The best FPL forwards

The Stuff You Should Know

🤝 Spurs sign Dominic Solanke (£7.5m).

👀 Matthijs de Ligt to Man United a done deal [Romano].

🔁 Chelsea sign Pedro Neto from Wolves.

🛡 Man City beat Man United on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the Community Shield.

😍 Btw, this newsletter is supported by our premium members. If you enjoy LazyFPL and you can afford it, it’s a great time to upgrade.

Stick around for our provisional Gameweek 1 team.

Alright?

Sorry we’re late - technical issues yesterday meant we couldn’t send an email. Just like the Twilight saga, it’s a long and boring story.

It worked out though. Yesterday’s email was just this picture with zero explanation:

But in the last 24h we’ve reflected, and decided there might be a little bit more to say about forwards.

So here it is: the final instalment of our pre-season trilogy. Return of the Erling? Reply with a name idea and we’ll give the best one a shoutout in our next email.

The optimal 24/25 Gameweek 1 front line.

You know the drill by now folks - there is no optimal front line.

Your FPL team is like your baby: everybody else might think it’s a minger, but you’re probably going to think it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. Optimal is in the eye of the beholder.

Your budget and priorities might be different to ours, but here’s what our front line looks like right now:

Now then, let’s talk about why.

Do you get Haaland?

Summary for the lazy: yes.

Aside from being the most prolific goalscorer in Premier League history, the case for Erling Haaland is his viability as a captain.

That’s how you justify the £15.0m - because you’ll captain him more frequently than any other player.

If you don’t have intentions to captain Haaland most gameweeks, spend your money elsewhere.

That’s it. That’s the section.

The best mid-priced forwards.

Summary for the lazy: Isak great, Solanke could come good, Watkins and Mateta solid but might need time.

There’s a lot of decent options here. We’re going to discuss the pros and cons of the most popular picks, and float a few differentials too.

Dominic Solanke (£7.5m)

Solanke has moved to Spurs. Here’s a picture of him realising what that means for English forwards:

James Cooper goes into depth about Solanke as an FPL option in the Secret Section (if you can’t read it yet, tell a friend about lazy. Loose lips get tips).

Clearly he’s got plenty of potential at Spurs, but whenever a player moves clubs - particularly to a club as unpredictable as Spurs - we tend to encourage patience. We’ll be seeing how he gets on in his opening fixtures before we get him over a more reliable option.

Alexander Isak (£8.5m)

Fun fact: Isak is the most owned player in the game. By some margin. 55.5% of managers have decided to back him for his opening fixture at home to Southampton.

His fixtures after that are pretty nice too, and Isak was second only to Haaland for goals per 90 minutes last season (0.83).

Yup, we like Isak.

Ollie Watkins (£9.0m)

Watkins was the only forward to outscore Erling Haaland last season, and he’ll cost you £6.0m less this time around. 46% of managers have backed him, but two things work against him:

• his first two fixtures (away at West Ham, home to Arsenal) aren’t great. They do get better after that, mind you.

• he played in the Euros, which, if his fellow England teammates are anything to go by, means he might as well be dead.

Listen, he’ll probably start in Gameweek 1, but his lack of pre-season minutes is a bit of a concern. Particularly when you’re spending £9.0m.

Jean-Phileppe Mateta (£7.5m)

My brother-in-law has been prolonging the publication of this newsletter by hassling me with questions about Mateta. I’ll tell you what I told him: I don’t bloody know whether the Olympics will impact his minutes, now pass me another burger.

This pre-season has been a little bit odd so far. A lack of transparency over player’s progress in the wake of the summer’s international tournaments has meant players like Mateta carry a rather irritating touch of risk, but it’s a risk that could well pay off if he starts.

This article on Fantasy Football Scout goes into more depth about his potency (and btw, this is the tip of the iceberg of good stuff on Scout. They’ve partnered with StatsBomb this season so their stats are next-level. Use this link to sign-up if you fancy it.)

Some honourable mentions

There are some interesting differentials in this position.

Darwin Nunez, Nicolas Jackson, Cody Gakpo, Kai Havertz (who’s actually owned by nearly 15% of managers) and Ivan Toney could all give us pause for thought as the season unfolds.

And for those true hipsters - the ones who only listen to music if it’s on a mini-disc player - the likes of Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Joshua Zirkzee and Niclas Fullkrug could come good too.

Isak gets our backing. If we had to pick two, we’d look at Mateta if you need to watch the purse strings or Watkins if the budget stretches.

Remember, you can always move to Watkins after his fixtures turn.

The best budget forwards.

Summary for the lazy: Rodrigo Muniz (£6.0m) is our pick here. Joao Pedro (£5.5m) and Yoane Wissa (£6.0m) have potential if they play. Chris Wood is interesting for the opening gameweeks.

Are there any decent £4.5m forwards?

Not really, no. There very rarely are. Tom Cannon at Leicester did well in the three (yes, three) games he started last season, but missed most of the season through injury. He did get some minutes in their last friendly, and Patson Daka is injured which could give him an opening too.

There’s been some mooted conversation around Southampton’s Ross Stewart, but the fact they’ve just bought Ben Brereton Diaz has quelled any real belief of spotting the mythical beast that is a starting £4.5m forward.

