With the season entering its final eight Gameweeks, each transfer is now more important than it ever was. A punt on a player with low ownership, both in the overall ranks and in individual mini-leagues, could make the difference between that top 10,000 finish in Fantasy Premier League or first prize in your cash league. Whereas the wrong decision could cost the Fantasy manager all that they have worked so hard for this season.

The season has been a strange one, with many Fantasy Premier League (FPL) players in the 4.5 – 7.0 bracket, who were ignored at the start of the season, representing outstanding value. Many of the premium priced players, highly owned at the start of the season (i.e. Yaya Toure, Robin van Persie) have failed to live up to the hype. Those that have been brave enough to take a chance on some low value players have been richly rewarded.

As well as an abundance of forwards in the under 7.0 bracket, there are some real bargains to be had in the budget midfield bracket also. In this article, I would like to present the case for four of these budget midfielders, as Fantasy managers look to free up funds to bring in Chelsea and Arsenal players ahead of their double Gameweeks.

So which players are worth considering? To me there are many suitable candidates, but I would like to talk about four outstanding candidates within this bracket. These players are the ‘forgotten one’ Marouanne Fellaini, the ‘former favourite’ Gylfi Sigurdsson, the ‘Fantasy Scout Favourite’ Saido Mané and ‘The future’ Jordan Henderson. There are others I could talk about in this article (Sorry Jason Puncheon and Stewart Downing), however I believe these four are the most worthy of our attention coming into the business end of the season.

In order to come to some form of conclusion for this article, I am going to break down four different categories and discuss the merits of each player with regard to these categories. At the end of the article, hopefully you will have a better of idea of which budget midfielder to go for, should you be looking to make the trade. It’s worth noting that I’m not going to tell you the answer… you can use the evidence to come to your own decision at the end of the article. The four categories will be (1) fixtures, (2) goal threat, (3) assist potential and (4) form. We will be looking towards the next five fixtures and the previous five fixtures the players have played in.

Fixtures

The form vs fixtures argument continues to rage around the community. Personally, I believe that without any semblance of form, fixtures mean nothing, but when we have a combination of the two, we have on our hands a player who could be the difference between a red arrow and a green one. Let’s have a look at the next five fixtures for the players we are considering.

Fellaini  – AVL, MCI, che, eve, WBA

Sigurdsson – HUL, EVE, lei, new, STO

Mané – eve, HUL, sto, TOT, sun

Henderson – ars, NEW, hul, wba, QPR

There’s a mixed bag here. For me, the strongest fixtures lie with Sigurdsson, who has five games that could all yield strong returns, including three  strong home games, combined with two away games against struggling teams.

In second place, after the tough away game at Arsenal, Henderson has an ecxception run. West Brom away may pose a challenge, but the others should be comfortable victories for the Reds.

Mané is third as Everton, Stoke and Tottenham may pose a challenge for a Southampton team which is not in the best attacking form, with only four goals in the last seven games. However, Hull and Sunderland in the next five offer real causes for optimism for the Saints frontline.

Bringing up the rear is Fellaini. With a very enticing fixture this week, Fellaini is being considered by many as an alternative to the silky skills of Juan Mata. However, despite Man U’s excellent record against clubs from the top five, explosive returns against Man City and Chelsea look unlikely. A trip to Goodison park afterwards is also a concern with Everton itching to keep their good record against Man United at Goodison intact.

Winner: Sigurdsson

Goal threat

Surprisingly, Fellaini leads the way here in terms of Fantasy Football Scout’s Members area attacking statistics, narrowly edging out Mané.  Sigurdsson is quite high up, but behind some surprising names, including Jake Rodwell of Sunderland.

Henderson is a long way down the list, with his threat is bettered by players such as Kouyate of West Ham and Mason of Tottenham. Quite an alarming statistic, although it is worth noting that Liverpool have played Manchester  United and Manchester City in the last five. With this in mind, it is not surprising that Fellaini leads the way in terms of touches in the box over the last five games, with his 32 touches is the best in the league for midfielders over this period.

