With Manchester City sitting top of our Season Ticker from Gameweeks 1 to 11, many Fantasy Premier League managers will be eyeing up at least one attacking option from Pep Guardiola’s side.
Raheem Sterling and Sergio Aguero (both £12.0m) will again be popular choices but much-anticipated price rises mean that only Mohamed Salah (£12.5m) is a more expensive FPL asset than the premium City pair in 2019/20.
Price hikes for other high-achieving players, meanwhile, have left FPL managers scrabbling around for cost-effective alternatives elsewhere.
Bernardo Silva (£8.0m) and David Silva (£7.5m) may appeal at the top-end of the mid-price bracket, with the Portugal international in particular being one of City’s more secure starters (if there is such a thing) given the high esteem in which Guardiola holds him.
Gifted as they are, the cheaper City midfielders didn’t fully convince as reliable Fantasy options last season.
Twelve FPL midfielders had better points-per-match averages than the pair (4.3), with Sterling (6.9) top for that statistic among outfield Premier League players.
The two Silvas have only scored two league goals between them in 2019.
Question marks over the game-time and futures of wingers Riyad Mahrez (£8.5m) and Leroy Sane (£9.5m) also persist.
The return to fitness of Kevin De Bruyne (£9.5m) intrigues, then, especially as the Belgian’s starting price has dropped below the £10.0m mark for the first time since his Chelsea days.
De Bruyne had an injury-ravaged 2018/19 and played less than 1,000 minutes, having had five separate spells on the sidelines.
A total of five attacking returns was a meagre haul but 21 goals and 49 assists in his previous three campaigns combined underscore what he is capable of when fit and firing.
Given that he is a full £2.5m cheaper than Sterling and Aguero, we’ll look at De Bruyne’s credentials for 2019/20 compared to the other City options around him – in particular, the two more expensive attackers.
