👀 Who makes your GW1 team? 🧐

The Stuff You Should Know

🤑 OfficialFPL is releasing player prices slowly but surely. They’re updating a full (and terribly organised) directory of price reveals here.

💰 At £15m, Haaland is the most expensive ever FPL player.

📈 Palmer (£10.5m) also sees the highest ever season-to-season price increase.

👀 Other players aren’t as expensive as we might’ve expected.

🤝 Ipswich sign Man City’s Liam Delap.

Stick around for a £5.5m midfielder we’re pretty excited about.

Alright?

OfficialFPL towers has started lubing up for the 24/25 season.

As has become customary, that means working with Premier League clubs to reveal the prices of a select number of players before the game’s launch.

Based on the current rate of price reveals (PR/90), everyone is expecting that to happen on Tuesday evening or Wednesday (at anytime).

Listen, we all know who you’re here for, so let’s just rip the plaster off and get it done quickly:

It’s a big day for football, but surely nothing is more important than Ipswich’s Sam Morsy being priced at a more-than-reasonable £5.0m.*

Nah - let’s talk about the biggies.

*_{just so we’re clear, if Morsy ends up being the breakout player of the 24/25 season, we’re going to be screenshotting the above and claiming we knew all along.}

Haaland £15m. But is he worth it?

Whilst the UK’s cost of living crisis continues to impact the majority of us, it appears the decision-makers at OfficialFPL haven’t noticed.

Our Norse God has become the most expensive FPL player ever. Of all the achievements in his relatively short career, this is surely the crowning moment.

£15m is steep: we’re not mathematicians, but it’s at least 15% of your entire budget.

The FPL purists are pleased that he’s been priced so high. The 23/24 season saw him score 217 points: a decent, if not exceptional, tally. This, combined with his Waitrose-esque price-tag, means he won’t be as “essential” as he has been in previous seasons.

The end result? Those who do invest might actually enjoy seeing him score goals. Let’s not forget that he scored seven of them in the last five games of the 23/24 season.

Watkins affordable at £9.0m.

Haaland wasn’t the highest scoring FPL player last season. He wasn’t even the highest scoring forward.

That honour was given to Ollie Watkins, who has been priced at £9.0m for next season. A Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference sort of price.

It’s cheap enough that he could, theoretically, be combined with Haaland up top without totally compromising the rest of your team. FPLMate put together this to illustrate the point:

Whether or not you have the appetite for something like the above is largely dependent on where you see the value next season. Midfielders tend to have higher ceilings than forwards, so spending a third of your budget on your front three is brave to say the least.

There’s also the small matter of last season’s highest scoring player. Let’s talk about him.

Cole Palmer a cool £10.5m.

Cole Palmer’s £10.5m price gives him the distinction of earning the highest season-to-season price increase ever bestowed upon a player. He’s gone from middle-of-Lidl to John Lewis in a calendar year. I bet he’s made up.

Inevitably, there are questions over whether he’ll be able to shoulder this burden. To go from budget enabler to premium midfielder is a responsibility that few players can bear.

Palmer’s nine penalty conversions last season puts him in esteemed Premier League company. The record is 11 in a single season, converted by Andrew (that’s Andrew) Johnson.

It’s highly unlikely that Chelsea will be awarded as many penalties next season, which puts more onus on his goals from open play. As a reminder, he scored 13 of those last campaign.

13 goals is still pretty decent, particularly when combined with his assist potential (he mustered 13 assists last season too). But can he sustain that output? What’s more, will Chelsea be good and reliable enough for that sort of investment?

Many tentative initial drafts don’t include the Englishman.

Salah under Slot is £12.5m.

As the Arne Slot-era begins at Liverpool, their FPL assets take on a slightly different hue.

Whilst it’s true that views are split in two over whether it’s a good hue or a “could be totally poo” hue, more than a few are of the view that the new manager’s debut could cue plenty to pursue the renewed Mohamed Salah.

In other words: £12.5m feels about right here.

How Slot uses him is yet another unknown, but we do know that Liverpool will travel to Ipswich for their 24/25 opener, which means the Egyptian is likely to find himself in more Gameweek 1 sides than he might’ve done otherwise.

It’s worth remembering that, despite what many considered an underperformance last season, Salah still managed 211 points: only six fewer than Haaland.

He has been the epitome of FPL consistency since he joined Liverpool.

Some less-obvious gems.

Two players in particular are getting a lot of attention amongst the FPL thought-leaders (puke).

Brighton’s Joao Pedro has been priced at £5.5m, and he’s currently the “shit, I’ve spent too much money on Haaland” third-striker of choice.

He managed 104 points last season despite missing a lot of game time (2,037 mins vs the theoretical maximum of 3,420) and he’s on penalties.

Christopher Nkunku, who missed virtually all of last season bar ~400 minutes, is another that has caught the eye. Less because of his non-existent 23/24 form and more because of his price (he’s just £6.5m) and his new position (he’s listed as a midfielder instead of a forward).

There are some others we think are worthy of note:

Jarrod Bowen (MID, £7.5m)

Despite dropping off towards the end of the season, Bowen’s 16 goals last campaign might well have warranted a hefty price-hike. So the fact he’s only been listed as £7.5m opens the door for owners to capitalise on West Ham under new management.

Anthony Gordon (MID, £7.5m)

The seventh-highest scoring midfielder last season, Gordon is another who could’ve been priced at £8.5m without too many complaints.

Callum Hudson-Odoi (MID, £5.5m)

Eight goals and two assists from under 2,000 minutes last season means we expected CHO to be £6.0 - £6.5m. Bags of potential and one who could balance the accounts once you’ve gone all in on Watkins, Haaland and Salah.

Marc Guehi (DEF, £4.5m)

It feels like the Palace centre-back adds an extra £10m onto his value every time he plays a game for England. Luckily that doesn’t translate to FPL. A tempting and reliable option, particularly if he moves to a bigger club.

The rise of the £7.5m forward.

The £7.5m forward category is shaping up to be particularly ripe this season, which is doubtless going to present a conundrum for managers.

See, at the moment, the “template” structure that’s emerging is:

Haaland | Watkins | Bargain-bucket forward

The £7.5m price-point doesn’t really fit into that structure. But it’s probably where there’s the most dormant potential too.

All of these £7.5m forwards could feasibly enjoy 20+ goal campaigns next season:

- Nicolas Jackson (scored 14 last season and could’ve had way more)

- Darwin Nunez (the chronic underperformer who could yet shine)

- Ivan Toney (proven FPL player who was £8.0m last season)

- Jean-Philippe Mateta (scored 16 goals last season)

- Dominic Solanke (scored 19 goals last season)

Those who pick right will be rewarded not only with FPL points, but with FPL points other managers have overlooked.

Remember: two of these players = 1 Haaland.

It’s a near-certainty that the next time you hear from us, the 24/25 FPL game will have launched. That means we’ll have a view of every player’s price and will be able to start building our Gameweek 1 squads accordingly.

We’ll also know about any new features or rule changes to the game itself.

If you’re lucky, we’ll bring you The Professor’s initial Gameweek 1 draft, as well as any need-to-know news, analysis and…well, you know how it works.

See you then?

Stay lazy,

The LazyFPL Team.