Club profiles

Might have been me who mentioned that - thanks a lot, some great info there!

Why do you reckon Cresswell will struggle? He had a bad injury didn't he? Was looking at him for draft thinking if West Ham tightened up at all he would with his attacking threat he'd be a decent pick?

I read that Winston Reid is back in training - if fit would he be ahead of Ogbonna?

Great thread.

Villa fan here:
GK: Terry
Def: Terry Terry Terry Terry
Mid: Terry Terry Terry Terry
Fwd: Terry Terry

Predicted first choice line up
Dyche nearly always plays 442 some of the early tough away games he might try a 451 but probably not.
Heaton 5.0
Lowton 4.5 Mee 4.5 Tarkowski 4.5 taylor 4.5
Arfield 5.0 Cork 4.5 Hendrick 5.5 Brady 5.5
Walters 5.5 Barnes 5.5
Players likely to start every game
Heaton, Mee, Cork and Walters
Rotation Risks
All the midfield apart from Cork. Dyche needs his widemen to put in an unbelievable amount of work and be really fit. This is why brady despite having better quality than the rest of the wingers struggled to be a regular despite being the record signing. I think Walters will start when fit the other spot could be any of barnes, vokes or gray. Gray looked to be on the way out and only has 1 yr on his contract but his big wage demands seem to have put off teams so if he ends up staying it could end up being walters and gray up top. Full back positions are also up in the air as is the player that will partner Mee. I think they will sign another CB but if they don't I think tarkowski has the edge over Long however Tarkowski has a minor injury at the minute.
Who is on Pens
Vokes, Barnes and Gray all took 2 pens each last year and even in their promotion season vokes and gray shared pen duty. I think you can put walters in the mix aswell. Gray scored a pen the other day but he was the only of those 4 on the pitch at the time.
FPL players to avoid
I think prior to the season starting it will be fairly clear the team dyche will start out with and he is a fairly predictable manager that doesn't rotate much. Id probably steer clear of all 3 strikers barnes, vokes, gray and also Brady until he proves he has the workrate to play in a dyche team
Fixtures/ outlook
Traditionally very strong at home not just last year. Its a ground/atmosphere a bit different than your traditional PL set up and a place teams don't like going to. I personally think with the players in the squad they did a remarkable job staying up last year and it will probably be a bigger struggle this year. Good for Rotating defenders to play at Home and for the first 6 games they have 3 nice home fixtures WBA, PAL, HUD and 3 awful away fixtures CHE, SPU, LIV
Injuries
Tarkowski currently has a minor injury and Marney a cheap 4.5 mid is recovering from a cruciate. Arfield has been off playing international football with Canada so may be a bit behind the others
Who is in your FPL team
Their is a chance I will have Mee as a rotating defender, Walters is a possibility although not sure because of away fixtures, I may also have Cork as my cheap mid.
Ill update the expected team a couple of days before the kick off

Note: The difficulty of the CL playoff draw and first leg result will impact rotation.

Predicted 1st choice Lineup:
Mignolet (5.0)
Clyne (5.5) Matip (5.5) Lovren* (5.5) Milner (6.5)
Wijnaldum (7.0) Henderson (5.5) Coutinho (9.0)
Mane (9.5) Firmino (8.5) Salah (9.0)

* If VVD (or another quality CB) is signed, Lovren will be the one to drop out.

Players likely to start every game:
Mignolet – Klopp says the keeper position is an open competition, but Migs will win it.
At the back, Matip and Milner (and new CB) will start – at least for the first 10 games or so. Robertson my challenge Milners place after that.
Coutinho and Firmino are the attacking players most likely to start games. Mane can be added to this in time, but he is still coming back from injury. Salah too, unless he morphs into Memphis Depay!

Rotation Risks
Clyne will be under pressure from TAA (Trent Alexander-Arnold) (4.5) this season. His attacking output is poor and TAA is nearly ready for the step up.
Lovren will drop to the bench once a CB is signed. Klaven and Gomez will be for emergencies only.
The entire attacking 6 could be rotated with Lallana (in particular), Can and Sturridge viable options to start. I’d put Henderson and Wijnaldum as the most likely to be rotated, but everyone will sit out games.
Firmino, who is vital to Klopps style of play, and Coutinho are the safest bets.

Who’s on pens
Milner is the clear No 1 taker, followed by Henderson. After that, its unclear who would be next up.

Players for the watchlist
TAA – Clyne is carrying an injury so isn’t a cert to start the season. If he doesn’t TAA will probably replace him. Klopp said today that he is offensively ready, but not defensively. Once he improves that side of his game I think he replaces Clyne full time.
Salah – looked great in pre-season. Will be in a lot of teams, but I’ll hold off to see how he does. If he hits the ground running, buy…quickly!
Coutinho – a lot will be put off if they see him play deeper, but he is an assist machine from centre mid. He is more dangerous than when he is wide.
IF we sign him, Van Dijk. At 5.5 he would tighten up the defence, offer an aerial threat, and has a pass that cold release the speedsters Mane and Salah.

