Welcome back to Fantasy Premier League and welcome back to FISO!
Looking at the top of the Premier League table at the end of last season, you could be forgiven for thinking that it was almost a replica of the season before that. As they have done in six of the last seven season, Manchester City finished on top, followed by Arsenal. The Gunners once again lost out to their skyblue Manchester rivals, though they did manage to limit the gap to the top to just 2 points, compared to the 5 points between the top the season prior. At this point in the pre-season last year, we asked ourselves whether or not Arsenal would be able to compete for the title until the very end once again? Now we are asking themselves, will this be the season in which the Gunners finally bring the Premier League title back to North London, for the first time since the legendary 2003-04 season?
Now, on to more serious business, because the Fantasy Premier League has undergone a significant facelift in the build-up to the 2024-25 campaign. We recommend FPL managers to explore the changes in detail, but we’ll already list them here below to give you a head start:
Banking 5 free transfers: This season, fantasy managers can save up to FIVE free transfers instead of the usual two. In other words, great news for the patient managers and the big planners. On top of that, however many free transfers you have saved up will NOT be reset to zero after activating either a Free Hit or a Wild Card.
Mystery Chip: Talking about Chips, we’ve got a new one this season! It’s called the Mystery Chip and fully in line with its name, it’s use is well… a mystery. FPL towers say that all will be revealed towards January 2025, so keep an eye out for that.
Updated points-scoring: Good news for goalkeepers with a penchant for goalscoring, because a goal by a goalie will be worth 10 points this season, up from 6 points last season. As far as the Bonus Points System (BPS) goes, a saved penalty is now worth 9 BPS (down from 15 BPS). Also, conceding a goal now results in -4 BPS for goalkeepers and defenders. For any player, a goal line clearance is now worth 3 BPS, a foul won 1 BPS and a shot on target 2 BPS.
New look: The design of the in-game FPL pitch has been improved as well, copying the format that is already being used in FPL Challenge.
The Premier League 2024-25 season is set to kick off on Friday, August 16th, at 20h00 (UK time), when Manchester United host Fulham at Old Trafford. The free to play FPL or pay to play games like FanTeam (which has a £200,000 prize fund) are ideal ways of following the Premier League action.
In the build-up to gameweek 1, we will be taking an in-depth look at each of the 20 teams competing in the Premier League this season, including a general team preview, a tactical preview and some FPL recommendations per side. In this seventh part of our Season Preview series, we’re taking a look at champions Manchester City and their arch-rivals Manchester United.
MANCHESTER CITY – General preview for 2024/25
“No team has ever won four consecutive Premier League titles…yet”. That was the message the Manchester City players were greeted with upon returning to their club’s boot room in preparation for the 2023-24 season. Pep Guardiola’s men clearly took the message to heart, because about ten months later, right after the final whistle of the season’s final gameweek, they did it. They became the first team in the 135-year-old history of the Top English Football League to make it four consecutive titles. Sure, that enormous success cannot be seen separately from the billions of pounds pumped into the club via the United Arab Emirates over the years, but it’s still a very impressive and now historic feat.
While the Cityzens continued their Premier League dynasty, despite an unusual winless streak towards the end of 2023, the cup competitions brought them less joy last year. They still managed to reach the final of the FA Cup, in which city rivals Man United proved too much for them, but they crashed out of the League Cup in the third round after a defeat at the hands of Saudi Arabia-owned Newcastle United. Undoubtedly the biggest disappointment came on the international stage though, as Guardiola’s side went under against Real Madrid in the quarterfinals of the Champions League. All in all, a great season thanks to writing Premier League history, but Man City will definitely be eyeing European success again this coming season.
Of course, the summer transfer window is still open for another month at the moment of writing, but City have been quiet on the transfer front so far. While it should be kept in mind that their total expenditures since the Abu Dhabi Group takeover are approaching the £2 billion mark, they have largely kept the cash in their pockets this summer, for now. The only major signing has been Brazilian winger Savinho from satellite club Troyes, who was on loan at Girona FC (another City Group member) last season, for about £31 million. They also recuperated loan players Joao Cancelo (from Barcelona) and Kalvin Phillips (from West Ham), though they are not expected to feature in Pep’s plans this season. As far as outgoing transfers are concerned, the Cityzens have cashed in about £116.5 million: Taylor Harwood-Bellis moved to Southampton for about £ 20 million, Sergio Gomes went to Real Sociedad for about £8.5 million and Tommy Doyles was bought by Wolves for around £4.3 million. But the biggest transfer was Julian Alvarez to Atletico Madrid for £81.5m which went through yesterday.
