Paw's for thought

[fred1266]

Agreed Fred. Anyone else you’ve spotted?

besides the one u listed i think leicester should also be considered only City game difficult be we all know what vardy did in one of the games last year

[Smurphy Paw]

2021/22

[Smurphy Paw]

(Very) rough first draft

F1F6F268-04EA-4411-83E9-A9DFB0662991.jpeg

[Joccki_10]

Please don’t lure me into Benrahma…

[Pirlo's Beard]

Lure him into Benrahma.

[fred1266]

Please don’t lure me into Benrahma…

better than being lured in Fornals

[blahblah]

Please don’t lure me into Benrahma…

better than being lured in Fornals

Yep. Fornals was pants last weekend, while Benrahma bagged a good goal.

[Smurphy Paw]

I have seen some questioning whether Benrahma starts all the time. Also noting Bobby’s possibly absence for Liverpool it’s steering me towards Jota, saving the £1.5m from Robertson (lots in the £5-5.5m defender bracket)
One to keep an eye on to be honest.

Meanwhile I really dislike my current forward line

[Joccki_10]

After the arrival of Ings, I've gone cold on Watkins too.

As for Benrahma... I really like him. Again, think he could be on pens. It's just that I can never be sure that he starts and keeps on starting. He does start their final friendly today with Bowen benched. Although Yarmolenko starts as well, so I'm not sure how seriously we can take this first XI.

Jota is a lock for me.

[Smurphy Paw]

I have seen some questioning whether Benrahma starts all the time. Also noting Bobby’s possibly absence for Liverpool it’s steering me towards Jota, saving the £1.5m from Robertson (lots in the £5-5.5m defender bracket)
One to keep an eye on to be honest.

Meanwhile I really dislike my current forward line

Robertson went off injured today. Even though the prognosis is uncertain that makes a difference and pretty much commits me to Jota instead.
Also today, I understand that Ings played furthest man forward. Watkins is the attacker I am least happy with since the former’s ‘signIngs’. (OK, Obafemi is the attacker I am least happy with but he’s not there to actually play!) I think that I need to find that extra £0.5m for the upgrade. Meanwhile Obafemi probably won’t start but Che Adams will need a rest and/or support so Ings leaving presumably improves his prospects.

One query, is Ferran Torres (instead of Mahrez) as good an option as I have currently convinced myself? £7.0m for a likely starting striker for Man City has real appeal and would ease budgetary issues. I didn’t watch the Shield yesterday so I’d be grateful for any insight. Thanks

[Ruth_NZ]

Mahrez has a fitness edge over Torres and is probably a better choice long-term as well depending on whether City sign a striker. I'm one-or-other too but as I haven't made any draft whatsoever yet beyond the very roughest shape (and intend a GW1BB) I'm not sure how that will look. Think Mahrez would be preferable but the 2m price gap could be telling.

Elephant in the room is what kind of start City will make. They were very slow starters last season and Pep is talking as if their situation is no better this time around. They looked well under-cooked yesterday. Fixtures are competitive as well, if it weren't for Norwich in GW2 it might be as well to go without City for a while, maybe even until after the 2nd international break.

[Smurphy Paw]

All fair points. That I had to check in about a £7m out of position mid/fwd playing for last season’s champions with a fair chance of being this year’s top scorers confirms that it’s a risk.

[Luxmonk]

It certainly is a risk but at 7.0mio personally I believe it’s one worth taking until KbB,Foden,Kane? enter the frame.

[blahblah]

Elephant in the room is what kind of start City will make. They were very slow starters last season and Pep is talking as if their situation is no better this time around. They looked well under-cooked yesterday. Fixtures are competitive as well, if it weren't for Norwich in GW2 it might be as well to go without City for a while, maybe even until after the 2nd international break.

This is where I am, and expect to hold of City until they start to fire and there is less uncertainty.....

[Smurphy Paw]

A ‘getting there’ draft

4C330464-419A-4610-B901-96A9B791DDED.jpeg

At the moment I have come full circle on Bruno. I was clear in my mind that I’d not hold him without captaining him. However I suspect that he is the best ‘holder’ of my Lukaku funds. Previous drafts spread the cash out far too far and make one/two transfer changes difficult.

The weakness that I can see in this draft is the number of base price players in order to also accommodate Son. I previously had a number of the £8.0m/£7.5m/£7.0m/£6.5m variations in the Son/Gibbs-White/Davis positions (the £4.5m forward slot looks particularly unappealing).
Last pairing was Greenwood & Raphinha but there have been a few.
Seeing Man City play would be very helpful, I’d really like to go for Grealish but he’s as likely to start on the bench as to play.
Should I downgrade Son to spread the cash more widely?

[wahine]

Did you notice that Son was playing v Manchester City with the backing of another 10 players that you would not touch with a bargepole ?

[Ruth_NZ]

How can Bruno be a placeholder for Lukaku, one is a M and the other a F? You are baking in 2 transfers.

