The long-awaited relaunch of Fantasy Premier League (FPL) for 2022/23 looks to be drawing ever closer as the first batch of player prices were released on Friday.
Arsenal were first off the rank, with Manchester City, Brentford, Brighton and Hove Albion and Leeds United following in their wake.
KEY TALKING POINTS
- MAN CITY: Haaland at £11.5m; De Bruyne the most expensive City asset; Cancelo rises to £7.0m
- ARSENAL: Saka up to £8.0m; Ramsdale now at £5.0m; White still £4.5m
- BRENTFORD: Raya appeals at £4.5m; Toney up to £7.0m; Mbeumo now a forward
- BRIGHTON: Cucurella at £5.0m ahead of possible City move; Undav priced at £5.5m
- LEEDS: Bamford £7.5m; Kristensen enters at £5.0m
MANCHESTER CITY
Erling Haaland has entered FPL at probably the lowest price we could have expected, being listed as an £11.5m forward after his move to Manchester City from Borussia Dortmund.
That’s the same price that was handed to Romelu Lukaku upon his transfer to Chelsea last summer and a full million short of what Cristiano Ronaldo was initially listed as after his move to Manchester United.
He’s not even the most expensive City asset, with Kevin De Bruyne (£12.0m) remaining unchanged after a barnstorming end to 2021/22 in which he delivered 21 attacking returns in 20 appearances.
There was no doubt that Joao Cancelo (£7.0m) was going to be handed a price rise after a 201-point campaign in which he started out at a now-unthinkable £6.0m. He actually finished last season at £7.2m after experiencing the highest start-to-finish climb of any FPL defender in the game.
There were eight other City players priced up by FPL Towers on Friday.
Bar De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling (£10.0m), who may be on his way out of the club if rumours are to be believed, there are no City midfielders who will cost you more than £8.0m.
The starting prices of Phil Foden (£8.0m), Ilkay Gundogan (£7.5m) and Bernardo Silva (£7.0m) haven’t changed, while Jack Grealish (£7.0m) and Riyad Mahrez (£8.0m) have actually dropped one million pounds from last summer.
At the back, Kyle Walker comes in at an eye-catching £5.0m, although the possible arrival of Marc Cucurella and the England international’s advancing years are obvious downsides with the 32-year-old right-back, who made only 20 league starts in 2021/22.
We don’t yet have a price for Aymeric Laporte but Ruben Dias is listed at £6.0m and is a non-mover from last season.
READ MORE: Manchester City player and team stats
ARSENAL
There’s an expected rise for Bukayo Saka after his stellar 2021/22 campaign, with the winger’s starting price climbing from £6.5m to £8.0m.
Fellow attackers Eddie Nketiah (£7.0m), Emile Smith Rowe (£6.0m), Gabriel Martinelli (£6.0m) and Martin Odegaard (£6.5m) have also unsurprisingly risen in price.
Aaron Ramsdale is no longer the £4.5m bargain he was last August, although has only been handed a modest increase to £5.0m.
There are some Arsenal assets who have escaped a price rise despite their value-for-money performances in the season just gone.
The stand-out name is Ben White, who holds steady at £4.5m despite a very decent campaign in which he banked 13 clean sheets.
Fellow defenders Gabriel Magalhaes (£5.0m), Kieran Tierney (£5.0m) and Takehiro Tomiyasu (£4.5m) are also frozen in price.
New signing Fabio Vieira – supplier of 20 attacking returns in 27 league appearances for Porto in 2021/22 – has been given a starting price of £6.0m on his FPL debut, meanwhile.
The signing of Gabriel Jesus from Manchester City has yet to be officially rubber-stamped, so we await a price on the Brazilian.
READ MORE: Arsenal player and team stats
BRENTFORD
David Raya will be staking an early claim as many FPL managers’ set-and-forget goalkeeper after being priced up at £4.5m.
Raya boasted the joint-fourth-best points-per-match average (4.0) among first-choice shotstoppers last season, with his achievements perhaps going unnoticed thanks to a mid-season injury.
Brentford don’t meet one of last season’s top four until Gameweek 12, while Manchester City, Spurs and Liverpool aren’t concerns until November onwards.
Ivan Toney is marginally up to £7.0m after finishing fifth for points among FPL forwards in 2021/22. A penalty-taking striker who didn’t get substituted once last season will have his admirers, especially with the aforementioned good early fixture run.
