Our team of Hall of Famers and guest writers are writing about all things Fantasy Premier League (FPL) in 2023/24. Here, FPL Blackbox co-host Az uses statistics, fixtures and situational factors to decide between cheap midfielders Cole Palmer (£5.3m) and Anthony Gordon (£5.9m).

Heading into the festive period, there are a few questions we all need to ask ourselves. What is the best present for the wife/husband/significant other? What can we do with the 14 lbs of turkey left over from Christmas lunch? And which FPL midfielder under £6.0m will get the most points?

All three are very difficult to answer, with so many options out there. I can’t help much with the first two questions – I find present buying to be quite stressful and have resigned myself to eating turkey curry for a week – but I can try and help out with the third dilemma.

There are some decent options in the sub-£6.0m bracket. I chose to go with Simon Adingra (£5.0m) who, despite looking very flashy, has only registered one attacking return in his last five Gameweeks. Instead, my attention is drawn to two unlikely (at the start of the season) talismans: Anthony Gordon and Cole Palmer.

Both attackers have four attacking returns over the same Adingra spell and have seen substantial investment. Gordon began with just 34,000 owners in Gameweek 1, as Palmer had a minuscule 14,000. Yet they now both exceed one million FPL managers. Quite the bandwagons.

But who is the better pick?

Lateriser has already covered the pair as part of a wider analysis into sub-£6.0m midfielders but here, I run a direct head to head between Palmer and Gordon – and Chelsea and Newcastle – using Scout’s Comparison Tool.

UNDERLYING STATS