Updated: Team-by-team previews: Can the promoted clubs deliver FPL value?
A must-pick defender and attacking jewels mean Bournemouth, Fulham and Nottingham Forest offer intriguing budget FPL options.
The FPL hall-of-fame is littered with players from promoted teams who delivered huge returns at low prices. John Lundstram (Sheffield United) and Stuart Dallas (Leeds United) have been the two standouts in recent years, but others including Teemu Pukki (Norwich City), Ivan Toney (Brentford), Patrick Bamford and Stuart Dallas (both Leeds United) have also proven excellent value-for-money.
Snapping up a low-cost starter from a well-organised defence can also help free up money to spend elsewhere while giving you cover should one of your starters find themselves warming the bench. This is increasingly likely given the schedules faced by the Premier League's top teams in particular.
In the first of three team-by-team articles ahead of the 2022/23 curtain raiser on 5th August, we run the rule over Bournemouth, Fulham and Nottingham Forest to figure out where the opportunities might lie and the potential landmines to avoid.
Goalkeepers and defenders
Here's the tale of the tape for the promoted sides when it comes to goals conceded in the Championship last season:
Fulham - 43
Bournemouth - 39
Nottingham Forest - 40
In short, there isn't a huge amount to separate them. However, comparing their records to those who preceded them is instructive.
All three conceded more goals than Norwich City and Watford in their 2020/21 promotion campaigns - the former ended 2021/22 with comfortably the worst defensive record in the Premier League (86 goals conceded), and the latter weren't a whole lot better (77 goals conceded).
The performance of the third promoted team in 2020/21, Brentford, offers a little more hope. The Bees ended last season having conceded 56 goals - fewer than Manchester United, Leicester City and 2020/21 defensive darlings Aston Villa. But even here there was substantial regression towards the mean as the 2021/22 campaign progressed after back-to-back clean sheets in the opening two games and a third in Gameweek 5.
Despite this rather gloomy analysis, hidden beneath the rubble lies a potential FPL gem. A combination of shrewd signings and an excellent record under Steve Cooper (they were bottom of the Championship when the former Swansea boss took charge) make Nottingham Forest's defensive assets more than a little intriguing.
Manchester United loanee Dean Henderson (GK, £4.5m) and £17m signing from Liverpool Neco Williams (DEF, £4m) have both added quality at the back, with the latter's ultra-low price tag reflecting the fact he was expected to play an extremely limited role at his former club.
In FPL, generally if a defender is priced at £4m and starting every week, you pick them - and that maxim certainly holds for the talented Williams.
In addition, Forest play the kind of confident, possession-based football that has seen defenders at promoted sides like Brentford, Leeds United and Swansea outperform their price tag in previous seasons - particularly against average and below average sides. And they have the softest-looking start to the 2022/23 campaign of the three promoted teams.
Unfortunately there aren't any obvious out-of-position candidates a la Dallas and Lundstram - or buccaneering full-backs - from the three promoted sides likely to deliver the attacking returns you'd need to justify investing (especially after Djed Spence (DEF, £4.5m) joined Tottenham Hotspur for £12.5m plus add-ons).
We'll be keeping a close eye on line-ups, statistics and performances in the early games to see if the picture shifts, but for now Bournemouth and Fulham defensive assets are firmly off our radar.
Forwards
We can't wait any longer, so let's talk about the forwards first and then work back to midfield. Because - and we don't say this lightly - this is the most excited we've been about three promoted attackers since we started playing FPL over a decade ago.
There is even an argument for taking a swing on all three as part of a ZeroForward strategy to kick off your campaign (you can read more about our thinking on ZeroForward here).
Let's start with Aleksander Mitrovic (FWD, £6.5m), the hulking striker who scored 43 of Fulham's 106 goals in 44 Championship games last season. Despite this outrageous haul, the narrative around Mitrovic is often that he's too good for the Championship and not good enough for the Premiership - something that's reflected in the fact he's in just 1-in-10 FPL teams.
Much of this skepticism stems from a disappointing 2020/21 campaign when he scored just 3 goals and generally looked several yards off Premier League standard.
We're going against that narrative and buying into the Serbian's potential upside. Mitrovic was a different, leaner beast last season and Fulham a much more creative outfit under Marco Silva.
