What can we expect from Ivan Toney and Brentford’s midfielders in FPL?

Our series on the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) players from the newly promoted clubs concludes with this look at Brentford’s midfielders and forwards.

Bees striker Ivan Toney (£6.5m) is currently the second most popular FPL forward, with his 32% ownership not far off three times that of the rest of the Brentford squad put together.

So is the hype warranted and are there any other budget gems from Thomas Frank’s side that we’re overlooking in midfield and up top?

In this article, we will assess the west Londoners’ overall attacking prospects and then present a player-by-player rundown.

And in case you missed it, check out our guide to the Bees’ goalkeepers and defenders here.

WHAT IS BRENTFORD’S GOAL-SCORING POTENTIAL IN FPL?

Brentford were the Championship’s highest-scoring side last season, an achievement they could also boast of in their near-miss campaign of 2019/20.

There was an almost even split in terms of home and away goals scored (39:40) in 2020/21 but the absence of fans from grounds may have been a contributing factor.

In previous campaigns, Frank’s troops were more prolific on home soil (44:36 in 2019/20 and 50:23 in 2018/19).

Above: Brentford’s home/away record in 2020/21

Underlying stats-wise, Brentford were in the top three for most attacking metrics – although did attempt 99 fewer shots than champions Norwich.

Above stats taken from fbref and fotmob

There’s almost always a drop-off in attacking output when a side comes up from the English second tier to face sterner tests, as RedLightning reported in his excellent yearly community article:

While they scored 76 goals on average as Championship teams, that figure dropped to just 40 in the Premier League.

Expecting the Bees to emulate the achievements of Leeds, who plundered a remarkable 62 goals last season, is overly optimistic, given that the tally recorded by Marcelo Bielsa’s side was a decade-long high for a newly-promoted club.

PLAYER BY PLAYER

2020/21: APPS, GOALS AND ASSISTS

THE MIDFIELDERS: CENTRAL/DEFENSIVE

As one would expect, there is little to shout about from a Fantasy perspective in the engine room.

Defensive midfielder Christian Norgaard (£5.0m) has zero goals in 59 Championships appearances and was even deployed at centre-half in the closing stages of 2020/21, with Frank moving to a wing-back system in the push for promotion.

Vitaly Janelt (£5.0m), who deputised for the injured Norgaard for much of the promotion-winning campaign, did chip in with half a dozen attacking returns but is very much a ‘number six’ with limited offensive threat.

As for new signing Frank Onyeka (£5.0m), the fact that the midfield spoiler was nicknamed ‘Free-Kick Frank’ at former club FC Midtjylland – not for his ability to convert dead-ball deliveries but for his fondness of a flying challenge – tells us all we need to know from a Fantasy perspective.

Head coach Thomas Frank suggests he will play as a number eight in the Bees’ system, so will at least operate further up the pitch than Janelt or Norgaard:

[Onyeka] plays as an eight in our system, he is very good at getting from box to box and will be valuable to us when we don’t have the ball. He has come from the Danish league and was one of the best midfield players in that league, we think he has the potential to develop further.

With his pace, power and ability to win the ball I am sure Frank will be a great addition to the Brentford squad.

Unlike the trio mentioned above, Mathias Jensen (£5.0m) probably warrants the extra half a million over the bargain-bin £4.5m rung.

The Dane was Brentford’s leading chance creator last season and only eight Championship players carved out more key passes than his 67.

A set-piece specialist, well over 40% of the chances he supplied were from free-kicks and corners.

Jensen banked seven assists in all, but whatever goal threat he posed was mostly from distance: over two-thirds of his shots came from outside the box.

There’s also the uncertainty over exactly which midfield combination Frank goes for, with Janelt, Norgaard, Jensen and Onyeka potentially competing for only two spots, depending on the set-up.

Jan Zamburek and Mads Bidstrup are best forgotten about in the £4.5m pool while Shandon Baptiste, back from a lengthy injury and still unpriced by FPL despite racking up the game-time in pre-season, only adds to the depth (and thus uncertainty) in the engine room.

THE MIDFIELDERS: ATTACKING/WINGERS

Frank opted for a 4-3-3 for much of last season, with Jensen often playing to the one side of the holding midfielder, be it Janelt or Norgaard.

The other component of that three-man midfield was less nailed-on in the second half of 2020/21, thanks to Josh Da Silva‘s (£5.5m) injury.