Were you to say that you'd rather have Bruno than Lukaku for the first 6 weeks, that would be something easier to buy into the way the fixtures lie. Bruno wouldn't then be holding your Lukaku funds, he'd just be in your team. Which is reasonable, there is a case for having him, GW3 captaincy for example.

If you go with Bruno, yes I'd downgrade Son but there's also a case for keeping Son and dispensing with Bruno. Son is an equally viable GW3 captain and it would hardly be more difficult to lose Son and get Lukaku than to make the same manouevre with Bruno, would it?

[eastcentral1]

How can Bruno be a placeholder for Lukaku, one is a M and the other a F? You are baking in 2 transfers.

Were you to say that you'd rather have Bruno than Lukaku for the first 6 weeks, that would be something easier to buy into the way the fixtures lie. Bruno wouldn't then be holding your Lukaku funds, he'd just be in your team. Which is reasonable, there is a case for having him, GW3 captaincy for example.

If you go with Bruno, yes I'd downgrade Son but there's also a case for keeping Son and dispensing with Bruno. Son is an equally viable GW3 captain and it would hardly be more difficult to lose Son and get Lukaku than to make the same manouevre with Bruno, would it?

Without money in the bank, it will take more than two transfers to do Son to Lukaku and switch to 3 up top.

[Smurphy Paw]

Did you notice that Son was playing v Manchester City with the backing of another 10 players that you would not touch with a bargepole ?

Son brings certainty as we know he’ll play. That’s a main selling point over City players at the moment. He’s also an easy downgrade to one of those others when Tsimikas/Amartey need replacing.
That’s the thought process. However I do agree with you. It’s not a pick that has me feeling enthusiastic!

[Smurphy Paw]

How can Bruno be a placeholder for Lukaku, one is a M and the other a F? You are baking in 2 transfers.

Were you to say that you'd rather have Bruno than Lukaku for the first 6 weeks, that would be something easier to buy into the way the fixtures lie. Bruno wouldn't then be holding your Lukaku funds, he'd just be in your team. Which is reasonable, there is a case for having him, GW3 captaincy for example.

If you go with Bruno, yes I'd downgrade Son but there's also a case for keeping Son and dispensing with Bruno. Son is an equally viable GW3 captain and it would hardly be more difficult to lose Son and get Lukaku than to make the same manouevre with Bruno, would it?

Without money in the bank, it will take more than two transfers to do Son to Lukaku and switch to 3 up top.

That’s what I was thinking. Knowing Lukaku’s price point would really help, I do think that I may be leaving a bit more in the kitty than I need to but at the moment that’s a tricky call.

The player Bruno replaced in this line up was Greenwood so the fixture quality point is not relevant (altho’ true). The problem was that I had spread the remaining £4.5m out across multiple positions with fewer base price players. It would be a 4+ transfer scenario to bring in Lukaku not 2 - two being the minimum number if moving cash from one position to another. Sure, I could have presented it as really wanting Bruno. That’s not the thing I was seeking to articulate though, it was how best to retain cash in a structure that maintains flexibility.

[Ruth_NZ]

How can Bruno be a placeholder for Lukaku, one is a M and the other a F? You are baking in 2 transfers.

Were you to say that you'd rather have Bruno than Lukaku for the first 6 weeks, that would be something easier to buy into the way the fixtures lie. Bruno wouldn't then be holding your Lukaku funds, he'd just be in your team. Which is reasonable, there is a case for having him, GW3 captaincy for example.

If you go with Bruno, yes I'd downgrade Son but there's also a case for keeping Son and dispensing with Bruno. Son is an equally viable GW3 captain and it would hardly be more difficult to lose Son and get Lukaku than to make the same manouevre with Bruno, would it?

Without money in the bank, it will take more than two transfers to do Son to Lukaku and switch to 3 up top.

Why is switching to 3 up top involved? Presumably there's an underlying reason SP went with a deadspot 3F and Lukaku's addition doesn't change it. Son, Antonio Raphinha, Lukaku looks an OK kind of solution, no?

[raoul]

Well, Leicester have good fixtures and whilst he has no preseason goals and virtually nobody is mentioning him, Vardy would hold Lukaku funds pretty well?

[Ruth_NZ]

Sure, I could have presented it as really wanting Bruno. That’s not the thing I was seeking to articulate though, it was how best to retain cash in a structure that maintains flexibility.

Understand you better now. Maybe the idea of holding "Lukaku money" was a distraction to me because what I was trying to articulate in a roundabout way is that I don't see any need to jump on him as soon as he's available, not if he's 11m+.

It's true that your GW1 selection ties your hands in many ways, not the least of which is how wieldy and/or flexible your structure is. That's going to happen whatever you do unless you leave a lump of cash unused. For example, going back to your draft and using it just as an example, what if Martinez gets a couple of hauls early (if he performs close to how he did last season then 5.5m is still cheap for him)? Well, with your structure, squeezing 1m out to get him in will be awkward. And what if Greenwood fires, or Jota, or Havertz starts the season on fire, or Mahrez? You can only do so much with price-points, really you cannot create a flexibility to handle every eventuality.

