For the first time this season we reveal the players from our midweek Scout Squad article to earn a place in the Scout Picks.
We’ve been pouring over the options put forward by our four-man panel of Paul, Joe, Az and Peter this week and have come to some tough final decisions about who gets a place in our 11-man selection, with a budget of £83 million (using Fantasy Premier League).
Hopefully some of these names will help you pick your final team for the start of the brand new season.
Goalkeepers
Ben Foster (£4.5m) gets the nod in goal after being chosen by three of our Fantasy pundits. Paul, Az and Peter all selected the Watford man for a home match against a Brighton side which tends to struggle when away from home. No Premier League scored fewer goals on their travels than the Seagulls last season, whose ten strikes was the same as relegate West Bromwich Albion and worse than the 11 and 15 of Swansea City and Stoke City respectively. With Watford more defensively solid under Javi Gracia than they were with Marco Silva at the helm, Foster
Defenders
Liverpool left-back Andrew Robertson (£6.0m) is our headline defensive pick ahead of Gameweek 1. No team kept as many clean sheets as the Reds in the final nine weeks of last season and the addition of Alisson Becker (£5.5m) over the summer has made them a strong prospect for shutouts. Furthermore, Robertson stands a good chance of attacking returns too, against a West Ham side with lots of new faces and a poor record against Liverpool last season. The Hammers conceded eight goals against the Reds in two league matches in 2017/18 and allowed 563 shots across the whole campaign, only two teams conceded more.
With such high demand for Manchester United clean sheet cover in our Scout Squads, we’ve gone with Luke Shaw (£5.0m) here, as the cheapest requested option. David De Gea (£6.0m) was a top pick for three of our writers, but he proved too expensive for other areas of the team. Chris Smalling (£6.0m) was also mentioned but Shaw looks fairly sure to start against Leicester and stands a better chance of attacking returns.
There was also plenty of interest in the Crystal Palace defence too as they face newly-promoted Fulham on Saturday afternoon. In the last nine Gameweeks of 2017/18 the only side to get more clean sheets than Palace was Liverpool; esteemed company for Roy Hodgson’s men. Patrick van Aanholt (£5.5m) was a popular figure in the Scout Squad article, receiving two votes but we’ve had to make some financial decisions here as well. Aaron Wan-Bissaka (£4.0m), on the opposite flank to the Dutch international, is who’ve gone for as the cheapest possible Palace defender and one one of the few starting players at the £4.0m price-point.
Charlie Daniels (£4.5m) gets the nod for this week’s Scout Picks amid high interest in the Bournemouth back-line for a home match against Cardiff. Asmir Begovic (£4.5m) was selected by three of our writers, while Daniels also received a mention from Az, allowing us to make the side-step to him to cover this base. The full-back knows he has three weeks in which to impress while new signing Diego Rico (£4.5m) waits in the wings ready to try and take his starting berth away. Meanwhile, Cardiff were not renowned for their goals even in getting promoted from the Championship. In fact, only one team in the top six scored fewer than them last season, furthering the case for Bournemouth defence this week.
Midfielders
It would be very difficult for us not to pick Mohamed Salah (£13.0m) in the midfield for this one after all four of our writers pulled him out as their top option. Furthermore, the Egyptian has now reached 54 percent ownership which seriously puts the pressure on any manager choosing not to have him in their squad by the Gameweek 1 deadline.
Alexis Sanchez (£10.5m) was another highly requested pick for Gameweek 1 with him likely to start up front for United in the Friday night kick-off against Leicester. The Foxes will rock up at Old Trafford with several absences at the back including Harry Maguire (£5.5m) through late return from international duty and Jonny Evans (£5.0m) through injury. That should leave Leicester with a centre-back pairing of Wes Morgan (£4.5m) and Yohan Benalouane (£4.0m) – who could be easily exposed. Sánchez himself has an excellent record as a striker and even when playing in attacking midfield registered more touches in the box than any of his United colleagues between January and May, with only Romelu Lukaku (£11.0m) shooting more often in that area of the pitch.
