 15 players, or at least the start 11, so i try to pick the core of my team (5-6 players) like this. I have 2 questions
1) What do you think about fpl draft ?is anyone going to give it a shot ?
2) This is for Elle, can i join the Regulars League ?
I m already on draft team number 5….i d like to see where the counting will stop…..
@Teo, I am going to give it a shot. For one it is super easy to maintain the team, no looking after prices or preparing that hard on blanks or doubles. You make transfers but the action is limited to some degree. So once you get past the draft, it is not that time consuming. Plus I came into fpl from fantasy nfl, so I am familiar with the style.
As far as Elle goes, I couldn’t answer that, but I can make him aware of your question.
Mito , there are pros and cons to this kind of play, my first draft round starts in 4 hours, so i guess i ll have a first taste.
I allready send an e mail to elle, so i m waiting, thanks for the reply.
I have a draft today also, I kinda like that we are doing it so far out. Less info before the season starts, which means that there will be more action in waivers trying to fix mistakes.
Hey throw your team up here once you are done, curious to see what you end up with. I will be targeting forwards if possible early with some mids. Defenders a touch later and keeper will be scraps that people leave. I might not even pick a keeper until my last two picks since I am an 8 team league all starters won’t be gone, so no need for me to worry.
Yes you can Teo, just send over an e-mail. Codes sent when i have done the H2H leagues.Go down this page to ‘hot comments’ £300 Regulars League, all the info is there.
there is h2h leagues to?i can be there with same codes?
Yeah, instead of just 1 H2H league with 100 people in it. I’m forming leagues with promotion and relegation. Deadline is 31/7/17 as i have to form the leagues and send codes. The regulars classic league will stay open to entry longer. Once the season starts you can’t enter H2H anymore, thats why there is an earlier deadline.
i think that in hot comments the link attached is wrong, it opens this: https://fantasyfootball247.co.uk/promoted-teams-analysis-fpl-201718-newcastle/comment-page-2/#comment-415640
They trying to make you work for it. 😉
Teo, go to page 2, post 17. Its all there.
It’s not, it’s on page 3 now!
We changed some comment settings yesterday which now means a lot of the Hot Comments don’t work. Getting fixed tonight hopefully
no worries innit i found it, thanks
Teo, send another mail, there is one that gmail won’t let me open, could be yours. Whats your team name ?
the highlands, i ll sent another, let me know if you can open that.
Got it Teo, your in.
thanks elle, i appreciate it, so i m waiting the codes to my email ,when you are ready?
Codes sent out after the H2H deadline, 31/7/17.
Hey Teo!
On a completly unrelated topic, if you live in Athens, we should grab a beer, see a game and discuss fpl one day!
Cheers
i wish i could my friend, i m from the north, not a stark of course, hahaahah , i m from thessaloniki.
I’m toying with two similar teams at the moment and would appreciate any thoughts. I’m in two minds about getting Willian in there instead of Fabregas. Kane or no Kane is the question…points-wise, I can’t help feeling Eriksen in midfield gives better value. Not too bothered about no Arsenal or Liverpool….Arsenal seem to be in transition and Liverpool’s attacking players seem overpriced.
Here’s one option.
Here’s an alternative.
@Goat, I like the 2nd team a touch better, hate that you don’t have Kane but the midfield on the first team is just too weak for my liking. Just watch Cesc and RLC through pre-season because both are not sure starters. So if it appears they may lost their spot you can quickly jump to Carroll and William per say.
Yeah, i don’t expect RLC to play much at all, so it will depend on Carroll getting game time. Same with Fabregas and Willian. My gut feeling is that Fabregas will outscore Willian, but need to keep my eye on it.
If Cesc gets similar minutes I would expect him to outscore Willian also, he is very good fantasy asset when he starts.
I’ll probably go 3-4-3 or 4-3-3 depending on fixtures.
Hey everybody!
Been playing around with my team…
Now, I KNOW that Kante isn’t a great 4th pick midfielder…
And I KNOW that my defence is a bit light…
BUT, look at that frontline, and look at that midfield (for the most part)…
What do you think?
My biggest concern is the lack of City players as Pep’s revolution has begun. The problem is knowing who is going to start… I’d be tempted to swap Pogba for Bernardo Silva if BS is guaranteed to start…
Thoughts?
Alternatively, here is what happens when I downgrade either Lacazette or Morata for Firmino and therefore replace Coutinho to upgrade in other positions…
Of the three teams, which do you think looks best?
@Ian, you like Mitro on steroids
I prefer one of the two bottom teams, but I probably just make Bego into Myhill and pump that .5 into one of Rangel or Mariappa just to make sure I have a guaranteed starter on my bench.
Bernardo is a punt in many ways. You can wait a touch longer and see if Pep gives any indication on him, but Pep is really unpredictable so even with a load of info we are still likely to get frustrated GW1 with his team sheet. The good thing is that you have options there. You can always drop Silva to a 7.0 guy and use the money elsewhere or slightly upgrade him, by dropping Redmond to a 6.0 guy. So I like the team because you can go in a bunch of different directions if need be without damaging the core of the team.
So I just made a fast first draft. If Sanchez leaves I think Wally will be much more involved. That’s why I put him in. Haven’t really done any research yet. But this is my first quick draft.
@Raz, not sure on some of the player’s minutes. I am not sure who United plan to start in the back, so be aware of Jones or have a United fan give confirmation that it is him. Theo you already mentioned and you could be right it makes sense, but Arsenal do have other options, namely Iwobi, so be sure Wenger is not being a c*nt. RLC might not start, at least at the beginning. Rest looks fine to me.
I sort of didn’t notice Lejeune and Jones. More like forwards and midfield were the only ones I looked at so far. Furthermore Alonso/Ake could both do well. Jones to someone else and also no Castle defender. 😉
Yeah makes sense.
Hey Raz, I agree with Mito. The defense is too light. Feel like Cedrik is a much better value at 5 considering fixtures. I would not count on Jones starting too many games, especially when Rojo is back, plus Jose already confirmed that they might go for 3 at the back more often, which rules him out. Keep an eye out during preseason.
Welcome back Razman, drop us a mail, re regulars league.
I can’t see Wally being involved much. I would not be surprised if they sold him
Really? Wally unlived potential or lived unpotential?
Unpotentially lived?
Potentially unlived?
Wally, the walking dead?
Wally the dead.
He’s not young anymore. Hardly received any game time towards the end last season after giving an interview criticising Arsenal players desire. Arsenal are being linked with right sided players as well
I love how Smash just ignored all your comments Raz
Obviously, Potentially living like a dead Wally.
It’s best not to talk about the dead