For the next article in the pre-season series, I've spent hours researching all the budget players for your team, the hidden gems, the enablers that are important to afford all those really good players you want. Not the most glamorous picks but important ones.
🧤 Goalkeepers
Just two goalkeepers, and it's slim pickings, so we'll keep it brief.
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Karl Darlow is £4.0m and a great bench option for your team if Leeds don't sign a new keeper. He's the Wales #1 and he actually ended last season as the Leeds starting keeper, playing the last 7 games as Meslier dropped to the bench. He's the best we've got. As I say, don't buy him to start him, he's for your bench only.
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Kinsky is one to keep an eye on, great with his feet which Frank will like a lot. It would be surprising if he displaced Vicario realistically. In their first pre-season friendly they shared 45 minutes each.
Two names to mention at £4.5m:
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Firstly, Kelleher who has left Liverpool to join Brentford. A deserved move, he's a quality keeper as he showed whenever Alisson was unavailable for Liverpool. There's often 1 or 2 £4.5m keepers that go on to have an amazing season, keeping pace with whoever the best £5.5m keeper is, it could be him. Andrews has got a big job on his hand, previously Brentford's set piece coach and they've continued a trend of promoting within the club. 56 xGC last season ranked 14th which isn't great, though it does equate to tons of save points which is why we often see cheap keepers with fewer clean sheets keep pace with the premiums that get more cleanies but fewer saves.
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Petrovic is the other one who is also £4.5m. Obviously Liverpool away in GW1 is putting a lot of people off, though something to keep in mind with keepers is you almost never want to transfer them, it's generally a waste to spend a move in goal. So let's say that Liverpool away fixture swapped into GW6 and Leeds away was GW1, I'd bet he'd be far more popular. There is also a question mark over how they settle with Kerkez and Huijsen gone, but Petrovic is worth considering.
🧱 Defenders
I have two £4.0m defenders to bring to you that are very good picks to keep on your bench.
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Firstly, Esteve I believe it's pronounced, not Esteve. Maybe we can get Electronic Steve to catch on if he becomes a template pick. He's a young French CB who started every single game in the Championship last season. He won player of the season at Burnley as well. Completely nailed.
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The other, Bijol, huge 6'3" centre-half for Leeds. Being slept on because he's red flagged. He'll miss GW1 and that's it. It's a non-issue because you never want to start these £4.0m defenders if you can help it anyway, they're for your bench to free up funds. He was brilliant against Man Utd in pre-season the other day in a goalless draw. There's also Gudmunsson and Rodon at Leeds but potentially not completely nailed, so Bijol is the one in my opinion.
What about £4.5m defenders?
- Well another sleeper pick is Diouf. Who is he? Signed by West Ham, he scored 7 goals, 3 assists in 27 games for Slavia Prague last season. They splashed big money on him, you'd imagine he will be a regular starter down the left, and it looks like Potter wants to deploy wing-backs again. Pre-season will show a pattern. It's a big step up to the Premier League though and I still lean towards Wan-Bissaka.
I came across a great piece of analysis from ChewieFPL on defensive contributions. A green check means he did enough for the 2 bonus points, the warning sign means he was only 1 or 2 short of getting the 2 points. In a nutshell, he hit the 10+ threshold a huge 9 times, 5 of those under Potter. He also got 8+ defensive contributions 18 times, 11 under Potter. He would have gained 18 additional points. That places him on 136, just two shy of what Saliba's total would've been.
Obviously you don't want to play £4.5m defenders every week, you'll want to look for rotations. If I sort by rotation with West Ham on the app, Spurs and Villa pop up. We've got a £4.5m defender from both teams to look at next. Filter by defence specifically produces a potentially really promising fixture run with a West Ham and Villa defender paired together.
Let's keep going with the list.
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If Digne leaves Villa, which is heavily rumoured, then Maatsen is a potential gem for £4.5m. He can play left-back, left-mid, left-wing. 1 goal and 2 assists last season. Emery has this trend of easing players in first year before they cement a spot, we've seen it with the likes of Rogers, Tielemans and others. Could this be Maatsen's year? The rotation with Wan-Bissaka is fantastic as well.
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There's a really solid rotation with Spurs fixtures as well. Van De Ven is £4.5m and starts the season off home to Burnley which is an amazing opener. Really injury prone sadly, however there are several £4.5m defenders at Spurs, if Udogie or Danso lock down a spot they will be even better picks.
Just a couple more: