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…
A question I have is why A lot of people are choosing Ramsey in midfielder. Interested to know the reasons as he wasn’t not a massive scorer last year and £7m is not the smallest amount
Hi Beaker,
Sorry we missed this comment.
Ramsey appears set to play in the midfield and is good value for the style of game he plays. He does quite well on the touches in opposition’s penalty area normally. He’s done well so far in pre-season too and allows you to cover Arsenal whilst spending bigger money elsewhere.
Hi all,
Please RMT for draft no 58,
Hart,
Daniel, Cedric, Alonso, Kompany,
Ince, Willian, Alli, Ramsey,
Lukaku, Kane
Elliot, Gayle, Carroll, Hunemeier
no City attacking coverage LaBy?
do u have any idea where to get those city midfield.
think on Sane, but looks impposible to get it.
maybe need to downgrade my def (either alonso or Kompany)
sigh..
LaBy,
Gayle to J-Rod allows you to turn Alli into KdB. Alternatively, turn Daniels into a 4.5mln defender to get KdB.
Alli to Citeh coverage, you have Kane for Spuds coverage.
nice suggestion
you deffo need City coverage mate with those fixtures
Kompany –> Stones
Daniels –> Francis
Alli –> KDB
Ince –> Tadic?
does stones nail for 1st 11?
does ake play on francis place?
Ali –> kdb – i like it so much
Ince –? Tadic/Redmond seems good move
thanks nishant
How about Kompany to Tripper then?
Hello !
any suggetions?
Thanks all
Don’t think Lindelof will be a good option for United or for FPL. He has been terrible in preseason. Rest of the team looks alright though
Lindelof look teriible as per now. United will bank in DDG for CS i think. Btw it will be better if you all your def and GK in different team. Maybe downgrade GK to Hennesey and Elliot and u can upgrade rangel to 5-5.5 mill def
Pogba – i will pick him if United buy def midfielder, as Miki seems more interesting but risky
Mane – Awaiting on his fitness and pre season
Is it me, or does everybody seem more expensive this season..!
First draft, suggestions v.welcome – but rationale is building a team around Kane/Ali/Lukaku with West Brom and Southampton expected to do well in the first few weeks. Bench is terrible though, so thinking of downgrading KDB
cheers!
Hi Mike,
It’s the same every season, the best players from the previous always go up in value.
Your rationale makes sense although I’m not sure I expect much from West Brom. I’ve seen worse benches but keep an eye on RLC.
@Mike, Is not you mate, they are more expensive this season, but that’s cool. If JROd is playing even if they tuck him in behind Rondon I like his chances to do well, at his best he is a good fpl prospect, hopefully he is fully back this season. I would consider changing McAuley to Dawson based on the fact he is injured even if it is a mild injury he is 37 already, plus it looks like they brought in some competition which I assume is mostly for his spot, so I believe Dawson is the safer play. Rest of the team looks fine to me.
Apparently West Brom are interested in Ben Gibson
Yeah I’m not convinced G Mac will start this year
Hi all – this is an interesting article — thanks for posting. It is also interesting to look at points per minute, although the site doesn’t show that as a drop down option, you can only see when clicking in to a player. from the top 20 or so midfielders, Son appears to have comfortably the best points per min, but his points per game are a similar ration to others – basically coming on as a sub a lot. If he can get into the side regularly which I think he will (when back from injury, he could very very good value. I appreciate that points per min can be skewed a bit when it is a sub coming on and it was often that he was able to exploit tiring defences with his pace but still, he’s a converter
@Tramp, yeah no doubt that high impact subs have a good chance of having higher PPM totals, but Son looked good when starting also, so I think you are right in his case to think that he could do well for any potential owners.
Need advice. Always fun when you make your team right when Fantasy opens and you tinker daily
.
This is what I have: I want a ManCity option, but not sure how much Sane will play.
or this. I’m banking on Cresswell finding his old form and Hart helping West Ham to more clean sheets. Again, not sure how much Jesus will play. City is always tough.
Team 1 looks better but I would get rid of Kolasinac. I don’t think he will start GW1.
Cheers, I somehow feel he will have a strong year and I like Arsenal’s opening fixtures. I’ve been looking at Bellerin and Bertrand instead of him.
Bellerin is more nailed on I think.
curious, how do I like my username here to my fantasty page?
Go to the Help page and it will tell you how, best you follow that then one of us try to tell you step by step.
Help page, 5th question down…
https://fantasyfootball247.co.uk/fantasy-football-help/
thanks for the help! like this site. has me tinkering more. lol
honestly just waiting to see how Pep uses Aguero/Jesus. I think 1 of those 2 needs to be included. Lacazette has a great record outside the league, and the early fixtures favor Arsenal, but outside the Prem doesn’t always translate to Prem success….
too many options up front.