Paul Williams ‘Diary of an FPL Manager’ – Differentials Under 10% Ownership

Contributors, Fantasy Premier League

Here’s FFGeek contributor Paul Williams with his bi-weekly ‘Diary of an FPL Manager’ series. This week, Paul is focusing on players regarded as differentials due to being owned by less than 10% of FPL managers. Paul is one of the Top 10 FPL Managers I follow and finished with an overall rank of 412 last season, 1,382 in 16/17 and 7,164 in 15/16.

Paul Williams ‘Diary of an FPL Manager’ – Differentials Under 10% Ownership

You can read more from Paul in his ‘Diary of an FPL Manager’ series on his Facebook blog using this link.

Introduction

In this article, I will briefly examine a range of differentials that may be worthy of consideration right now. The only proviso is that their present ownership is below 10%. I will go through each position from Goalkeepers to Forwards flagging up any players of note.



GOALKEEPERS:

Mathew Ryan (Brighton) £4.6m

Since I put forward Ryan as an option in one of my previous posts focusing on Brighton’s FPL assets, he has delivered GW scores of 11, 10 and a disappointing 1 in his last match against Everton. The reason his latest score was particularly disappointing is that Maty Ryan can usually be relied upon to bring home some save points too – in fact only two GKs have made more saves than him this season (Hart and Fabianski).

DEFENDERS:

DeAndre Yedlin (Newcastle) £4.5m

Yedlin is a player that I’ve owned in previous seasons and have a bit of a soft spot for. He’s a speedy RB with pace to burn. As well as offering a threat going forward, Yedlin is part of a Newcastle defence meticulously set up to contain their opponents by Rafa Benitez. The Magpies have kept clean sheets in their last two PL games and have arguably the most favourable schedule out of any teams in the next six GWs.

MIDFIELDERS:

Raheem Sterling (Man City) £11.1m and David Silva (Man City) £8.5m

I was a little surprised to see both Sterling’s and Silva’s ownership to be below the 10% mark (approx. 8% each). However, it is understandable because as soon as you invest in a City asset, you are automatically embroiled in a game of Pep-Roulette each Gameweek – especially in relation to midfielders.

Nevertheless, there is a growing voice amongst the FPL community that Sterling, in particular, is worth investing in. Sterling will always be a player that divides opinion due to the amount of chances he manages to spurn, but those owners that had the nerve to Captain him against Southampton in GW11 saw their Overall Rank hugely boosted. If anything happens to Sergio Aguero in the coming weeks, be prepared for Sterling’s price and ownership levels to soar quickly. Although he will always be susceptible to the occasional rest, he does seem to be one of Guardiola’s preferred options and should see more minutes than Mahrez and Sane – costing around £2.0m more, you’d expect that though!

As for David Silva, despite his advancing age, I don’t see his performance levels dropping off at all. What is more, his place in the City side is further cemented with Kevin De Bruyne potentially facing another spell on the sidelines. He has more of a cutting edge than Bernardo Silva and is also more likely to be given starts than his namesake. Despite being less explosive than some of the other options in the City midfield, his price accounts for that. At the moment, City are dispatching inferior opposition with ease and investing in their attacking assets appears a shrewd move. Obviously, there is the danger of rotation, but it looks like a bitter pill that may be worth swallowing.



FORWARDS:

Alvaro Morata (Chelsea) £8.7m

I am really hesitant to put Morata’s name forward as it’s not really the player that I like the look of, more the situation he finds himself in. There are not many viable forwards who are selected by less than 10% of teams and out of the pool of players available as a potential differential, Morata’s name stands out. Currently, the Spaniard is owned by less than 3% of managers in FPL! It is almost unbelievable that the main striker for an unbeaten Chelsea team with the second-best goal difference in the league is largely being avoided; it shows how far Morata’s star has fallen and how lowly he is rated by the vast majority of FPL followers.

However, Morata now has four goals in his last four PL games. In addition to this, he keeps getting into positions to score even more. For example, he should really have completed his hat-trick in Chelsea’s last Premier League game against Palace – during the closing seconds, he failed to convert a one-on-one opportunity, in the process ruining a second Hazard assist. If Morata can become more clinical in the future, it should increase not only his own points output but also the points scoring potential of Hazard and other forward-thinking Chelsea players.

Conclusion

Although I have focused on only five players in this post and tried to choose at least one player from each position, there are, of course, other largely ignored options out there too.

This is particularly the case in midfield where, at the moment, there are several attacking players with less than 10% ownership who possess the capabilities to score high on any given Gameweek. Depending on your budget, in descending order, these include: Sane, Mahrez, Martial, Sigurdsson, Felipe Anderson and Ross Barkley.

Occasionally, but not always, it is necessary to take a chance on somebody and jump on board early in order to claim significant green arrows.

You can read more from Paul in his ‘Diary of an FPL Manager’ series on his Facebook blog using this link.

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