If you want Erling Haaland (£15.0m), Mohamed Salah (£12.5m) and other heavy hitters in your Fantasy Premier League (FPL) team, you’re going to have to find a few budget diamonds in the rough.
Having looked at £4.0m defenders, £4.5m defenders and sub-£6.0m forwards, we now turn attention to the midfield bargain bin.
We’ll cover all 55 midfielders available at £4.5m in this article.
Most of them are Fantasy footnotes, of course. The majority are back-ups or young prospects. Few are assured starters – and even among those, attacking returns will be scarce.
Regardless, we’ll assess each and every one here.
HARRY WINKS
Probably the only £4.5m midfielder who we can say with confidence will be a regular starter is Harry Winks.
It’s the reason why the ex-Spurs man is, by some margin, the most-owned £4.5m midfielder in FPL at present.
He made the Leicester City starting XI in all 45 of the Championship matches he was available for last season. While there has been a change in manager since, all pre-season signs point to Steve Cooper using Winks as heavily as his predecessor.
A midfield metronome, he made more passes than any other midfielder in the second tier. Passes don’t make points in FPL, though – and you’ll be lucky to get anything much other than appearance points in 2024/25.
Two goals and zero assists were his tangible contributions last season. Just seven shots in the box arrived in the entirety of 2023/24, with his overall shot and key pass counts identically low (30).
So, hopefully a reliable source of two or three points as an emergency sub – but not someone you’ll want to be starting regularly.
IBRAHIM SANGARE
Our next best hope from the bottom rung of the midfield price list is Ibrahim Sangare (£4.5m).
Pilloried by the Forest fanbase for his performances last season, it later transpired he had been struck down by malaria in November. A groin injury and AFCON involvement also stalled his progress.
He has returned with a vengeance this summer, looking in much better shape. Pre-season displays have been widely praised. From the line-up clues in the summer friendlies, he seems poised to start in central midfield.
There’s an incentive for Forest to want Sangare to come good: they splashed out £30m on him a year ago.
Again, like Winks, there’s limited attacking threat: just eight shots and seven chances created in 1,035 minutes of pitch-time last year. There’ll be no real tweak to his role this time.
Above: Ibrahim Sangare’s passes received heatmap in 2023/24
Given the minimal goal and assist potential, you’d have to question whether it’s worth the risk over Winks given that Forest have more midfield alternatives than Leicester.
ONES FOR THE WATCHLIST
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