Manchester City: Tactical preview 2024/25
As we are used to from Man City under Pep Guardiola by now, they are amongst the very best teams in the world in terms of positional play. By constantly creating numerical advantages all over the pitch, they try not only to keep the ball and move it around at will, but also to recuperate balls quickly when they lose them. You can see this in almost every aspect of Guardiola’s tactical setup, from the first moment of the build-up to the progression of the ball through the midfield and the creation of chances up top.
FPL managers know by now that it’s not a question whether or not Pep will want his team to attack in, but which of his players will be doing the attacking in any given match. His formation is very fluid, but the foundation lies in a kind of 4-2-5 that divides the pitch into two parts: defence and offence. When attacking, the team leans on a back three with one of the wing-backs becoming an extra midfielder (the inverted wing-back principle), thus pushing one of the existing midfielders further up the pitch to take on a more offensive role. For their defence, they combine this set-up with a very high backline, allowing them to both press high and hard. This is also where some of the side’s few weaknesses come to light at times, as this defensive style requires enormous tactical discipline and technical ability in order not to be caught on the counter.
MANCHESTER CITY – Potential FPL picks
Where plenty of interesting Man City fantasy assets are unlikely to feature (from the start) in Gameweek 1 due to their EURO 2024 exploits, their most talked about player should be perfectly rested and ready to fire by now. Erling Haaland (£15.0m) did not qualify for the EUROs with his country Norway, which allowed him to take a well-deserved rest from footballing action. We can start listing all of his chart-topping stats from last season and all of the records he has broken since signing for City, but we don’t have all day today. So instead, just remember that the Norwegian has been in the Premier League for two seasons and he has been the league top scorer in each of those seasons: 36 goals (+ 9 assists) from 33 league games in the 2022-23 season, and 27 goals (+ 8 assists) from 29 league games last season. The only real downside to him this season is his ultra-premium £15.0m price tag, but honestly, if you can form a decent FPL squad with the remaining £85 million, he should probably be the first name on your team sheet.
We were planning to include Phil Foden as the second name on this list, thanks to his 19 goals and 8 assists in the league last season, but the England international is not expected to start in gameweek 1 versus Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. So instead of last year’s Premier League Player of the Season, whose FPL price was increased to £9.5m this season, we’re picking Kevin de Bruyne (£9.5m). Despite injury troubles last season, which saw his contribution in the Premier League limited to 15 starts, the Belgian playmaker still managed 4 goals and 10 assists. With his country being eliminated in the Round of 16 at EURO 2024, we expect him to appear in Gameweek 1 as fit as ever, and ready to show why he is still one of the best midfielders to ever grace the Premier League. With a fully rested Erling Haaland in front of him and the abundance of talent around him, we dare even to go as far and say that he is currently a little bit undervalued in the official fantasy game.
A very similar situation for our third Man City fantasy pick, where we wanted to recommend a bit more affordable Skyblue option. Instead of Rodri, who was phenomenal in all senses last season and who was chosen as Player of the Tournament at EURO 2024, we have gone with Bernardo Silva (£6.5m). Portugal were eliminated from EURO 2024 by France in the quarterfinals, which has given the attacker decent recuperation time in preparation for the opener of the 2024-25 Premier League season. In 29 league starts last season, Bernardo got 6 goals and 9 assists for a more than decent 141 FPL points and we honestly don’t see why he could not put up similar numbers this coming season. The Portugal international is a key member of Guardiola’s championship-winning team and at £6.5m, he could be of great value to any FPL squad, especially considering their opening four fixtures include Ipswich at home, West Ham away and Brentford at home.
MANCHESTER UNITED – General preview for 2024/25
Thank God for the FA Cup. Is probably what most of, if not the entire red side of Manchester will have sighed at the end of last season. A good run in the world’s oldest domestic cup tournament and a tactical masterclass against arch-rivals Manchester City in the final brought the Red Devils the 13th FA Cup in their history. This provided their 2023-24 campaign with some much-needed positivity and tangible success, because the rest of the season mostly read as a list of negative club records.
They were knocked out of the League Cup by Newcastle United in the fourth round, who had previously eliminated Man City as well, but that was nothing compared to the humiliation they suffered on the European stage. In a group with Bayern Munich, FC Copenhagen and Galatasaray, United finished dead last with just 4 points, the worst Champions League performance in the club’s history. In the Premier League, the club finished in 8th place with a negative goal difference, which represented the worst league result since the 1989-90 season. The Red Devils would have found themselves outside of the European competitions this season, were it not for their end-of-season FA Cup victory. As we wrote before, thank God for the FA Cup.
