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…
Anyone seen Horse in the boards ?
No but he said he was quitting at the end of last season?
Ps fantastic article, right up my street!!!
Quitting forever ?
Yeah that’s the impression I got, said he’d achieved everything he wanted and was going to try his hand at other things. Hopefully he changes his mind and comes back!
Has Pancho been back on yet? Haven’t seen him so I’m guessing not!
I ain’t seen Pancho about, not yet anyways. Horse, Horse, come out of hiding wherever you are.
You are right. I remember. He said he was quitting the game, Horse. Sad, but true. There comes a time in our lives we have to grow up.
F**k that!
I’m 40 but I only started playing 2 seasons ago so I can grow up later right!?
Pfft.
Got my ‘freedom’ bus pass last year – still sit on the back seat.
Which team? No doubt this will change though.
i think you need at least 2 big team defenders. In the first team I’d be a bit concerned with how many points you’d get from midfield however you would have to downgrade aguero maybe to Jesus which you might not want to do. It’s going to be tough to which Chelsea midfielders start regularly
Thanks all decent points. Though Chelsea midfield is easier to predict than the Man City midfield
Haha very true. All very infuriating
I really can’t help yet.
Cheers Raz I’m sure it will change anyway
I like the second one, but I’d probably downgrade Coutinho and invest in a better defender. Coutinho is 1m more than Pedro isn’t he? I don’t think they’ll be miles apart in terms of points come the end of the season. I get that you are going for coverage. That’s why I don’t see the value in Liverpool – good, scoring midfielders, but they are all expensive and once you get to that price, you are in the Eriksen/Alli price bracket.
That’s my thinking about the Liverpool midfielders. They are all expensive and will be really hard to predict which one will get the points
I agree. I think they are worth avoiding for that very reason. Thats a big chunk of money to spunk on someone who gets subbed/rotated a lot. Similar situation with Man City, although at least Sterling and Silva are only 8.
If Aguero and Jesus both play, will City play a front 3 with Sane or Sterling on the other side?
Yeah I think it will be Aguero, Jesus and Sane. I’d be surprised if it’s different.
I should hope they change considering you told me I was top heavy ….LMFAO
Midfield is different though Yogus. Could be top heavy. With you I said one of the big boys needs to go as you can’t play Capoue and Loftus Cheek every week
Man United have such a weak team in FPL
Besides Lukaku, no one else has the potential to rack up points because of the way that Jose plays and he is way too expensive so I left him out
SLow Poison.. Isn’t Pogba worth considering this season?
Definitely is. Mourinho isn’t one for rotating much, so you can be sure of game time and you’d expect him to have more end product in his second season.
I was thinking pogba though miki has started pre season well
Exactly my point. I have a feeling that this would be his season and if Utd have any better result, he’ll be one of the key reasons behind it
My issue is not who he plays, its how he plays them, his attackers play as though they are limited. The liked of Martial, Mkhitaryan have much more potential than how they are currently playing
So based on the above statement I currently have no Man United players, although I am considering Herrera, he’s quite cheap and is one of the finest players in that sort of creative position
SP. Does his playtime not concern you? Also, going w/o Lukaku might be dangerous by looking at his growing selection %age. Just like Costa 2 seasons ago
Who is threatening Herreras position?
Matic if he comes in.
So Slow, you don’t want any Man United players because of how Jose plays them as far as going forward, but you are considering Herrera, who is their deepest lying midfielder?
I need to go find Horse and retire. 😉
I’m sure we’ve all been watching pre-season games, and frankly Pogba hasn’t done much for me. Rashford has lit up, but I don’t know how much game time he’ll be given. I had Pogba in the earlier version, but since then dropped him for Willian given Willian’s good pre-season form. I don’t know. And ManCity has so many midfielders, it’s impossible to gauge who’ll get minutes. Arsenal midfielders are always so expensive. Imagine Ozil still around the 9.5 valuation despite Arsenal not doing well last year. Waah!
If United bring in a specialist defensive midfielder Pogba will be worth considering as he will get further forward. He could be on pens and free kicks. Totally agree on Ozil was hoping he would be less and Willian has looked good early doors
Hello All..A bit on and off lately. Dire Straits- one of my favorite bands ever. Cheers for the article Takasaki. That’s some good tinkering with numbers there. You’ve always been good with data churning right!! Anyways. friends any good “playing” options in the 4.0m Def bracket and 4.5m MF? May be someone from the promoted ones?
It seems a lot of alternative thinking and creative accounting has gone into this article. It’s really incredible how some of the guys take this so seriously, and I thought I was crazy. Keep it coming, and thanks a lot.
Regulars league for you peeps on site at the moment ?
hey Elle. How are you mate? Just sent you an email reg the same. PLease check.
I would be up for it if I can get sent the details.
Cheers
Am I eligible for it?