The most eye-catching Premier League transfer of the summer so far has seen Alexis Mac Allister swap the south coast for Merseyside, joining Liverpool for an undisclosed fee – reportedly a bargain £35m.
The World Cup winner has signed a long-term deal with the Reds, leaving Brighton and Hove Albion after four and a half years.
The 24-year-old Mac Allister was a key Fantasy target in 2022/23 but does a move to Liverpool boost or damage his appeal in FPL?
We take a look in this Moving Target piece, where we have included data and images taken from our Premium Members Area.
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MAC ALLISTER’S FPL HISTORY
| Season | Team | Starts (sub apps) | Mins | Goals | Assists | Bonus | FPL points |
| 2022/23 | Brighton | 31 (4) | 2,882 | 10 | 2 | 18 | 140 |
| 2021/22 | Brighton | 22 (11) | 2,112 | 5 | 2 | 8 | 93 |
| 2020/21 | Brighton | 13 (8) | 1,108 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 48 |
| 2019/20 | Brighton | 4 (5) | 348 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 |
Mac Allister progressed through the Argentinos Juniors’ academy set-up before making his senior debut in October 2016 at the age of 17, going on to play a part in 23 league games in his breakthrough campaign.
Catching the eye of Brighton’s now-lauded scouting network, he was only just out of his teens when the Seagulls snapped him up in January 2019 – the midfielder was promptly loaned back to his motherland for stints with old club Argentinos Juniors and then Boca Juniors.
He was a full Argentina international by the time he made his Brighton debut in March 2020 and it wasn’t really until Boxing Day 2021 that Mac Allister became a regular under Graham Potter, going on to start 20 of Albion’s final 22 league fixtures.
2022/23 was the year in which the young prospect became a fully-fledged star, with 10 league goals arriving domestically (more on that below) and a World Cup winners’ medal pocketed in December.
Mac Allister has started at £5.5m in each of his four seasons in FPL so far; he’ll surely be in the £6.0m-£7.0m bracket when the game relaunches for 2023/24.
IN QUOTES
“Well, I’ve played almost in every position! And I think the managers who worked with me know that I can do it everywhere if they need me.
“As a player, I’m a player who tries to play as simple as possible, I try to help my teammates defensively or attacking. That’s the most important thing and I’m a team player and I will try to bring that to this club.” – Alexis Mac Allister
“We are adding a very talented, very smart, very technically skilled boy to our squad and this is super news, really it is.
“I do not think the football world needs me to say too much about Alexis’ qualities because they are already pretty well known but it is clear that he is someone who can play in a number of positions in the midfield and is an all-rounder, I would say. He is calm and composed and someone with proper game intelligence.” – Jurgen Klopp
NO PENALTIES…?
Mac Allister’s total of 10 Premier League goals in 2022/23 was an excellent return for a £5.5m midfielder but six of them were penalties.
Two of his five goals in 2021/22 had similarly arrived from 12 yards.
Will he get the opportunity to step up to the spot for his new club?
It doesn’t look likely: Jurgen Klopp had ample reason to depose Mohamed Salah from first-choice taker after successive penalty misses in the spring but kept faith with the Egyptian, who subsequently scored two spot-kicks in Double Gameweek 34.
“Obviously he wanted to stay the penalty taker but we had a normal conversation about it.
“This today was a super penalty, that is really clear, so I think with all the goals Mo scored we cannot just judge it with two missed, to go away from it.
“It was a conversation between two grown-up men.” – Jurgen Klopp on Mohamed Salah after Gameweek 34 of 2022/23
Other players with excellent records from 12 yards, such as Fabinho (24 goals from 25 penalties), have arrived at the club in the past without managing to topple Salah in the pecking order.
…OR SET PLAYS?
One of Mac Allister’s four non-penalty goals in 2022/23 was a direct free-kick.
He was first in line for free-kick shooting opportunities at Brighton, taking eight in total; no other Seagull attempted more than one.
Again, he now faces the prospect of having to muscle past Trent Alexander-Arnold and Salah in order to have a say at dead-ball situations.
The good news, if you can call it that, is that very little of his assist potential at Brighton relied on set plays: he took only 5% of the Seagulls’ corners in 2022/23.
Above: over 95% of Mac Allister’s expected assists (xA) stemmed from open play in 2022/23
GOAL THREAT: THE IMPORTANCE OF STARTING POSITION
Above: Alexis Mac Allister’s attacking stats as a deeper midfielder in Gameweeks 1-21 (left) and as a number 10 in Gameweeks 23-30 (right). Most figures provided are per game.
Speaking of open-play threat, we saw what playing further forward did to Mac Allister’s underlying attacking numbers in the season just gone.
Having played as a deeper central midfielder up until the end of January, the Argentina playmaker was reinvented as a number 10 (a position he has occupied for his country) from Gameweek 23 onwards.
All of a sudden, he was front and centre of Brighton’s attacks.
Mac Allister had recorded just five shots in the box in Gameweeks 1-21; he bettered that in one single match in Gameweek 23, having six such efforts against Crystal Palace.
Big chances, xG, penalty area touches – you name it, it improved.
Just a note: we’ve stopped at Gameweek 30 in the above comparison as the chaotic final eight Gameweeks saw Mac Allister move back and forth from ‘CM’ to ‘AM’ with regularity during games as well as between them.