Fantasy Premier League look to have shaken up its game format and pricing structure for 2022-23 as it seeks to build on the nine million-plus managers who took part last season.
For FPL to broaden its appeal and engagement throughout the season for the mass market, it has priced the most popular players kindly so that Premier League fans can own as many big names as possible.
Engagement is key to FPL’s success and this season looks to be more challenging than ever, with the Premier League season truncated by the World Cup in November and December.
The premium picks
In a break from the norm, most of the initial player price reveals saw players remain at the same price or decrease in value, with only 10 per cent getting a price hike.
We’ve seen a shift to cheaper pricing for goalkeepers this season, with Alisson, Ederson and Hugo Lloris setting you back £5.5 million — a decrease of £0.5 million from last season. The premium goalkeepers may still be a tough sell, as it uses up one of three places from Liverpool, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur.
Curiously, Edouard Mendy (£5.0m) dropped a full million in price and comes in cheaper than his premium counterparts, despite Chelsea keeping the same number of clean sheets as Tottenham Hotspur last season (16). Perhaps his price reflects the departure of centre-backs Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen in the transfer window.
Unless we see some significant activity in the transfer window, there will be fewer premium attackers this season than the last, with only eight players priced at £10.0 million or more — down from 11 last campaign.
Premium Players PlayerPriceMohamed Salah£13.0Kevin De Bruyne£12.0Son Heung-min£12.0Erling Haaland £11.5Harry Kane£11.5Cristiano Ronaldo£10.5Raheem Sterling £10.0
The 2021-22 Golden Boot winners Mohamed Salah (£13.0m) and Son Heung-min (£12.0m) both increase in price, with Son going up by £2 million. Son scored 23 goals and supplied 10 assists to claim 258 points, finishing in second place in the overall standings last year, seven points behind Salah.
Kevin De Bruyne (£12.0m) joins them in the midfield elite at the same price as last season.
Forwards Erling Haaland (£11.5m) and Harry Kane (£11.5m) are priced slightly cheaper than their midfield counterparts. Kane’s price drop comes as a slight surprise given that he was the highest-scoring forward in the game last season, but it was a position that generally struggled so something needed to happen to make forwards more attractive. Looking at the pricing, it may encourage managers to opt for Haaland over De Bruyne and Kane over Son.
Initial thoughts before the game went live were that managers would only be able to select two premium attackers from the three key teams with top fantasy assets (Liverpool, Spurs and Manchester City). However, it now seems viable to pick Salah, Haaland and Son in Gameweek 1 and still be able to afford a reasonably priced squad of players around them — more on that later this week.
It might not be possible to do that if picking premium defenders though, and again there’s plenty to think about in their pricing. Curiously, Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.5m) and Andrew Robertson (£7.0m) remain at the same price as last season, despite being some of the top performers in the game. Alexander-Arnold rose in price by £1.0 million last season and a move up to £8.0 million or higher would have been justified, but FPL clearly wanted to give managers the opportunity to own both Liverpool full-backs once again.
It’s a similar situation at Chelsea, where Reece James (£6.0m) and Ben Chilwell (£6.0m) avoided price hikes, despite James matching Alexander-Arnold and Robertson for attacking returns (14) in fewer minutes than the Liverpool duo, and Chilwell being the top “points per game” option of all the regular starters in 2021-22.
PlayerPriceTrent Alexander-Arnold£7.5Andrew Robertson£7.0Joao Cancelo£7.0Virgil Van Dijk£6.5Ben Chilwell£6.0Reece James £6.0Joel Matip£6.0Aymeric Laporte£6.0Ruben Dias£6.0
The key risers and fallers
Other players with a significant price rise this season include Jarrod Bowen (£8.5m), who rose by £2 million after excelling for West Ham and racking up 17 assists in FPL, and Dejan Kulusevski (£8.0m), Bukayo Saka (£8.0m), Eddie Nketiah (£8.0m) and Diogo Jota (£9.0m), who all increased by £1.5 million.
