Albion Analytics: Five Fantasy Premier League picks

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With the Premier League season starting tonight, you've still got time to add in these Albion players.

Liam Tharme

Albion Analytics

2022-08-05T05:00:00Z

Have you picked Deniz Undav?

As Brighton prepare for their sixth consecutive Premier League season, Graham Potter is not the only one with selection headaches. Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers across the country will be refining teams ahead of game-week one. So, to help, we’ve picked out five different Albion players who could all be contenders for your sides.

The luxury option: Leandro Trossard

No Brighton player will cost you more in FPL this season than Leandro Trossard (£6.5m), but as the luxury option he does bring a degree of points certainty. He topped the Brighton FPL charts last season for total points (141), as well as points per game (4.1) and sat second among the Seagulls for bonus points (16).

Trossard finished the campaign as Brighton’s joint-top scorer (8) goals, having his best goal-scoring season to date as a Premier League player, but beneficially FPL categorise him as a midfielder – he won’t eat into any of the three important forward spots.

In terms of performance sustainability, Trossard recorded the highest non-penalty xG plus xA total of any Brighton player last season (10.1), so he could be reasonably expected to return similar points haul this campaign.

And the Belgian goes into the campaign off the back of a fantastic hat-trick against Espanyol, so may well be worth an early investment.

The must-have: Lewis Dunk

£4.5m and Lewis Dunk is yours. His availability underlines his value as an FPL asset – in each of the last 5 Premier League seasons Dunk has played at least 75% of available minutes, and featured in 10 of Brighton’s 11 clean sheets last season (worth 4 points per clean sheet). As highlighted by FPL themselves, under Graham Potter’s tutelage (the last three seasons), Dunk has scored nine goals (worth 6 points each), featured in 30 clean sheets and recorded 41 bonus points.

The popular option: Robert Sanchez

Having previously been a wildcard shout, Robert Sanchez is quickly becoming an FPL favourite. The goalkeeper features in 13.6% of teams this season and is among the top four most-picked Premier League goalkeepers.

As far as value for money goes, Sanchez is well worth it. He scored the most points (126) of any goalkeeper cheaper than £5m last season, and will again cost you £4.5m this season.

As a Premier League goalkeeper, Sanchez boasts a 72% save rate and has conceded just 1.08 goals per game – he has actually got more Premier League clean sheets (21) than losses (20), shutting out opponents in just under one-third of games. The underlying numbers show that Sanchez’s shot-stopping performance has prevented 6 more goals than the average goalkeeper, and in 17 of 37 games last season the Spaniard recorded 3 or more saves, worth an extra point – they all add up.

The wildcard option: Deniz Undav

The German forward arrives at the Albion off the back of a ridiculous goal-scoring season with Union St Gilloise. His shot map shows that 17 of his 23 non-penalty goals in the 2021/22 season came from within 12 yards of goal and were located in the width of the 6-yard box.

Of course, Undav’s underlying numbers (xG, shots per game) will drop-off, given the differences in league quality, but the forward will only set you back £5.5m, and thus represents a worthwhile gamble. As Albion face just one of last season’s top-six sides in the opening eight game-weeks (Manchester United on the opening day), Undav could be set for a fast start against less tough opposition.

One to watch: Danny Welbeck

Limited minutes, due to injury, prevented Danny Welbeck’s totals last season being very high – he recorded the joint-second highest points-per-game (3.6) of any Albion player last season, but has been selected by less than 1% of managers this campaign. Per 90 minutes in the 2021/22 season, Welbeck ranked inside the top 25% of Premier League forwards for shots on target (1.22), non-penalty goals (0.37) and shot accuracy (46.50%), indicating relative quality to repeatedly find the target as well as the back of the net.

Given Brighton’s recruitment in the attacking department, it remains to be seen how Graham Potter shapes his side for the start of the 2022/23 season, so Welbeck may be one to monitor form and select a time for his inclusion.