Mane is in second place and features high on the list. You have to go quite far down the list to discover Sigurdsson and Henderson. With 10 and seven touches in the box over the last five weeks respectively, it is clear that these players are not touching the ball in the most dangerous area enough.

Incredibly, it is Henderson who has scored the most goals out of this quartet over these fixtures. While Fellaini, Mané and Sigurdsson have all managed one goal each, Henderson sits on three goals for this period. Despite having the fewest efforts on goal out of the four (Mané sits top of this particular statistic), his goal conversion of 35.5% is bettered by only a handful of players in the league. However, Henderson’s underlying stats should be a cause for concern for would-be suitors of the ex-Sunderland man.

It’s worth noting here that Sigurdsson has a monopoly of set pieces (and possibly penalties in his locker as well) which may boost his appeal in the weeks to come, however going by the statistics it’s a tough call between Fellaini and Mané for the winner of this category. However, the sheer amount of times Fellaini is seeing the ball in the penalty area edges it for me

Winner: Fellaini

Assist Potential

Every Fantasy manager measures their players in the amount of goals they score. As soon as we see our player has scored a goal, the feeling of joy we get is what makes this game such a great one. However, assists carry a big weight in this game as well, with players who create chances for their teammates also being held in high regard.

Henderson, Fellaini and Mané (courtesy of winning a penalty) are the only players of this quartet to earn an assist over the last five fixtures. However, when we look at the ‘chances created’ column, there is an interesting winner here. As well as his excellent underlying attacking statistics, Mané has created nine chances for teammates over the last five. This is more than double Sigurdsson and Henderson (four each). Fellaini also does well in this category, he sits on seven chances created, only narrowly losing out to Mane. When we compare this to the leading midfielder for chances created over the last five games (Silva; 26) you could be forgiven to think that this is fairly insignificant. However, to me this finding demonstrates the importance of both Fellaini and Mane to their respective teams. To be high in the tables for both goal scoring and assist making shows that these are players worth considering.

Again, it is worth noting here that the only player of these four to be regular corner takers is Sigurdsson, which could see him benefiting if any of the other Swans can get a touch on his corners. However, the fact Fellaini and Mané are creating their chances from open play shows that they are heavily involved in their sides attacking play.

Winner: Mané

Form

The final category to be discussed here is form, which encompasses both the teams form and the players FPL form.

Liverpool – W W W W L Henderson – 2, 9, 14, 8, 2 = 35

Man Utd – L W W W W Fellaini – 1, 1, 3, 13, 2 = 20

Southampton – L, L, W, D, W Mané – 1, 2, 11, 4, 3 = 21

Swansea – W W L L W Sigurdsson – 2 (going back to GW 22), 2, 7, 2, 3 = 16

Liverpool and Manchester United lead the way in the form guides and are bettered only by Arsenal, who have won each of their last 5. Incredibly, all statistics are thrown out the window when we look at cold, hard FPL points. Henderson’s tally of 35 points is an incredible return for a 6.5 midfielder.

It’s clear from reviewing these points that none of these players can be considered ‘consistent’. Fellaini and Mané have had one big score that they are living on and Sigurdsson seems completely out of the loop. Henderson however has only blanked in tough games against Man U and Southampton, so with a relatively kind schedule to follow, the likelihood of further returns is increased. If you want a player in form, playing for a team in form, look no further than Jordan Henderson

Winner: Henderson

Overall Winner

Now this is a tough one. In fact, a different player has won each of the four categories! Therefore, it is down to you to decide which of the four categories you think is the most important. If you’re a purist, who looks at a combination of form and fixtures, Henderson is your man. If you believe that a player with the best underlying stats will prevail, it has to be either Fellaini or Mané (with Fellaini perhaps edging it because of his superior attacking stats). However, Sigurdsson cannot be ignored, despite his disappointing returns and stats. He is the only player of the four to be taking free kicks and corners, and his delivery earlier in the season was excellent. If he can begin to regain some of his early season form, the fixtures he has gives him an excellent platform to excel.

Winner: For you to decide