Biggest Price Rises PlayerPriceIncreaseHeung-Min Son£12.0£2.0Dejan Kulusevski£8.0£2.0Jarrod Bowen£8.5£2.0Diogo Jota £9.0£1.5Bukayo Saka£8.0£1.5Eddie Nketiah£7.0£1.5
There are some bargains around, though: Manchester United assets Marcus Rashford (£6.5m), Bruno Fernandes (£10.0m), Cristiano Ronaldo (£10.5m) and Jadon Sancho (£7.5m) were among the top price fallers. Although we will need to see a serious improvement on their performances of last campaign, they could provide real value if Erik ten Hag can get them working together in his system. And Ronaldo sounds like he might need some convincing to stay first anyway.
Other players who have fallen by £1.0 million include Raheem Sterling (£10.0m), Jamie Vardy (£9.5m), Riyad Mahrez (£8.0m), Pedro Neto (£5.5m) and Ricardo Pereira (£4.5m). These players now seem underpriced and should be firmly on your watchlist.
Selected Price Drops PlayerPrice DecreaseMarcus Rashford£6.5£3.0Bruno Fernandes £10.0£2.0Cristiano Ronaldo£10.5£2.0Jadon Sancho£7.5£2.0Harry Kane£11.5£1.0Raheem Sterling£10.0£1.0Jamie Vardy£9.5£1.0Riyad Mahrez£8.0£1.0Pedro Neto£5.5£1.0Edouard Mendy£5.0£1.0Ricardo Pereira£4.5£1.0
It seems as if the powers at FPL haven’t provided any tweaks to the forward position: many managers opted for more defensive formations last campaign, with no forward hitting 200 points and only two passing 150 points. We haven’t seen many decreases in price along our forward lines.
Diogo Jota (£9.0m), Kai Havertz (£8.0m) and Bryan Mbeumo (£6.0m) have all been reclassified from midfielder to forward having spent large points of last season as the false nine or in a front two pairing. Given that midfielders get one more point per goal and are eligible for a clean sheet bonus point, it’s likely fantasy managers will overlook Jota for the cheaper Luis Diaz (£8.0m) and Havertz for Mason Mount (£8.0m).
Player Reclassifications PlayerTeamPricePositionBryan MbeumoBRE£5.5mMID to FWDKai HavertzCHE£8.0mMID to FWDDiogo JotaLIV£9.0mMID to FWDAllan Saint-MaximinNEW£6.0mFWD to MIDHee-Chan HwangWOL£5.5mFWD to MIDRodrigoLEE£6.0mFWD to MIDSergi CanosBRE£5.0mMID to DEF
Expect to see plenty of FPL drafts this pre-season in a 4-5-1 or 5-4-1 formation, with two cheap £4.5 million strikers. Haaland is likely to be the lone striker for many fantasy squads, since he carries the appeal of being new to the Premier League and the game.
The World Cup
The World Cup presents a significant problem for those who run FPL: the game traditionally sees a big drop off in engagement following the early weeks of the season, when managers realise they’ve made poor choices in their Gameweek 1 squads and begin to fall behind in mini-leagues.
That problem was set to become even worse this season as the Premier League and FPL action breaks for six weeks for the tournament in Qatar. To mitigate this, Fantasy Premier League has announced that all managers will be awarded unlimited transfers.
“Unlimited free transfers can also be made between Sat, Nov 12, 13:30 and Mon, Dec 26 13:30 when the Premier League season has been adjusted to accommodate the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.”
The two half-season wildcards are in play too, with the first having to be activated before Gameweek 16, which comes before the World Cup break, and the second after Gameweek 17, which comes immediately after the break in proceedings. Effectively, managers have three occasions during the season in which to use unlimited transfers to permanently change up their fantasy squads.
Wildcard Timings WildcardFromTo Wildcard 1Sat 12 Nov 13:30Unlimited TransfersSat 12 Nov 13:30Mon 26 Dec 13:30Wildcard 2Mon 26 Dec 13:30
We could see fantasy managers engaged for longer with the opportunity to refresh their squads free of charge during the first 16 gameweeks and then again during the period immediately after the World Cup (before 1.30pm on December 26).
This change in the rules was the only significant alteration from previous iterations of the game. The website has had a fresh new look, though, and FPL has updated its security procedures, including the introduction of optional two-factor authentication for accounts on the Premier League website, to combat a spate of hackings during the last three seasons.
(Photo: Nick Taylor/Liverpool FC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
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