Following my previous articles on value (parts one, two, three, four) I have taken a look at the prices for the 2020/21 season and looked at the value of players new prices based on last season’s score.
Method & Limitations
The approach I’m using is to take a base team of 11 of the cheapest possible players, then make upgrades to that team that offered the best value (points per million) until the team value was at £100m. You can read the full approach and some thoughts on its limitations in the previous article.
Additionally, this forward-looking approach presumes players score the same as last year, which you may or may not think will be true for each player. I have tried to address this for some common cases (e.g. January signings) however the skill of the game is in knowing which players will perform better and worse than history suggests.
First Run
The first run-through came out with some interesting options, with 5-2-3 formation coming out on top:
GK: Pope | £5.5m
DEF: Robertson | £7.0m
DEF: Alexander-Arnold | £7.5m
DEF: Doherty | £6.0m
DEF: van Dijk | £6.5m
DEF: Tarkowski | £5.5m
MID: Lundstram | £5.5m
MID: De Bruyne | £11.5m
FWD: Ings | £8.5m
FWD: Martial | £9.0m
FWD: Vardy | £10.0m
Clearly there are some issues here with positional changes. If Martial and Lundstram perform the same as last season they will get fewer points due to their changes. Equally, there will be others who perform better because of reclassification.
Adjust for Position
Next, I did a run-through with the scores amended for each player that has changed position to calculate what they would have got last year in that position (with a rough estimate for bonus point changes included).
This also came out with 5-2-3 as the strongest formation with:
GK: Pope | £5.5m
DEF: Robertson | £7.0m
DEF: Alexander-Arnold | £7.5m
DEF: Doherty | £6.0m
DEF: van Dijk | £6.5m
DEF: Tarkowski | £5.5m
MID: Rashford | £9.5m
MID: De Bruyne | £11.5m
FWD: Ings | £8.5m
FWD: Wood | £6.5m
FWD: Jimenez | £8.5m
Project Restart
The final adjustment was to bring into the mix those players that had only really come out in the latter half of the season. I took the players that did well after Project Restart and multiplied out their points from that period to a whole season.
Some of the key players who came into their own after the restart, and their scores if they could keep it up for a whole season were:
Fernandes: 337 points
Greenwood: 241 points (as a midfielder)
Foden: 211 points
Lloris: 198 points
Laporte: 173 points
Soucek: 148 points
This limitation here is that Project Restart only covered nine games and so fixture difficulty and whole-season sustainability would probably render some of these prices unrealistic.
This is where it gets less scientific. I adjusted a few of the scores from the ‘project restart’ section to be more conservatively realistic.
Fernandes could continue his hot streak, but even if he drops off a bit, I’d still expect him to hit 200 points this season. Greenwood and Foden I would both expect around the 175-180 mark if they continue to get decent minutes, and Lloris I have downgraded to around his consistent total for the past few seasons (we could expect this to go up under Mourinho, but with Pope at the same price it doesn’t make any difference to the team structure).
Fernandes: 200 points
Greenwood: 180 points (as a midfielder)
Foden: 175 points
Lloris: 145 points
Laporte: 173 points
Soucek: 148 points
Laporte totalled 177 points the season before last, so that seems reasonable. Whether Soucek can keep up his form and get near 150 remains to be seen, but usually there is a £5-6m midfielder that gets in that range, so I will leave him at that.
With those changes, and we get another five at the back with 5-3-2:
GK: Pope | £5.5m
DEF: Robertson | £7.0m
DEF: Alexander-Arnold | £7.5m
DEF: Doherty | £6.0m
DEF: van Dijk | £6.5m
DEF: Laporte | £6.0m
MID: Foden | £6.5m
MID: De Bruyne | £11.5m
MID: Greenwood | £7.5m
FWD: Ings | £8.5m
FWD: Vardy | £10.0m
Five at the Back?
As you will see from my previous article, five at the back seems to look good going into the season due to the fact that we aren’t calculating for the £5-6m attacker that hits the 170-180 mark, and the £8-10m attacker that hits the 200 mark.
This year, however, we have Ings and Vardy, both in the £8-10m and at (or nearly at) the 200 point mark (this is interesting in itself – I don’t think we’ve had a player hitting 200 points one season and being priced under £10m in recent history).
What I thought would be interesting was to add in £5.5m midfielder at 175 points to simulate the usual, but as yet unknown, budget overperformer.
This returns a 4-3-3 as the optimal formation, with 3-4-3 just one point off:
GK: Pope | £5.5m
DEF: Robertson | £7.0m
DEF: Alexander-Arnold | £7.5m
DEF: van Dijk | £6.5m
DEF: Laporte | £6.0m
MID: Foden | £6.5m
MID: De Bruyne | £11.5m
MID: Unknown | £5.5m
FWD: Jimenez | £8.5m
FWD: Ings | £8.5m
FWD: Vardy | £10.0m
Or
GK: Pope | £5.5m
DEF: Alexander-Arnold | £7.5m
DEF: van Dijk | £6.5m
DEF: Laporte | £6.0m
MID: Greenwood | £7.5m
MID: Foden | £6.5m
MID: De Bruyne | £11.5m
MID: Unknown | £5.5m
FWD: Jimenez | £8.5m
FWD: Ings | £8.5m
FWD: Vardy | £10.0m
Rotating 4.5m Defenders
My last article on rotating pairs of £4.5m defenders shows that, if you can find a good pair that rotate avoiding Man City/Liverpool and, ideally, the top 8 teams, then you can displace some of the premiums for value.
