This is another article looking at player value following my other articles here and here. The approach I take 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.
Formations
Last year my analysis showed that five at the back looks promising at the start of the season because we don’t know who the budget enablers will be yet, but that 3-5-2 and 4-5-1 tend to be better in reality. My first article also highlighted that 3-4-3 is a ‘streaky’ formation that sometimes performs well and often underperforms.
This bore out in 2019/20 with this being a good season for the 3-4-3, coming out top of the pile:
GK: Pope | 4.5m | 170
DEF: Alexander-Arnold | 7.0m | 210
DEF: Van Dijk | 6.5m | 178
DEF: Doherty | 6.0m | 167
MID: Martial | 7.5m | 200
MID: De Bruyne | 9.5m | 251
MID: Mahrez | 8.5m | 175
MID: Mane | 11.5m | 221
FWD: Ings | 6.0m | 198
FWD: Jimenez | 7.5m | 194
FWD: Vardy | 9.0m | 210
What was unusual this year is that there were enough high scoring defenders to make four at the back strong, and three good budget-to-mid forwards meaning that 4-3-3 actually came out as the second-best formation for the first time in the last four seasons.
4-4-2 and 3-5-1 were not far off. Again, five at the back was way off the pace with 5-4-1, 5-3-2 and 5-2-3 performing equally badly.
Price Points
My model predicted that only one 11m+ player would be optimal as 8-10m players came to the fore scoring 200+ points. This was the case with Vardy (9.0m | 210) and De Bruyne (9.5m | 251) but we were also blessed with the even cheaper Martial (7.5m | 200).
The model also predicted at 5-6m player earning 180+ points and this year Ings (6.0m | 198) took that crown, nearly hitting the 200 mark himself.
I think the consistency of this in recent seasons that continued into 2019/20 is worth noting. I will also add a shameless boast that my two picks from last year’s article for 8-10m players hitting 200 were Vardy and De Bruyne!
Forwards
Yet again the premium forwards struggled with Aubameyang (11.0m | 205) the only premium forward to hit 200 points, but still not strong enough to warrant a spot in the team based on value for money. If, however, Aubameyang becomes a midfielder in 2020/21 then I will be very interested in him.
2019/20 Conclusions
The price points suggested by the model seem to be a continued theme and would expect that to continue going forward. My early thoughts (pre-price releases for 2020/21) are to have one premium 11m+ slot, a couple of 8-10m slots, and two or three in the 5.0-7.5m range in the forward line.
I do, however, think that this coming year maybe has a chance to be the year that five at the back could work. Something like Alexander-Arnold, Robertson, Van Dijk, Doherty and Wan-Bissaka could all get over 180. It would, however, be a bit of a risk going that way at the start given you’d need a couple of transfers to move away to a 4-4-2 or 4-3-3.
At the time of writing, prices for the next season are not yet out, but keep your eye out for another article soon.
3 years, 8 months ago
Cheers Hedge - really enjoyed your articles at the start of the last season, so really looking forward to your next piece!