Bernardo Silva (£7.5m) still gets our backing despite the bombshell dropped by Pep Guardiola claiming that Kevin De Bruyne (£10.0m) and Raheem Sterling (£11.0m) would be available for Gameweek 1. The Manchester City manager may have been surprised with how fit the pair were on their return to training but that shouldn’t take away from the glowing terms with which he spoke about Silva last week. He claimed that his team was currently built around the Portuguese international, and with good reason. No City player has more goal involvements in pre-season than him, after he found the net twice and put on a further two assists.
In the interest of saving some money again, Ryan Fraser (£5.5m) gets selected in the midfield. We believe that Josh King (£6.5m) will enjoy a Gameweek 1 goal-scoring display over newly-promoted Cardiff on Saturday, but Fraser can still offer a route into the Bournemouth attack for £1.0m less. We actually covered his potential this morning in our first Spot the Differential article, where we revealed that he created more chances than any of his team-mates last season and boasted a better goal conversion rate than King too.
Forwards
Sergio Aguero (£11.0m) was our most popular striker in the Scout Squad with three of our writers picking him as their top choice. The only one who didn’t was our very own Paul McKinnon, but he still stuck him in the second slot. The Man City man has incredible FPL pedigree, as we know, and looks to be the first-choice against Arsenal this week, with Gabriel Jesus (£10.5m) limited to just 24 minutes in the Community Shield final. In that match, Aguero showed his typically ruthless best form and scored twice, reminding us just what he’s capable of. He loves playing against Arsenal too, having scored four times in his last five meetings with the Gunners.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£11.0m) forms the second part of our high-powered front-line, which is why we’ve looked to make savings in other areas. This man was the top pick for the aforementioned Mr McKinnon, and number two for Joe and Az. While on the surface this looks a tough fixture for Arsenal, Aubameyang’s form in the second-half of last season was incredible. Between his debut in Gameweek 25 and the end of the campaign no striker scored more than his 10 goals, and nobody else in his classification assisted as many times (four) as him either. Those were the numbers of a truly incredible forward who deserves his place in this first Scout Picks side of the season.
SUBSTITUTES
Wolves shot stopper Rui Patricio (£4.5m) is worth an honourable mention in the substitutes section of this article after being selected by Joe and Peter. The Portuguese international is set to improve the Wolves’ back-line and could be in for some save points against an Everton side with the trigger-happy Richarlison (£6.5m). He could even pull in a clean sheet if the Toffees continue their pre-season goal-shy form, where they found the net just four times in six matches.
David Luiz (£5.5m) was given a mention by Joe as the cheapest way of investing in the Chelsea defence set to travel to Huddersfield. The Terriers were not a particularly attacking side in 2017/18 with no club scoring fewer goals than their 28. With no additional strikers brought to the club that looks set to continue this time around.
Diogo Jota (£6.5m) was a heavily backed man by our pundits receiving three votes, so is also worth a mention. He found the net 17 times in 43 Championship appearances last season, assisting on five occasions as well. Operating in Wolves’ front three he will benefit in FPL from his midfield classification, and is arguably the stand-out attacker from the squad assembled by Nuno at Molineux.
Aleksandar Mitrovic (£6.5m) completes our list of honourable mentions having being tipped by Joe and Az. The unique aspect of the Fulham striker is that, while he is a new signing, he is already settled at Craven Cottage and showed tremendous form their last season. In just 18 starts he found the net 12 times in the Championship and his history with Newcastle means he does already have experience scoring in the Premier League too.
The Community Champion
Representing the community against the Scout Picks in Gameweek 1 is LosBlancos, who has opted for a 3-5-2 line up of Foster; Shaw, Davies, Janmaat; Costa, Salah, Mane, Jota, Richarlison; Aguero, Aubameyang.
The community member who beats our picks by the biggest margin over the campaign will win a £100 Amazon Voucher and a place in our Contributors and Moderators League for the following season.
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