Da Silva was a regular in the first half of the campaign and indeed was an ever-present starter in the opening 17 games, going on to make Frank’s line-up on 26 occasions before a hip injury curtailed his campaign.

Da Silva contributed five goals and four assists in his outings and his average of 1.2 shots per game was the best of Brentford’s central midfielders although like Jensen, well over 60% of his efforts came from outside the box.

Rumours also persist that he will remain on the sidelines for quite some time and indeed he hasn’t been sighted in pre-season.

Saman Ghoddos (£5.5m) and the now-departed Emiliano Marcondes were occasionally thrown into the fray, the former looking overpriced given the sizeable rotation risk status he carries: only 16 of his 40 Championship appearances were from the start.

Wingers Tarique Fosu, Sergi Canos and Bryan Mbeumo also come in at the £5.5m mark.

It’s extremely unlikely that all three will be accommodated in a 4-3-3 but it’s possible in the 3-4-1-2 that Frank rolled out towards the end of 2020/21, with Canos at wing-back, Fosu in an advanced central midfield role and Mbeumo as an ‘out of position’ striker in a front two.

Fosu was often the makeweight in the 4-3-3, with just 13 starts coming before the Championship equivalent of Gameweek 41, when the Brentford boss switched to a wing-back system.

Canos was Brentford’s chief chance-creator from open play, with Jensen and Mbeumo’s key pass numbers bolstered by set-piece duties.

His minutes-per-shot average was also even better than that of Toney, although over half of the midfielder’s efforts came from outside the opposition area and just two arrived from inside the six-yard box.

Toney and Mbeumo, by contrast, had 16 and six such close-range efforts respectively.

Canos and Mbeumo are evenly matched for shots in the box and chances created over 2020/21 as a whole but the latter has attracted more pre-season coverage in the FPL world, with his end-of-season run-outs up front alongside Toney and involvement at set plays (including direct free-kicks) two strings to his bow.

In fact, Mbeumo had a poor season overall by his standards after an eye-catching, 15-goal debut campaign; the excellent performances just off Toney in the play-offs coming off the back of some underwhelming displays, with suggestions that long-COVID may have been taking effect.

We haven’t seen much of the wing-back system in pre-season but Mbeumo did score a rocket from the right flank in the 2-2 draw at Manchester United.

THE FORWARDS: IVAN TONEY AND OTHERS

Three Brentford forwards are listed in FPL but two of them are mere footnotes.

Halil Dervisoglu (£5.5m) spent much of last season out on loan and has featured in only four Brentford games in two years, while only nine of impact substitute Marcus Forss‘s (£5.5m) 39 Championship appearances came from the start.

All the focus, of course, is on Toney.

An eye-catching total of 31 goals and 10 assists – a talismanic goal involvement figure in excess of 50% – was backed up by some promising underlying numbers.

The mid-price forward was placed third in the English second tier for goal attempts (135) and shots in the box (106) but a goal conversion rate of 23% is perhaps just as important given that it trumped those of fellow promoted strikers Patrick Bamford, Aleksandar Mitrovic and Teemu Pukki in the past three seasons.

Toney missed only 10 big chances in 2020/21; Bamford spurned over 30 of those gilt-edged opportunities in the preceding Championship season.

Toney (10) even edged out Mbeumo (nine), Jensen (nine) and Canos (eight) for big chances created last year, suggesting all-round points potential.

Nine of his goals did come from penalties, it must be said; there’ll surely be fewer of those around in the top flight next season.

Returning to RedLightning’s community piece is perhaps a good way to finish off as we adjust our expectations for the 31-goal striker as he prepares to step up in class:

14 of the 31 players who had been among the ten highest scorers of the season in the Championship in 2010-20 did manage to score 10 or more goals for the same team in the Premier League the following season.

The 31 averaged 19.7 goals in gaining promotion from the Championship, but only 8.1 in the next season’s Premier League.

15 of the 31 were new to the Premier League, averaging 9.1 goals each in their first Premier League season.

Leeds were a bit of an exception for a newly promoted club last season and, shorn of the investment that saw the Whites recruit talents like Raphinha and Rodrigo, Brentford likely won’t create as many chances for Toney as Bamford enjoyed at Elland Road.

But while there are understandable reservations about a player who hadn’t even played in the Championship until last season, a clinical talisman even in a low-scoring team – see Glenn Murray in Brighton’s 35-goal 2018/19 campaign – can still easily provide very decent value at £6.5m.