The Premium Problem
This post brings you FPL advice from this week’s free podcasts and news articles from:
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Topics Covered
🎙️ Team reviews
💸 Premium Players
👜 Mid-Price Players
🛡️ Defenders
🥗 Potpourri of topics
👑 Captaincy
🎙️ Team reviews
Going into GW12, below are some of the brief reviews of a handful of teams.
🦚 Leeds United
For the first time since GW1, Leeds looked really bad and were outplayed. Their midfield looks like their Achilles' heel and FMLFPL folks feel that while the manager is really good, the player talent is not so much.
While they have eked out draws against City and Arsenal, they seem to be a team that will probably perform well against smaller teams but will be poor against big teams due to their attacking style. So much so, that they look like one of the teams you would like to captain against.
Having said that, you should discount Bamford at your own peril. He looks set to tick along and provide excellent value for his price.
🍬 Everton
While Everton’s early season performances showed promise, they have steadily dropped down to a familiar mid-table position.
Hamez, while being an amazing player, doesn’t seem to be a good fantasy pick. He isn’t playing as forward as you would like to see. And with other options like Grealish, Zaha, and Jota in this price bracket, you should think about moving on from Hamez if you are one of the 20% managers who still own him.
As FMLFPL folks pointed out, DCL is a-m-a-z-i-n-g. His movement and positioning in the box are superb, and he should continue getting his goals. But, and there is always a but, it’s not a bad idea if you are considering selling him. Given that he is not an explosive player, he has a relatively low ceiling of points, doesn’t get many bonus points, and Everton’s fixture run is turning for the worse.
However, if you got DCL in early and have a lot of value tied in him, then be prepared to not be able to get him back in your team.
🔴 Liverpool
With their heavy loss against Aston Villa a distant memory, Liverpool are back to playing like champions. And with good fixtures coming up, should be a team you should target.
WGTA folks think that the time is right to allow our emotional scars, left by Liverpool’s defensive lapses, to heal. Robertson has been doing well recently and if you somehow managed to not sell him so far, it’s probably worth holding on to him. However, AC folks are not completely ready to forgive ‘Pool defense yet and feel they still look a bit shaky at the back, pointing to the big defensive error against Wolves that almost led to a goal.
Mo Salah is the obvious pick that everyone is scrambling to get ahead of the Fulham game, and rightly so. For a detailed analysis on Mo, scroll down to the Captaincy section.
🦓 Newcastle United
It’s worth noting that Newcastle is back to training and it seems likely that their next game against West Brom will go ahead as scheduled.
They have fantastic 3 upcoming fixtures, with two home games against two of the worst teams in the league. Wilson has proven to be Newcastle’s talisman and capable of consistent returns.
It’s worth noting though that after those 3 amazing fixtures, it looks pretty grim for them with games against City, Liverpool, and Leicester.
✝️ Southampton
Getting Ings now is one of those out-of-ordinary picks that has made FMLFPL what they are. With everyone playing 3D chess with premiums, this is your time to get in early on Ings and hope to catch his points before everyone else.
💸 Premium Players
If your brain is exploding trying to figure out how to handle the abundance of premium players doing well, fear no more. Get ready for some advice that will either clear your confusion… or make it worse. Can’t say which one will it be.
Pros of Premium Ping Pong
While you can certainly be Ash Ketchum and try to catch ‘em all, there is a good chance that you can’t get all the premiums - KDB, Son, Bruno, Mo, Kane - without butchering your team or multiple hits.
With these premiums having some great fixtures coming up, it’s a perfectly viable strategy to transfer some of the premiums in-an-out of your team to target captains against bad teams.
WGTA also pointed out that most premiums have not risen much in price, unlike some of the budget-picks like DCL, Grealish, and Bamford. With little value tied in premiums, it makes sense to spend your transfers on premiums rather than budget players.
Cons of Premium Ping Pong
Transferring your premium players in and out goes against all the traditional FPL wisdom, accumulated over tens of grueling seasons of the past. It only works if your players stay healthy and there are no unforeseen surprises. But with the fixture pile-up coming and a raging global pandemic on our hands, unforeseen surprises are more common than you would like.
So you should target the premiums that are least likely to be rotated, and stick to them.
KDB, Son, Bruno, Mo - Who to drop?
If you can’t, or won’t, get them all, then who to drop? Most pods agreed that dropping Son, while still terrifying, gave them the least FOMO.
City - the juggernaut - seems to be back and have an amazing fixture run. KDB is the least likely City player to be dropped and is central to most of the City’s attacks.
Salah plays against Fulham and is THE player to target for next week.
Bruno seems fixture proof, and you can’t really drop a player who got an assist and two bonus points after playing only 45 minutes. Plus, ManU has really good fixtures after the City game.
So, based on the process of elimination, Son - you are the weakest link, Goodbye!
Owning highly owned players
Some managers think that getting highly owned premiums will not help their rank as much. But, as discussed by FMLFPL folks, what managers fail to realize is that owning a combo of premiums will be less common and is the differential you need to improve your rank. So get the premiums you feel good about and try to get your captains right. Don’t worry too much about ownership, especially for all these players.
👜 Mid-Price Players
With the main course of premiums, you obviously need a complementary side of budget picks.
Jota, despite not being a guaranteed starter, is a good pick for the value and points he will provide.
Grealish and Zaha are amazing picks too. Grealish should continue to be the Villa talisman, and Zaha looks really good too as he is now playing as a striker and taking a lot more shots.
If you want to look beyond the above three picks, and you ideally should not, other options are Bowen with his recent form and good fixtures, JWP getting his usual points from free kicks, Lookman being the focal points of Fulham attack, Soucek with his cheap price tag, and Neto (an outside shout) who should play centrally in absence of Jiminez.
🛡️ Defenders
WGTA discussed some defense options in response to a listener’s question.
Chelsea and Man City are currently the most reliable defense in the league, with the lowest xG across all teams. It’s interesting to note that the last time Chelsea conceded a headed chance was in GW6!!!
After Chelsea and City, Villa has the third-lowest xGC, underscoring their good defense despite the lack of clean sheets recently. In the last 4 games, they conceded 7 shots on target, which is the lowest in the league. However, of those, 6 were big chances. This high percentage of big chances is highly unlikely to continue and should increase confidence in Villa defense.
Liverpool defense also looks back on track and coping fine in Van Dijk’s absence. However, the usual suspects of Robertson and TAA seem too expensive when you need every FPL-penny you can find to get to premium mids.
🥗 Potpourri of topics
Below are a bunch of varied topics that WGTA folks discussed in response to the listeners’ questions.
Teams to target
Liverpool and City are back to winning ways and have great fixtures coming up. They should be target #1. Leeds, Villa, and Newcastle have great upcoming fixtures as well. And Burnley's defense is an outside shout too as they are bound to get back to being defensively solid, sooner or later.
Power of doing nothing
Avoid overmanaging your team and taking unnecessary hits. Once you get some green arrows, it’s an indication that you have a decent team that doesn’t need much tinkering. This website tracks traditionally elite top 1k managers, and it’s evident by the low average of hits in the past game week, that these managers are doing the same.
xG/xGC analysis
Pod listener, @fplantiques, created Ben Crellin-esque analysis sheets that use xG and XGC of each team, relative to their opponents, to determine which teams are doing well. Based on this analysis, the best attacking teams are Liverpool, Leeds, Villa, Everton, West Ham, and Spurs. Best defensive teams are Brighton, Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea, and Spurs. And worst defensive teams (to target captains against) are West Brom, Fulham, and Sheffield.
👑 Captaincy
Mo Salah. ‘Nuff said.
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