What about the £5.0m lot?

Things don’t really improve much here either. A few £5.0m forwards are an injury away from possibly getting some game time (Cameron Archer, Beto, Carlos Vinicius, Ali Al-Hamadi) but if you’re paying £5.0m for a non-starter, you might as well pay £4.5m.

Yoanne Wissa (£6.0m)

We’ll start with Wissa because he’s the spiciest of these options.

Wissa hasn’t had much fanfare in pre-season, despite 10 attacking returns (8 goals, 2 assists) in his last 13 Premier League games. He’s also been scoring here and there in his summer friendlies.

The main reason for the lack of excitement is stiff competition from an in-form Kevin Schade. A smooth operator, Schade has had a good pre-season too, and some Brentford fans prefer him over Wissa.

There’s talk of Toney moving from Brentford, but Wissa isn’t necessarily a like-for-like replacement anyway. If he plays, it’ll probably be as an LW - he played there a few times alongside Toney last season.

Still, minutes usually = returns for Wissa. They start the season with Palace at home.

Joao Pedro (£5.5m)

Pedro is by far the most owned (15%) budget forward at the moment, but should we vote for him?

Maybe not. Brighton have loads of attackers, Pedro missed most of pre-season due to injury and they’ve got a new manager.

Pedro did start (and scored one) in their 4-0 win over Villareal on Saturday, but then so did Danny Welbeck. And Welbeck scored two.

So the jury is still out. Brighton start with Everton away (harder than it looks), Manchester United at home (easier than it looks, but they have strengthened in defence) and Arsenal away (about as hard as it looks).

So our advice is to give it some time. If he starts those three games and performs competently, he could be one to watch from Gameweek 3 onwards.

Rodrigo Muniz (£6.0m)

There are boxes we want ticked when we’re looking at budget forward options. These boxes include:

• likelihood of starting

• goalscoring history

• decent team around them

• underpriced

• solid fixtures

Muniz ticks all of these boxes. He could also be on penalties.

Chris Wood (£6.0m)

Wood is the best of the bunch here in terms of stats and, y’know, actual goals last season (because apparently actual goals matter too?).

Nottingham Forest have excellent opening fixtures (BOU, sou, WOL, liv, bri, FUL) and Wood scored 14 goals from an 11.71xG last season.

He has competition from Taiwo Awoniyi, who is expected to threaten his minutes this season. The question is when. Wood scored and notched two assists in Forest’s last friendly, and all signs point to a start in Gameweek 1.

Predict some results, win free stuff.

Sleeper have given us £500 per month to spend on fun stuff. Consoles, tech, novelty foot spas - that sort of thing.

They’ve also given us an additional £3k to spend on swag at the end of the season.

But unfortunately for us, we’re not allowed to keep it. We have to give it all away to you lot. Ffs.

The game is simple and free. Every week you have to predict the results of each Premier League game. Correct predictions get points, and whoever is top of the league in August wins a PS5.

There’s also a chat room where we’ll be sh*t talking anyone who finishes below us. You’ve been warned.

Pre-season update.

Football has been happening over the weekend. Here’s a quick summary of the interesting stuff:

😍 Valentin Barco, our £4.0m defender of choice, started for Brighton after speculation about an injury. Wout Faes (£4.0m) also started for Leicester.

⚽️ Dejan Kulusevski (£6.5m) scored two against Bayern.

👀 Cole Palmer finally played some pre-season minutes against Inter yesterday (45 of ‘em, to be precise).

🧐 Liverpool played two friendlies with two different squads yesterday. Trent, Salah, Jota and Diaz’s squad won 4-1 against Sevilla. The other (Robbo, Nunez, Gakpo and Elliott) drew 0-0 with Las Palmas.

❌ Phil Foden was not in the Community Shield squad for Man City and won’t have played any pre-season minutes prior to Gameweek 1.

🔫 William Saliba and Gabriel both scored in Arsenal’s 2-0 win against Lyon yesterday. Bukayo Saka started.

🤦‍♂️ Ollie Watkins not in the squad for Villa’s 2-0 defeat to Dortmund.

Our current Gameweek 1 team.

So we’ve covered goalkeepers/defenders, midfielders and attackers over the last few weeks. Let’s fuse ‘em together and see what it looks like:

This team is very subject to change. If we get news on Foden, we’d prefer him over Kevin De Bruyne. Christopher Nkunku might be benched for Barco.

But y’know, it isn’t bad, is it? LazyFPL’s founding philosophy is to prevent you from making idiotic decisions, and nothing here is particularly idiotic.

And perhaps that’s all we can ask for in Gameweek 1.

Other Stuff We Found Interesting

1. Reece James suffered an injury set back.

2. Every pre-season result, scorer and assister.

3. Fabio Carvalho (£5.0m) moves from Liverpool to Brentford.

4. Aaron Wan-Bissaka set for medical at West Ham.

5. Join our free £250 league!

On Thursday you’ll get our first pre-gameweek email of the season. There we’ll be talking captains, need-to-know news as well as revealing the Prof’s Gameweek 1 team. See you there.

Stay lazy,

The LazyFPL team.