Any player who scores a goal a game in the Championship is very, very good and certainly worth a punt at £6.5m - the same price as Brighton's Danny Welbeck (FWD, £6.5m) and £0.5m less than Manchester United's forgotten man Anthony Martial (FWD, £7m).
Dominic Solanke (FWD, £6m) also feels like a player FPL managers are unfairly down on given what he delivered last season. Bournemouth saw enough in the Chelsea academy graduate's 21 Liverpool appearances to shell out a reported £19m for him in 2019 and, despite a slow start on the South Coast, Solanke bagged an impressive 29 goals in last season's successful promotion campaign.
Solanke has all the physical attributes and pedigree to make a mockery of his £6m FPL price tag, and at 24 should be coming into his prime. Like Mitrovic, he is also expected to be on penalty duty this season - not always a reliable source of goals but something that needs to be factored in when assessing value.
Nottingham Forest's Brennan Johnson (FWD, £6m) might be the most talented of our newly promoted trio. A firecracker of a footballer with searing pace, the much-sought-after Welshman could set the Premier League alight next season.
FPL managers will have been disappointed to see him categorised as a Forward rather than a Midfielder, but a £6m price tag is tempting enough for a player who delivered 16 goals and 9 assists in the 2021/22 campaign. At this point it's probably worth reminding you that, in FPL terms, there's only a 1 point difference between goals and assists for forwards.
What's more, Johnson has the profile of a player who could 'train on' and improve substantially beyond even last season's high watermark. If he isn't in your team for Gameweek 1, keep an eye on his progress in the opening fixtures.
We asked Twitter which of Mitrovic, Solanke or Johnson was most likely to deliver FPL points in 2022/23. The results are in the link below.
Keep an eye on Taiwo Awoniyi’s (FWD, £6m)’s role at Forest in the early going too. He scored 15 goals for Union Berlin in the Bundesliga last season, although it’s not yet clear whether Cooper will use him as a ‘proper’ Number 9 or a foil for Johnson. If it’s the former, he will immediately become FPL relevant.
Midfielders
There are fewer make-the-leap candidates among the three promoted sides' respective midfields (particularly after Fabio Carvalho's (MID, £5.5m) switch to Liverpool), so we'll focus on the standout candidate - Fulham's flying Welshman Harry Wilson (MID, £6m).
The winger already has Premier League pedigree, scoring 7 and assisting another in just over 1,600 minutes of football on loan at Bournemouth in the 2019/20 season, accumulating 91 FPL points in the process. To give you a feel for how that compares, Jack Grealish (MID, £7m) scored 86 points in 1,910 minutes for Manchester City in 2021/22, while Philippe Coutinho (MID, £7m) delivered 83 points in 1,327 minutes for Aston Villa.
Wilson has improved since then and, alongside Mitrovic, was the central figure in Fulham's outrageously productive attack last season, scoring 11 goals and assisting an incredible 20.
Things will clearly be more challenging in the Premier League, but we believe the Welshman has both the talent and the opportunity to merit consideration in your FPL team from the get-go.
The next team-by-team analysis will be with you next week, focused on last season’s top six sides.
Until then.
Tom and Graham
Note: Jesse Lingard has just signed for Nottingham Forest. At the time of writing he didn’t have an FPL price - as soon as he does this article will be updated.
UPDATE: We promised an update once Jesse Lingard’s price dropped and we have it - £6m.
Whether that represents FPL value will depend on how quickly Lingard settles, the role he takes up and, crucially, how well Forest adapt to life in the Premier League.
The £6m and below midfield bracket is pretty stacked this year, with the likes of Arsenal’s Gabriel Martinelli (MID, £6m), Wolves’ Pedro Neto (MID, £5.5m) and Aston Villa’s Leon Bailey (MID, £5m) all offering strong potential upside at low cost.
However, none have delivered anywhere near the returns Lingard posted while on loan at West Ham in 2020/21, during which he scored 9, assisted 5 and produced roughly 6.6 points per 90 minutes played.
To give you an idea of just how good that is, Chelsea’s Mason Mount (MID, £8m) delivered 6.5 points per 90 minutes played last season, while Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha (MID, £7m) scored just under 5 points per 90 minutes.
However, there has to be a sizeable downgrade to reflect the fact Lingard is in a new team, figuring out a new system and in a squad that is less talent rich than West Ham’s.
This likely explains why most FPL managers are keeping the former Manchester United man on the watchlist for now, with 5.3% having selected Lingard at the time of writing.