Despite a generally terrible campaign, Manchester United are still one of the biggest clubs in the world, which means that their sub-par performances have not affected their transfer market power as much. The Red Devils splashed the cash on several mega signings over the past few seasons and this summer seems to be much of the same. With about a month of transfer action still to go, the club has already brought in central defender Leny Yoro (£52 million from Lille but is now out for around 3 months with injury) and striker Joshua Zirkzee (£35 million from Bologna), while Jadon Sancho has returned from a successful loan spell at Borussia Dortmund. The defensive likes of Matthijs de Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui also seem on their way to Old Trafford from Bayern Munich at the moment of writing (transfers now confirmed per BBC) with Mazraoui perhaps likely to start in injured Luke Shaw’s absence. The biggest outgoing transfer so far has been Mason Greenwood (£23 million to Marseille), while Willy Kambwala was sold for around £10 million to Villareal. Last season’s starter Raphaël Varane was let go before the Frenchman signed for Como 1907 in the Serie A.
Manchester United: Tactical preview 2024/25
While Manchester United’s 2023-24 season was far below what could and should be expected from a club their size, it should be noted that the Red Devils had to deal with an incredible number of injuries as well. As a result, manager Erik ten Hag could barely build on set formation with any kind of consistency, especially in the back. The Dutchman deployed no less than thirty different combinations in defence, which obviously does not favour the team’s stability, cohesion and automatisms.
Having said that, Ten Hag rarely managed to impress tactically. He tends to favour a 4-3-3 starting formation in which the front four are supposed to both provide dynamism and runs with the ball, and function as the first line of pressure without the ball. Looking at the numbers though, the Red Devils failed to breach the 60-goal mark on the Premier League for a second season in a row. They also suffered a record 14 defeats in 38 league games. To end this brief tactical review, we should mention that Ten Hag does keep giving opportunities to very young players and academy graduates, including the likes of Alejandro Garnacho and, of course, Kobbie Mainoo.
MANCHESTER UNITED – Potential FPL pick
We are starting our list of potential FPL picks from the Manchester United roster with one of the previously mentioned youngsters, namely Alejandro Garnacho (£6.5m). After 30 league starts last season, the Argentinian winger seems to have definitely worked his way into Erik Ten Hag’s starting eleven. His 7 goals and 7 assists represent a direct involvement in 24.5% of all of United’s league goals. If he can keep up that level of performances and United manage to make the very necessary overall improvements in their attacking play (and output), he could make a mockery of his current £6.5m price tag. Garnacho could also be off to a flying start, seeing as United kick off against Fulham at home, followed by Brighton away, Liverpool at home and Southampton away.
Looking back at last season, we are honestly not very excited when it comes to Man United fantasy picks. If you’re set on bringing in one or more Red Devils and you’re comfortable with spending a bit on them, then Bruno Fernandes (£8.5m) should probably be on top of your scouting list. The Portuguese midfielder has been United’s playmaker for a few seasons now, which has resulted in excellent attacking returns. Even last season, Bruno managed a decent 10 goals and 9 assists from 35 league starts, for a total of 166 FPL points. He is absolutely nailed-on under Ten Hag and has plenty of set-pieces in his locker as well. And on top of that, should Man United finally find their groove this season and start firing all cylinders, then Bruno could be looking at 2020-21-like numbers, when he got 18 goals and 14 assists as the team’s most attacking midfielder.
We usually try to mix it up a bit when it comes to the potential FPL picks for a specific club, but looking back at last season, we’re simply not convinced by Man United’s defensive assets. Add to that the uncertainty around the starting four and we decided to include another attacker, Marcus Rashford (£7.0m). And in all honesty, this is not a pick out of lack of alternatives entirely, because the England international (who was not called up for EURO 2024) has some serious positives speaking in his favour as well. There is, of course, his price tag, which at £7.0m is very affordable. Then there is also the injury to Rasmus Hojlund, which means one less rival for the spot up front. Ten Hag did bring is Joshua Zirkzee, but we don’t expect him to start in the Premier League right away. Finally, after a disappointing 2023-24 season with just 7 goals and 3 assists from 26 league starts, Rashford has shown some form in pre-season so far. We consider him a punt, but one that could pay off handsomely if the United stars align a bit this season.
For further thoughts and discussions on the new FPL season visit FISO’s FPL forum.