With a whole host of new rules to figure out, this year’s Fantasy Premier League promises to be one of the most challenging yet – and perhaps no position group is trickier to plan for than midfielders.
The new defensive contributions rules mean that defensive midfielders could become serious considerations as starting players for the first time, and the sheer volume of high-scoring, high-price players means that there will be a huge number of difficult decisions to make before the season even starts.
As 3 Added Minutes’ resident FPL expert, it’s my job to work out which players will boom and which will bust – and I’m starting that process by figuring out which budget enablers will be the best buys for your starting squad this season.
As it’s a topic I’ve discussed in a previous article already, I won’t go into too much detail about defensive contributions and their impact on midfielders, but I will say briefly that it will only affect a very small selection of players – those that register an especially large number of ball recoveries.
34 midfielders are estimated to have averaged the required 12 or more defensive contributions required to rack up an extra two points, but many of them are expensive (such as Bruno Fernandes), provide minimal attacking returns to make their inclusion worthwhile, or simply aren’t nailed to get 90 minutes every week.
For instance, Casemiro would have been piling up those defensive contribution points last season when he played, but he only started 18 league matches and scored just one goal. Defensive contributions are a nice bonus, but they aren’t enough to make a player worth selecting on their own. Goals and assists are still worth more.
Players I’m looking at under £6.5m for their defensive work include Elliot Anderson (eight total goals and assists, 16.27 average defensive contributions per 90 minutes), Moisés Caicedo (three GA, 15.43 average DC) and Carlos Baleba (four GA, 15.47 average DC), the latter of which is, at £5.0m, probably the cheapest such midfielder in the game that I’d consider signing, although he’s not completely guaranteed a regular starting berth.
West Ham’s Tomáš Souček is an interesting one. With nine goals and two assists last season he doesn’t need to increase his defensive contributions too far to average 12 or more, and those are numbers he comfortably exceeded in seasons gone by. If he slots back into a more defensive role in Graham Potter’s midfielder, I’m interested. One to keep an eye on.
At the £6.5m mark, there are two players who become intriguing options for me due to the defensive contributions rule – Rodri and Alexis Mac Allister. Rodri’s injury last year makes it reasonable to doubt how effective he’ll be, but based on past campaigns he would have been a regular contributor of DC points and if he can replicate his 2023/24 form, when he scored eight, assisted nine and totalled 159 fantasy points without the new system, then he’s a very serious consideration indeed. Rodri at his best and Manchester City at their best probably makes him a nailed-on inclusion in any squad.
Mac Allister is a little more borderline. He managed 10 goal contribution last season and 11 the year before and he should get a healthy number of those new defensive points, but at an average of 12.94 per 90 minutes he’d do well to get much above 30 points extra per season at best and that would only take him up to around 150 FPL points total.
That’s not a bad return at £6.5m by any means, but I want regular starters who have a realistic chance to get 170 points or more. Mac Allister, at his best, might scrape his way up to 170, but I don’t love the odds, especially with so many tempting Liverpool players to crowbar into my squad already.
Kaoru Mitoma among the best cheap attacking midfielders
One thing that’s making squad building tricky this season is a lack of really exciting attacking options at around the £6.5m or lower mark – very few have caught me eye so far, and these are normally the players that make a huge difference, the guys with a shot at 180 or more points who cost nearly half as much as the expensive players you expect to get there every time.
There are several players who will probably have great little runs of form which are great if you can catch them, like Mohammed Kudus or Amad Diallo, but neither inspire me to think they’re great gets for an entire season.
One player I am debating in my drafts is Brighton’s Kaoru Mitoma. His 145 points last season was a relatively modest return for such a plainly talented player, but he missed a fair amount of time. Take his average of almost exactly five points per 90 minutes, give him the equivalent of 34 full matches, and he’s at 170. Not overwhelming, but good enough for the price point, with some potential to go higher if Brighton perform well.
Harvey Barnes is another player I’m keeping an eye on should he get a transfer away from Newcastle. His goal-scoring record per game is impressive and he managed 130 points last season on just 17 starts. Apply the same logic from Mitoma to Barnes and give him 34 full games and you get to a towering 226 points.
Granted, he would likely score less frequently if he went to a weaker team, but if he stays fit and gets a promising transfer, he’s worth watching. Similarly, James McAtee carries high upside if he picks up a move to a decent team that starts him given his goal-scoring record with Manchester City and England Under-21s – if he goes to Nottingham Forest, then I’m interested at £5.5m.
As it stands, there aren’t many obvious candidates for really big value at the lower price points, so watching the way the transfer market shakes out will be key. Right now, Mitoma and Rodri are the most appealing players to me at £6.5m and have the best chance of getting well past 150 in their present situation but Anderson, Caicedo and Baleba all have a good chance to represent better value.
When in doubt, fixture difficulty is always a reasonable tiebreaker, but that matters more at higher price points – for the most part, you want the cheap players to be set-and-forgets, because there’s a greater return on investment the further up the price ladder you go. In a perfect world, you rarely want to be using your transfers on back-ups and rotational players, which makes fixtures less relevant.
Where I will use those transfers is if and when it becomes clear that particular cheaper players are going to have better seasons than the stats and my instincts make me believe they will. If I pass on Barnes or Diallo and they start strong, then I’m keen to move fast to get them in before their price rockets. Finding the right budget enablers in midfield and attack can make all the difference between a middling finish and a big score. Best of luck figuring it all out this year…
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