With Fantasy Premier League (FPL) live for 2024/25, we are welcoming back our team of Hall of Famers and guest writers for the new campaign. Here, FPL Family’s Sam discusses some Gameweek 1 dilemmas, including ‘coverage’ of Arsenal’s defence and Liverpool’s attack.

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We’re 10 days away from the start of the season. These are the 10 days where suddenly, I start to question everything.

• Am I sure that I want player A when I have had them in every draft to date?
• Is it really sensible to go without player B even though I ruled them out before the game was even live?
• Should my budget be distributed differently?

These and so many other questions run through my mind on a daily basis at the moment. I don’t think I am alone in this. Choosing your Gameweek 1 team feels so important. Not because you have to achieve a rank you love after Gameweek 1 but because if you make the wrong choices, you can be forced into early Wildcards to fix issues or points hits because players are rising in price etc.

As a ‘content creator’, I feel a level of pressure. There will be people who look at my team and want to copy it and others who want to rip it apart! You only have to read the comments on my first draft video on the Scout YouTube channel to see that…

FPL teams are very personal in the early weeks of the season. It will be different for every manager in terms of which players they are prepared to compromise on and who are their ‘essential’ picks.

Heading into the last pre-season friendlies and the all-important Community Shield, I have big decisions to make.

Premium goalkeeper?

My preferred strategy is usually to have two rotating £4.5m goalkeepers. For all of my early drafts, I have had a combination of Mark Flekken (£4.5m), Dean Henderson (£4.5m) and Robert Sanchez (£4.5m). However, with both Mohamed Salah (£12.5m) and Erling Haaland (£15.0m) in my team, I am struggling to afford two £6.0m defenders.

For me, owning Josko Gvardiol (£6.0m) and one of the Arsenal defenders feels, dare I say it, necessary. But I just can’t manage it without big compromises elsewhere. In my current draft, I have David Raya (£5.5m). Talking about coverage isn’t something I like to do but in this case, I will make an exception. William Saliba (£6.0m), Gabriel Magalhaes (£6.0m) and new signing Riccardo Calafiori (£6.0m) all come in at £0.5m more than the shot-stopper. Meanwhile, Ben White (£6.5m) is a full million more. The only defensive option from Arsenal who could potentially start at the same price point is Jurrien Timber (£5.5m).

Timber only started one match for Arsenal during the 2023/24 season. The opening day fixture against Nottingham Forest saw the defender head off with a knee complaint which was eventually revealed to be an ACL injury that required surgery and saw him miss the whole season. He did play 27 minutes of the final match of the season while in pre-season, he has played 170 minutes across three matches. Arsenal have two further friendlies remaining. The Dutchman has much to do to make his case in such a short space of time, so that feels way too risky a selection in FPL.

This means Raya is going to be my Arsenal defensive asset – even though I’ll be spending £0.5m more on goalies. Raya won the Golden Glove last season and I believe Arsenal will be the best defence in the league again this time. If I could, I would double up.

To go with Mo?

Both Salah and Haaland have had a nice break this summer, with neither playing international football. All pre-season, in each and every draft, Salah has been front and centre. The midfielder has registered one goal and two assists in 244 minutes across four friendlies in Liverpool’s friendlies so far. This has come off the back of what was a slightly disappointing season for the Egyptian, by his high standards, last year. Yet, Salah still picked up 211 FPL points. He scored 18 goals, returned 12 assists and banked 24 bonus points. Indeed, last season Salah returned an FPL point every 12.1 minutes. So why then question whether to own him?

Salah at £12.5m takes a significant chunk of the budget. Initially, there wasn’t another obvious choice from Liverpool outside of Salah, with so many of the Reds away on international duties. However, the last two matches of pre-season have seen the return of Diogo Jota (£7.5m). He has played 110 minutes since returning to Liverpool, picking up two assists. He’s probably in a pole position to start the season, with positional rivals yet to kick a ball under Arne Slot.

