FPL team guide 2021/22 – Aston Villa: Best players, stats and more

first 3 gw based on fixtures? Watkins for me. Best overall? Iheanacho if he play all games.

Watkins with Buendia and possibly Grealish supplying him.

Antonio for me if he's healthy

Watkins then Iheanacho both locked in for me so far

Watkins, Antonio, Wilson in that order. Jiminez possibly later on if he and Wolves show form.

I'm surprised so many are going for Watkins. I like the first 3 fixtures but that's it. He missed so many chances. Yes- he ended up with a very respectable 168 points but he played literally every minute of the season. Perhaps he's more clinical than last season suggested but him scuffing his chances really hurts his bonus accumulation (18 last season).

If he was on pens he'd be in for me but I'm not sold

I'd probably avoid both of them if that happened. I can't see it happening anyway to be honest.

None

Neither until Rafa shows which one is the right answer.

Rucharlison

Him any day. But it won’t happen

i still tend to think of trent as a 7.5 million price point, regardless of position, although i see your logic.

I expect some budget defenders to have solid seasons, as well as in the upper mid-price bracket (5.5-6). The issue is, without goals and assists it's impossible to return respectable scores out of defenders unless one gets lucky and can rotate budget defenders brilliantly.

Look at someone like Ruben Dias. 1 goal, 1 assist. An incredible 19 clean sheets. Only 142 points. That's less than Soucek. Without a knack for assists/goals, it's hard to get a good enough score out of a defender.

A goalscoring/bonus magnet defender may emerge but it would be a welcome downgrade while already owning TAA, imo. If Robbo and TAA didn't exist, I'd definitely be spending less on defenders and more in attack but I'll enjoy owning them for now. I don't expect VVD to play as many minutes as before so I'll keep an eye on Pool's solidity at the back.

I like the look of Shaw and Chilwell at 5.5 and 6 respectively and when/if an attacking budget defender emerges, it may be worth it to part ways with TAA/Robbo

In order to succeed at this game you have to set up a squad of undervalued players. The problem is that it's impossible to do it for the whole team. Therefore we buy undervalued players so we can afford Captain options and defenders like Trent who will absolutely haul in some games and be highly owned.

That's an expensive back 4.

I have some reservations about Cancelo. I've been following City since 2004 and watch pretty much every match, and when Cancelo plays I am always left thinking that I've got to have that guy.

Pep seemed to have back burnered him towards the end of last season and there was a lot more Zinchenko going on than I would have wanted to see. I want to give my heart to Cancelo . . . I'm just not sure right now.

guess brighton midfielders are problem and can't connect the lines

Wait till they lose all their best players. Pointless doing teams at this stage.

Simple - Brighton aren't allowed to play themselves -that would after all give their attack and defence an unfair advantage. Both Everton and Watford are allowed.

If the ticker is using the overall, attacking, and defensive strength ratings from the FPL API, that could explain it. I’ve noticed this discrepancy with quite a few teams (Arsenal is another one, but with the opposite effect… their overall home FDR is much stronger than their offensive and defensive strength ratings would indicate). Overall ratings don’t jibe with attacking and defensive ratings..
My theory is that something is wrong with their algorithm, which I think got a bit confused last season when home pitch advantage basically went to zero. I emailed FPL about this and got a non-response response. My hope is that someone figures this out when the season starts, and/or when the home pitch advantage returns with fans in seats, the algorithm will settle back in.
I could be wrong on all of this, but it’s my working hypothesis atm.

I like this team as it is boring seeing the same 20 players and there's some good deviation here. It would be interesting if Toney blanked in the first 2/3 whilst Welbeck or Rodrigo scored twice. The start of the season is a good time to throw some risks given the template changes quickly anyway most of the time. Barnes and Meslier are my favourite low owned players there.

A great looking team with few players similar to mine.

Do you think Leeds are going to improve defensively? Certainly don't think there will be many clean sheets to start, so perhaps Sanchez is better to start and you may need that 0.5 to upgrade / chase bandwagons.

I'm going to hold off on Son until we know more about Spurs. Barnes has no form right now so again, perhaps a preseason to know more. Is Mount the best use of that cash? Not sure. You could upgrade to Grealish with the 0.5 saving.

Front 3 are great.