So, out of interest, I have added in a rotating pair of £4.5ms to the equation with a (conservative) projected score of 170. That returned a 4-4-2 with:
GK: Pope | £5.5m
DEF: Alexander-Arnold | £7.5m
DEF: van Dijk | £6.5m
DEF: Laporte | £6.0m
DEF: Rotating £4.5ms | £5.0m
MID: Salah | £12.0m
MID: Foden | £6.5m
MID: De Bruyne | £11.5m
MID: Unknown | £5.5m
FWD: Jimenez | £8.5m
FWD: Ings | £8.5m
Players
Forwards
What stands out to me this year, is the change in pricing for forwards. With the issues in the past 3-4 seasons with premium forwards not providing good value, the change to have none priced over £10.5m looks like a good one to mix things up a bit. That shows with three up top looking good value, even without cheap over-performers to free up budget.
Jimenez (£8.5m) has shown consistency for two seasons now and £8.5m for a player that is highly likely to finish with 180-200 points is a no-brainer for me. It remains to be seen if Ings (£8.5m) can repeat is tally from last year, but we have seen flashes of that form in previous seasons, just interrupted by injury. Vardy (£10.0m) too could prove great value with a decent chance of another 200 pointer this season.
Budget forward don’t look very appealing for value. Wood (£6.5m) or Antonio (£6.5m) are perhaps the most likely source of value, possibly a promoted striker might emerge, but at the start, I wouldn’t be confident in cheap strikers providing value.
Midfielders
Lots of the early talk has been about saving funds up front and in defence to make room for lots of premium mids, but I’m sceptical of the value of the £12.0m players when we have so many options slightly cheaper that could provide better value.
De Bruyne (£11.5m) looks the standout premium for value if he can hit at least 225 points this year. Fernandes (£10.5m) is an interesting one – if he can match 60% of his PPG from project restart then he will hit 200 points, and at £1.5m less than Salah/Mane/Aubameyang, he could also end up as a must-own. There is always the chance that Salah (£12.0m) returns to a 260-300 kind of score, which would make him a value pick even at £12m, so I would plan for a way to bring him in if you’re not starting with him.
At the mid-priced range in midfield, Greenwood (£7.5m) could be absolutely essential if he retains first choice this season. Rashford (£9.5m) is also worth considering, if he replicates his form last year and hits 200 points he looks good value. I will also be keeping tabs on the likes of Mahrez (£8.5m), Pulisic (£8.5m), Ziyech (£8.0m) and Grealish (£7.0m) to see if they look like kicking on towards to 200 mark.
At the budget end there is likely to be a £5-6m option that comes in at 180 points for the season again. Possibly one of the Leeds creative midfielders could fit this mould if they get a more clinical striker or maybe one of the West Ham midfielders like Soucek (£5.0m) and Yarmolenko (£6.0m). Stretching the bracket up to £6.5m brings in a lot more options who could be interesting (Perez, Foden, Anderson, Traore, Jota).
Defenders
Once again, premium defenders look really good value for money, though I will try a rotating pair of £4.5m this year after my research in my previous article. I don’t think there is enough value or predictability to rotate two spots with 4.5m pairs.
Vinagre (£4.5m) could be an interesting one until Jonny returns, if he can add a few attacking returns to a decent clean sheet potential then he could end up matching some of the premium options without rotation.
Alexander-Arnold (£7.5m) is surely the first name on the team sheet, and I think van Dijk (£6.5m) will be worth it over Robertson (£7.0m) unless Robertson’s assist start picking up to 2018/19 levels again. Laporte (£6.0m) could offer great value, but with the deployment of Ake (£5.5m) in that defence still up in the air, he may be a wait-and-see. Doherty (£6.0m) is probably a good bet, with a couple of extra clean sheets with Boly fit all season maybe pushing him to nearer 175 points.
Conclusion
My instinct is that, despite the wealth on premium midfield options, this will be the year of spreading the budget widely to as many mid-priced options as possible. I think the £7.5m – 10m range this year will offer outstanding value and stocking up on these rather than cramming in 12m options could be the way to go.
The blanks for Man Utd and Man City make things tricky to start the season and this may push me towards Salah and Aubameyang to start with. I will, however, be planning to move these towards the likes of De Bruyne and Fernandes early on and upgrade and cheap attacker to a mid-priced one.
Once the Manchester blanks are over, I can see a huge amount of value in those club’s midfielders. Deploying Fernandes, Rashford, Greenwood, De Bruyne and Foden as a midfield five could be tasty, particularly for an early double gameweek
3 years, 8 months agoCheers Hedge, excellent as always.
I know defenders will always come out well on these value comparisons, and it's always predictable which defenders will finish top, but why do big at the back teams never do well?
Is it because the 1.5/2 odd mil upgrade moving a 4.5m defender to a 6/6.5m defender is better spent upgrading a 5.5 to a 7/7.5? That's always been what I've assumed, but this suggests that isn't the case.