Brentford’s price reveals also gave us our first positional changes of the summer, with Bryan Mbeumo (£6.0m) now a forward and Sergi Canos (£5.0m) becoming a defender. Both reclassifications came about thanks to Thomas Frank’s use of a 3-5-2 for much of the season (Mbeumo up front, Canos at wing-back) but the Brentford boss chiefly used a 4-3-3 for the final 12 Gameweeks, with Mbeumo employed as a right-winger.
Elsewhere, defenders Pontus Jansson, Kristoffer Ajer, Rico Henry and Ethan Pinnock join Raya in remaining at £4.5m. Jansson clocked up seven attacking returns last season, a tally only beaten by five FPL defenders – all of them more expensive attacking full/wing-backs like Cancelo.
Midfielders Vitaly Janelt, Christian Norgaard and Yoane Wissa are handed £5.5m starting prices, with Wissa an interesting proposition if Frank continues with his 4-3-3 set-up. Wissa banked six attacking returns in the final nine Gameweeks of 2021/22, with the change in shape allowing him more starting opportunities.
READ MORE: Brentford player and team stats
BRIGHTON AND HOVE ALBION
The price reveals for Brighton may not attract many headlines but there are handful of intriguing names and prices to pick out.
Marc Cucurella at £5.0m is worth monitoring if a reported move to Manchester City materialises: like Walker, he’d be £2.0m cheaper than Cancelo. Cucurella was a bonus-collecting machine in 2021/22, with only four defenders racking up more bonus points than his 21 across the campaign.
Goalkeeper Robert Sanchez remains at £4.5m while centre-half Lewis Dunk drops to the same rung, his lowest starting price since 2019/20. Dunk found the back of the net just once last season but had delivered a combined 11 attacking returns across his previous two campaigns.
While there might not be many takers in the injury-prone Danny Welbeck and the profligate Neal Maupay at £6.5m, the listing of fellow forward Deniz Undav at £5.5m is something to keep an eye on during pre-season. The German striker was the leading goalscorer in the Belgian top tier in 2021/22, hitting 25 goals in 33 appearances. Whilst there has to be a healthy does of scepticism about the standard of opposition he faced, Albion’s recruitment has been pretty good for the past few years (Mac Allister, Cucurella, Caicedo, Mwepu etc) and he’s one for the watchlist.
Pascal Gross (£5.5m), Leandro Trossard (£6.5m), Tariq Lamptey (£4.5m), Moises Caicedo (£5.0m) and Alexis Mac Allister (£5.5m) round off the Brighton player price reveals, with Trossard sadly but entirely expectedly not the subject of a positional reclassification despite his late-season stint as a free-scoring wing-back.
READ MORE: Brighton player and team stats
LEEDS UNITED
The fifth team of the day to reveal a priced-up XI were Leeds.
Any hopes that an injury-ravaged 2021/22 campaign would lead to a significant price drop for Patrick Bamford (£7.5m) were dashed as the perma-crocked striker was listed only half a million cheaper than he was 12 months ago.
There’s also disappointent for those FPL managers who were hoping the Danish Matt Doherty would come in at £4.5m: goalscoring wing-back Rasmus Kristensen makes his debut as a £5.0m defender, instead.
Fellow summer recruit, attacking midfielder Brenden Aaronson, is priced up at £5.5m, while another new arrival, defensive shield Marc Roca, is £5.0m.
Illan Meslier (£4.5m), Robin Koch (£4.5m) and Liam Cooper (£4.5m) are cheaper routes than Kristensen into a fairly ropey Leeds backline, while Daniel James (£6.0m) and Jack Harrison (£6.0m) are the same price as they were before 2021/22 got underway.
Joe Gelhardt (£5.5m) is no longer to be found at the bottom of the forwards’ bargain bin, while Rodrigo (£6.0m) has been reclassified as a midfielder and drops half a million.
Raphinha is conspicuous by his absence, with the Brazilian seemingly set for a move away from Elland Road.
READ MORE: Leeds player and team stats
1 year, 9 months agohttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/FWkm_nlXoAA_p7w?format=jpg&name=large
Whatever happened to old style goal posts like this?
Remember the one at the old Wembley stadium, the stanchions were set back so deep it took you 3 days to get the ball back when you scored!