RMT - player pricing is awful this year

[Tom QC]

Hi all, not been on here for ages. Not watched much football recently either. Thought I'd throw in a last minute team. Appreciate your thoughts.

First impressions of player list: can see why fewer people are playing TFF these days. The pricing is ridiculous. Am I missing something? Very average point-scoring midfielders (e.g. Grealish 120pts) priced at £4.6m? Perez (118pts) at £5.2m?! I remember in the days of Gerrard/Lampard your premium midfielders would be £5-6m. Anyone around £4.5m would be expected to have scored at least 150pts in the previous season and/or play for one of the better clubs in an out and out attacking role.

Disappointed really, it just makes SO many players impossible to even consider picking because they are never going to be VFM.

Anyway, here's the current draft I'm not at all happy with...

Meslier 2.1m - total gamble but if he starts he's so cheap it seems worth an early punt

VVD 5.4m - ever present, gets goals (could be more important than FBs this year with the KC change?)
Robertson 5.1m - cheaper than TAA
Gomez 3.8m - good value as long he doesn't get rotated too much (although more Liverpool defensive exposure seems a bit of a risk)
Basham 2.8m - seems like decent VFM has been spotted early by the FISO community

Salah 6.8m - I don't like his price but he offers consistent attacking points
Son 6.0m - decent start fixtures wise and always a goal threat
Pereira 3.7m - looks like one of the better players from the promoted sides, from what I can tell he has a good left foot and takes corners/FKs
Mount 4.5m - don't really like anyone in this price bracket but he scored okay last year and he's young, so improvement could boost his points total. will he play enough though?

Werner 5.6m - he is decent and if he starts up front for Chelsea he will score goals
Bamford 4.2m - a real dearth of decent 4m attackers (see thoughts above: all the half decent mids are priced around £5m!), he looks a decent bet to score reasonably well

Total £50.0m

[clarkpeterg]

Hi
Not posted before so since nobody else has thought I would comment.
Obvs your defence in Liverpool loaded, so you have either a great week or a not so great week. Most of the advice I have seen for TFF points to a 5-4-1 formation. Snag is we don't know how well Sheff U will repeat, Burnley don't play week one, Arsenal always let me down. So depends. I would not have based on post lock-down results 3 Liverpool defenders, but maybe the intensity just wasn't there then. We need to see who plays at Wolves, eg Vinaigre would be a steal, same for Tierney at Arsenal if they show they can defend this year, Dier is reclassified as a defender and at 2.9m with Jose's defensive instincts would be good value.

I see you are avoiding Manchester players as they don't play week one but clearly Greenwood and Foden could offer great value especially compared to Pereira. Son is great but streaky. Catch the streaks and you are good.

Werner could be a steal. I see a lot of people looking at Adams at Southampton, very cheap but was he a flash in the pan in the closing weeks. If Antonio is a midfielder playing centre forward might be a better option in a 4-5-1 but only after 6-7 weeks. West Ham have a horrible set of games after week 1.

[Darbyand]

Will Bamford play? They've spent £30m on a striker from Valencia. I might be tempted to use 541, have 10 guaranteed players plus your Meslier punt then shift the money forward as the season develops.

[Tom QC]

Thanks both. I left the team in the end, not because I disagreed with anything you said, but because my kids took up too much time today and I didn't get a chance to do anything!

So far, 30pts halfway through the Leeds/Liv game. Not bad.

[SPR]

Bamford has had a nice start and expect Meslier will end up in a few teams eventually (almost went in mine but Murf gave my good reasons to wait).

[Tom QC]

Yeah Bamford is kind of a placeholder for "emerging value" options, unless he shows he can perform consistently at this level.

Any thoughts on my complaints about pricing issues? I imagine this has been discussed on other threads while I've been away?

I just can't understand why midfielders are so expensive compared to defenders.

[murf]

I think the mediocre midfielder prices are just dragged upwards by the high scores of the better ones who have to have a premium price. The points may be weighted to defence but the value is also better so, conversely, you need to buy the better midfielders for ultimate all-round value.... I think!

[Tom QC]

Sort of reminds me of the Buffett investing philosophy: "a great player at a fair price is better than a fair player at a great price".

Seems like for midfielders you want only ultra premium (£6m+) or enablers. No one in the middle is worth picking. Not expecting to hold onto Mount very long but my time for repeated tweaking before the season was limited.

[murf]

Alas the midfield enablers are few and far between - although 'the new Mount' may appear.

[Tom QC]

Diangana maybe worth a look at 2.3m? Wish I'd started looking at TFF weeks ago!

[clarkpeterg]

The thing with midfielders is that when Salah and Mane are classified as midfielders the only way to treat them fairly is to price them like strikers. This year was a challenge, but I suppose every year looks like a real challenge at the start. This year for me was no different.

[Tom QC]

Son 6.0m - decent start fixtures wise and always a goal threat

[Tom QC]

I may need to frame a picture of the current FISO league table.