Best FPL Forwards – Pre-season Rankings

Fantasy Premier League, Player Rankings

Here’s our Best FPL Forwards article where we rank the top forwards using last seasons stats. There’s a schedule of stats and commentary on a some key players for your FPL team.

Best FPL Forwards – Pre-season Rankings

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The Key

I’ve converted their xG90 and xA90 in to raw FPL attacking points.  No appearance points or bonus just raw attacking points.  I’ve then ranked them.

I’ve also included their FPL price, Last seasons Points per Match, average minutes played as well as an initial assessment on their starting potential. There’s also 2022 stats which actually is after the 31 January to cover form at the later part of the season.

The VFM column relates their potential returns from the stats to their price. A VFM factor of 10+ is desirable.

There’s also their fixture ease ranking. 1 being the best fixtures over the first 6 game weeks.

All stats are from the fantastic free site understat 

I’ve not included last season’s relegated teams, any promoted teams or players who have left the PL otherwise.  Also not included new players to the Premier League.

The key to the status is as follows.  I will update this during preseason.

LS – likely starter

TBC – to be assessed through pre-season

UL – unlikely starter

UK – unknown

TRF – Transfer possible

The Schedule

Below is a graphic but you can get the google spreadsheet and filter it anyway you like on the FFGeek Patreon site version

For a player to qualify you needed to play 800 mins for the season ranking and 350 mins for the post 31 January Ranking

Remember the ranking isn’t adjusted for upcoming fixtures. It’s purely on performance.

Best FPL Forwards

Comments

New Players to the PL

As I said above I haven’t included any new players to the Premier League as these stats are based on last seasons Premier League stats.

I have done seperate articles on Erling Haaland, Darwin Nunez and Taiwo Awoniyi. I’ve linked the articles against their name but in short I’m positive on Haaland, think Diaz is better value than Nunez and negative on Awoniyi. I will also do one on the Brighton cheapie Undav among others at some stage.

The main picks

The Players who standout as passing the 10+ VFM test, are likely starters and have reasonably good fixtures over the first 6 gameweeks are

Kane, Toney and Gabriel Jesus.

Jesus is less straightforward than the other 2 who are known quantities. Jesus’s stats are from Man City so how that translates to playing for Arsenal is the unknown. His other complication is that he tends to underperform his stats. So there is risk there but if he averages 75 minutes with Arsenal and holds his stats as a CF then he’s potentially a great asset for the price.

The one point I didn’t mention about Toney is the loss of the Eriksen effect. Toney’s stats were night and day after Eriksen joined and the loss of that creativity could be significant. Also he is a more known quantity this season which means the surprise element is gone for opposition teams.

Other than that there are no other straight forward form and fixture options in the forward department unless some players get more gametime.

Who could be a real option if they improve their average minutes?

Apart from Jesus who I mentioned above their are 5 other players worth looking at

Havertz

Assuming he holds the CF position and increases his average minutes from 63 to 75 he would become 7th ranked and have a VFM ranking of 9.9. This is possible if Chelsea don’t sign a CF.

Vardy

His average minutes increasing to his near normal 90, say 85, from his 72 last season would see him rank 6th with a VFM of 8.5. He can overshoot his xG though so that still makes him a potential option even though the fixtures are a mixed.

Welbeck

He is an interesting one at the cheapish end of the spectrum. If he became first choice and increased average minutes to 75 from 58 then you would have a 9th ranked forward with a VFM of 10.8. He also has good fixtures. The difficulty is the new signing of Undav plus the existence of Maupay and a lot of lineup tinkering from Potter. There would need to be a clear signal in Preseason to go there

Mateta and Edouard

Both have terrible fixtures but both are £5.5m so if you’re looking at a cheap forward who you think could be benchable then if one becomes first choice and averages around 70 minutes then you would get someone who could provide a VFM of around 10. It’s by no means a perfect solution but the cheap attacking options aren’t easy.

Fixture Ease Schedule

Best FPL Forwards

Other Posts

Improvements for the 22/23 season

The FFGeek Fixture Ease Schedule

Assessing the 3 Promoted Teams

New Player Profiles – Haaland and Nunez

New Player Profiles – Vieira, Awoniyi and Botman

The FPL site is open plus a first draft FFGeek team

The Best Attacking Defenders

Kris and Kev’s 2k Pod

4 FFGeek Contributors First Draft Teams

New FFGeek Contributor Pete Allaway

2 more FFGeek Contributor Teams

3 more FFGeek Contributor Teams

Midfield player Rankings

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