FPL players to avoid
Clyne – very limited attacking threat and will face genuine competition for his place.
Lovren – mixes mistakes and random injuries in equal measure. Will be dropped as soon as a new CB is bought.
Sturridge – yes he will score (nearly) every time he starts, but no one knows when that will be. Don’t do it to yourselves!
Wijnaldum – he hasn’t scored away in 2 seasons and could be rotated with the more attack minded Lallana for ‘easier’ games.

Fixtures/outlook etc
The first 10 are a mixed bag with games against Arsenal, Spurs and the two Manchester teams. Liverpool did have a great record against them last year so there is grounds for optimism – the game that worries me most is GW2. We have lost at home to Palace 3 seasons in a row! We will score goals so attacking ‘cover’ is probably needed, the question is..who to pick??

Injuries
Clyne is a doubt to start the season. Milner is expected back next week, but worth monitoring. Origi missed out today with a tight hamstring.

Who's in your FPL team on GW1
Probably Coutinho. Most guaranteed a start, very dangerous if he starts in centre mid, on frees and corners.
Possibly Milner if I go 4 at the back.

Excellent thread.

May I contribute to it with some insights on the arrivals from Ligue 1. Not that many this year but some big ones. I'll list them from their clubs alphabetic order.



Lacazette (Ars, F, £10.5m) from Lyon
He's a very good player and a talented striker. 91 league goals in his last 4 seasons with Lyon (for something like 15 assists). He's been constantly progressing on and off the pitch in these last 4 seasons.
But. Very very limited European experience. He never played CL (and won't this year ). Almost no international experience too. Also, he was Lyon main forward focus for all these years. Didn't have any competition to challenge him.
So his capacity to adapt to a better league, a tougher competition (in his own team and in the league) and higher expectations (to start with, just the big enough price his transaction costed to Arsenal) are unknown.

At £10.5m I find him a little overpriced.

We also don't know yet how Wenger will play him. He started the CS. Will he be paired with Giroud?

I won't have him in my GW1 team. But I'll monitor him.



T. Bakayoko (Chelsea, M, £5.0m) from Monaco
He had a great season with Monaco but he shined thanks to his partner Fabinho. He's a defensive midfielder so forget about him for FPL.



B. Mathis (Everton, F, unlisted, plays with U23 team) from Metz
Anyone for a U23 FPL ?



S. Mounie (Huddersfiled, F, £6.0m) from Montpellier
"Our" little spanker . Nah more seriously, he's a young decent striker. 14 league goals with Montpellier last year and we had a sh*te season! The year before we loaned him to our neighbour Nimes (Ligue 2) and he contributed to a little less than 20 of their goals (11 g & 6 a) which was one of the main reason they saved their position in Ligue 2.

At £6.0m (he's £0.5m overpriced), he could be a decent 3rd striker if he becomes a regular starter and performs like Austin or Deeney (but he could also be Ga... Ga... Gab...baba...didi... Dini :pac:).

I won't have him in my GW1 team but will follow hs progress to assess whether he could be a decent 3rd striker option or not.



B. Mendy (Man City, D, £6.5m) from Monaco
He had a great and unexpected season with Monaco last year. When Bielsa praised him back in Marseille 3 years ago everyone thought Marcelo lost his mind. Well we shall not doubt the maestro. He continued his tremendous (and unexpected) progression up to Les Bleus. His stats aren't that great (only 5 league assists last year) but in a back to classic Guardiola Man City team this season, if he's the regular left wing he could explode to the eyes of the PL.

But, at £6.5m, with no PL and very little European & international experience, he's clearly overpriced (WTF with Ligue 1 players ?! Are we becoming the new eldorado !?! :pac:). At this price I'd rather have Walker for example.

I won't have him in my GW1 team but will monitor how Guardiola uses him.



Bernardo Silva (Man City, M, £8.0m) from Monaco
Monaco playmaker last season. He's still young (22) so should progress under Guardiola. At Monaco he was a 8 league goals a season mid to which he added 9 assists last year. If he reproduces that this year, he'll be in David Silva stats range. I shall mention though that he struggled (physically? mentally? Monaco were not initially prepared for such a season) to finish the season and he was pretty anonymous during the Confederation Cup with Portugal.

Now. City midfield is such a minefield, I won't consider him until we have a better view of how Guardiola is shaping his team up.

At £8.0m he's priced same than D. Silva & Sterling and Sane's just £0.5m dearer. So I won't have him in my GW1 team, he's a wait and see for me...


H. Saivet (New, M, unlisted) return from loan at Saint Etienne
Well I don't even know why I mention him. Technically he belongs to Newcastle though . But he wouldn't be good enough to be considered, bar as a £4.5m 5th mid bench fodder if he was to be priced that way.

ScummyMan wrote: »

TL;DR: Don't get any of these players :pac:

Excellent analysis though, I have my eye on Mounie.

And Mounie Mounie Mounie just fits the 20 character limit exactly for a team name