For me, the efficiency I look for is in the cost of my nominal bench (my cheapest players). My GW1BB draft has a bench costing 18m and that's no different to what I'd usually target. Downgrading players at the bottom of your squad in order to release cash really is problematic because it's a completely dead transfer. But even there you have to be careful; when looking at your draft my first thought was 'wow, that bench is weak'.

Where I agree with you (or at least with what I think you are saying) is that if you have the most expensive player in a bracket it's easier to downgrade than upgrade. That's one reason to start with TAA, though that's something of a debating point for me at the moment. No TAA and the midfield can be stiffened but don't start with TAA and he becomes awkward to get thereafter. That's the quandary as I see it and maybe that's the same self-dialogue you are having about Lukaku?

Well, Leicester have good fixtures and whilst he has no preseason goals and virtually nobody is mentioning him, Vardy would hold Lukaku funds pretty well?

My thought as well, he's actually in my first draft with that in mind.

[Smurphy Paw]

Well, Leicester have good fixtures and whilst he has no preseason goals and virtually nobody is mentioning him, Vardy would hold Lukaku funds pretty well?

To pick up first on the 2 or 3 up front point, I am not keen on the £4.5m forward slot. Plan A is to bring Lukaku in there. However Antonio and Ings are only ever one sprint or stretch away from the treatment table and so a Plan B of retaining 4-4-2/3-5-2 for a while longer may be required.

Ref Vardy as an option, this is true. I happen to think that Bruno is a better option than Vardy but it is a possibility. As a live F3 from game week 1 the player I’d like in there is Wilson. Can you imagine the risk of having him alongside the other two though? What odds on that triumvirate staying fit!!!

Ruth, you also raise a couple of further points about structure. I don’t have time to pick up on all of those at the moment. Suffice to say, different written styles notwithstanding, the initial point I was making about lumping a lot of cash in to Son AND Bruno - and the knock on impact of a weak bench - is much the same point you raise.
What to do about that will have to wait until later…

[raoul]

the thing about the glass-legged forwards is that when they hold up, several of them score at a very healthy rate. There could of course come a time when all or most of them are crocked at once, but the start of the season should be safe (GW1 at least) for those currently not injured. One would hope the likes of Steve Bruce has Callum Wilson living in his spare bedroom for the rest of this week, with his feet up (I am picturing the movie Misery, but with a fairly major plot rewrite).

There seem plenty of forwards in the 7-8m bracket so replacing would seem easy enough if need be, and I also see plenty of value in the 6-7m MIDs, meaning a move down from a Mahrez type when the inevitable roulette begins would afford the Lukaku or Kane upgrade if that is what takes your fancy.

Personally I am veering towards a single superpremium because I suspect a 250pt ceiling exists (subject to a breakout wonder season) and I can get more bang from my bucks at lower price points.

[blahblah]

the thing about the glass-legged forwards is that when they hold up, several of them score at a very healthy rate. There could of course come a time when all or most of them are crocked at once, but the start of the season should be safe (GW1 at least) for those currently not injured. One would hope the likes of Steve Bruce has Callum Wilson living in his spare bedroom for the rest of this week, with his feet up (I am picturing the movie Misery, but with a fairly major plot rewrite).

There seem plenty of forwards in the 7-8m bracket so replacing would seem easy enough if need be, and I also see plenty of value in the 6-7m MIDs, meaning a move down from a Mahrez type when the inevitable roulette begins would afford the Lukaku or Kane upgrade if that is what takes your fancy.

Personally I am veering towards a single superpremium because I suspect a 250pt ceiling exists (subject to a breakout wonder season) and I can get more bang from my bucks at lower price points.

I agree with far too much of that

[Smurphy Paw]

In the only changes from above I have reverted to Greenwood and Raphinha instead of Son and <£4.5m Mid>

Holding Antonio already, the last piece of the jigsaw for the squad is to choose between Raphinha and Benrahma. The latter has looked really good in pre-season and saves another £0.5m (already have £0.5m in the bank).
However Raphinha is in there for the medium term. It is mainly the Liverpool game I’d want to avoid
Although I have to decide between Raphinha and White for the 11th man position this Game Week.

[Fuzzy]

Good luck with the final tinkers / adjustments.

Our thinking is not very far apart. It’s going to be interesting to look at squads at GW4, and see how the shape changes.

[Hogmeister]

You’ve ended up in a very similar place to me - your Barnes to my Toney, and I have a bit of extra cover on the bench with Coufal instead of Amartey. Otherwise pretty much the same.

For what it’s worth, I plan to start Raphinha ahead of both Coufal (I think) and White (definitely).

[Smurphy Paw]

Thanks. Being similar to your team is reassuring.
There’s been a bit more playing around the edges including Amartey out and Benrahma in (& out & in & …). Hopefully no more all day, the pressers will be relevant though

Good luck all
SP