In a straight choice between Salah and Jota right now I would still plump for Salah. However, you have to consider the £5.0m difference in budget. That £5.0m means that owning the likes of Son Heung-min (£10.0m), Bukaya Saka (£10.0m) or even Ollie Watkins (£9.0m) is achievable. Being able to have another premium and still be invested in Liverpool is attractive, especially as I currently do not have an Arsenal attacker in my squad.

This is likely to come down to the wire. Liverpool have just one pre-season friendly left against Seville. Then it will be decision time. Currently, in my FFScout app planner, there are two drafts. One with Salah and one with Jota. That is probably the biggest decision I still need to make.

Obviously, if you can have Salah and Haaland that would be preferable. But it is important to consider other options if they make for a more balanced squad.

What about Watkins?

Watkins was great when needed for England at the Euros in the summer. Since the end of the tournament, he has been on holiday and got engaged. The forward is yet to rejoin the Villa squad and hasn’t featured at all in pre-season. However, Watkins is due to return to training with Villa this week and they still have two pre-season friendlies left to play on Wednesday and Saturday.

Watkins was phenomenal last season, registering more assists than any other Premier League player with 18. In addition to those assists, Watkins returned 19 goals – none of them penalties. His tally of 228 FPL points was only bettered by Cole Palmer (£10.5m) and Phil Foden (£9.5m).

His late return to Villa has meant that I haven’t owned Watkins in any drafts so far. However, at 52% owned (only Alexander Isak (£8.5m) has a bigger ownership), I am starting to get the fear of missing out. The decision on Salah is critical in terms of whether I can own Watkins or not but that doesn’t stop me overthinking how badly it could cost me not selecting him.

And unlike with Liverpool, who will be operating under a new boss, there are fewer unknowns with Watkins. He’ll be front and centre of the Villa attack, playing 90 minutes in most games (at least when he’s up to speed).

Which £4.5m defenders?

One of the other big decisions I will need to make is on the £4.5m defenders. There will be either two or three budget buys in my team. Making a call on which ones is going to be tough. There are so many attractive options in this bracket that there are genuinely five or six I would happily own.

This weirdly is one of the parts of my team that is taking up the majority of my time at the minute. There will no doubt be a consensus £4.5m defender to own and within the opening weeks of the season, they will show themselves. Hopefully, this will be one of the players that I am already on. But if not then at least there should be some flexibility to move sideways.

My policy will be to first choose my favourite £4.5m defender. Once I have that player locked in, then I will use the fixture ticker to find one or two others who rotate well with him. So for example, if Joachim Andersen (£4.5m) becomes my go-to guy then I’ll look for teams that rotate nicely with the Eagles.

In the Members Area, if we sort the fixture ticker by rotation with Palace, and only keep the teams with good rotation and £4.5m picks, we are left with the following:

Vitalii Mykolenko (£4.5m), Leif Davis (£4.5m) and Ezri Konza (£4.5m) could, therefore, come into the reckoning alongside Andersen. Picking out rotating £4.5m pairs may be critical this season, with many of us going cheap at the back.

Is over-thinking a thing in FPL?

I spend a lot of time drafting, tweaking, thinking and then drafting some more. A week on Friday I will make myself a promise that I will lock in my team on Thursday night and then not touch it again. However, undoubtedly on route to Fantasy Football Fest, I will be tinkering. Last season I was transferring out Harry Kane and switching between James Maddison (£7.5m) and Richarlison (£7.0m) until about 30 minutes before the deadline.

I actually don’t see overthinking about FPL as a bad thing, though. It means when I do settle on that final team I know it will have been planned out to the very best of my ability. I can have fewer regrets that way, knowing I’ve scrutinised every decision. Hopefully, that means a great start to Gameweek 1. But hey, the opening 10 Gameweeks of the season will see so much movement in rank. Don’t fret if you’ve got a seven-figure rank even after a month or two – gathering information and remaining flexible are the most important things in the embryonic stages of 2024/25.

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