Fantrax: One forward to target in every round

Spoiler: it gets very thin, very fast...

The second of this series starts with an apology - for those that received Part 1 via email, I managed to cut off the end of the Zaha section. This was corrected online but I decided to not spam you all with an additional email version. If you are desperate to see what my second point was, the article can be found here. Now, on to Part 2:

It doesn’t take long looking at Mock Draft results on Twitter (#ratemydraft) to see that there are already patterns emerging amongst the draft community, and one of the really clear patterns that we are seeing this year is a real early run on Forwards. It’s not that there are any less Midfielders than Forwards and there are clear exceptions of spots where you’re better to take a Midfielder than a forward (looking at you Kevin). Now I tend to fall in line with this view, particularly as high-floor, lower variance forwards are a rare commodity in Fantrax. But that is not to say that there aren’t players available throughout your entire draft that can contribute in any round.

So in this article, I’m going to look at each round and suggest a player that is worth targeting within that round. For the purposes of this article, assume a 12 team, standard scoring league. If you have a different number of teams, or use different scoring settings, this could seem completely out of whack to what happens in your league. Also remember that every league is different, and particularly leagues with members that are not part of the Draft Community may draft totally differently to what you’d expect.

With that out of the way, one minor tweak from last time and we will start our tour of interesting players through rounds 1-15 (because 16 is for one position and one position only).

Round 1 - Mohamed Salah - ADP 3.47

Lets start off with the easiest one. If you want a forward in this round, you want Mo. I’ve talked at (probably overly indulgent) length about everyone in the top 30 of ADP in an earlier set of articles and am a strong believer that there’s a price for every player. With Mo, if you’re not pick 1, you are probably not going to be far wrong taking him if he’s on the board. There’s maybe even an argument for 1 overall (though don’t be that person). The man has had a top place Fantrax finish within the last few years and has all the ingredients in place to be able to repeat it, if he hits form in the next season. Draft Mo and don’t think twice.

Round 2 - Raul Jiminez - ADP 15.9

This one is tougher. On merit, Raul Jiminez’s 2019/20 season deserves him a spot in the top 12. Yet his ADP is 15 and there are examples of him falling all the way to the back end of the second round in some recent Twitter mocks. If expected more hyped arrivals such as James Rodriguez or Kai Havertz come to the league and the Mexican hitman further drops in ADP, he might be available at almost any pick in the second round. But particularly in the first half, there’s a lot of reason to like taking Raul. He’s consistent, he has a defined role and he no longer has European games as a distraction. He’s overtaken Traore as a target for me for the time being in standard scoring leagues, as Traore’s shoulder injury and uncertainty in role (might he return to wing back?).

Round 3 - Willian - ADP 31.58

I faded Willian hard last year, wanting very little to do with the Chelsea man. He may, in fact, have been the only Chelsea player last season I wasn’t targeting. I had let real fandom get in between my senses and rational drafting. And Willian put up points. A lot of them. Part of why I didn’t want much to do with Willian was that I thought Chelsea would go with a younger wing pairing of Pulisic and Hudson-Odoi. 50% isn’t bad (more on this later). Willian now moves to Arsenal and the pessimist says that he moves into a similar situation with younger players like Saka and Nketiah competing with Willian for time, as well as bigger names like Lacazette and Pepe. I’m ignoring it all. The Brazilian is one of the most consistent men in the league when it comes to injuries and conditioning and he produces at a top level. He’d be plug and play and is not particularly reliant on goals. I’d be happy to take him in Round 3 and in some mocks I have done, have picked up Willian as a FWD 3. That’s a great situation to be in.

Round 4 - Mason Greenwood - ADP 39.6

This one is a shameless swing for the fences on upside. Lets just take the counter-argument head on, he outscored his xG by 6 goals. That’s a similar raw number of over-performance as Aubameyang and he’s consistently drafted in the second round. But there is a major difference. Greenwood’s xG value was 3.7 and he scored 10 goals. He’s scoring 2.5 goals for every 1 that is expected. That is not even close to a sustainable xG over-performance unless Mason is something we’ve never seen the likes of in football. But here’s the thing. He also somewhat is something the likes of we’ve never really seen. He’s a 17 year old starting for Manchester United as a right winger and although he had fairly average non-goal numbers, he’s got every chance of taking another leap next year. Unless United sign Sancho or a similar right winger to take his spot, he’s a lottery ticket with an exceptionally high ceiling. You just have to construct a roster that can deal with his potential low floor weeks. If you’ve ended up in Round 4 without a Forward 1, you don’t take Greenwood. But if you’ve got a good solid Forward already and then want to look for someone with high-upside to complement your budding roster, I like Mason. (Yes, I might then find myself watching FlightRadar 24/7 to make sure no private flights leave from Dortmund to Manchester but it’s the price that we pay)…

Round 5 - Nicolas Pepe - ADP 43.83

In my midfielders article, I made note that Round 5 is where I seem to always take a mid. There’s a reason. The two strikers that fall into this range are Aleksandar Mitrovic and Nicolas Pepe. So know that I’ve selected Pepe here, but I don’t love it at all. It’s not that there’s not a tonne of potential in Pepe. And it’s not like he’s not seemingly moving closer to Arteta’s favour. Whatever you think about the transfer fee, or the production last year, there are signs of a real player here and if I’m paying a price of a 5th Round pick, I’m going to want either really solid proven production or the chance to outperform the spot. Pepe is a case for the latter. I’m not sure I could comfortably make a case for Mitrovic for either…

Round 6 - Dominic Calvert-Lewin - ADP 63.87

I lost a bet on Dominic last season. At the start of the year, a member of my home league declared that Calvert-Lewin would reach 20 goals. Sensing opportunity, and knowing that despite decent all-round play, Dom had not distinguished himself as a particularly good goal-scorer, I was willing to make a wager at 10 goals. That was an error. Ancelotti clearly inspired the young Englishman and got a level of performance out of him that both made him a viable Fantrax forward and cost me a round of drinks. He’s viable again this year, if not more so. Everton were not a good real football team for large portions of last year. They’ve now got a great manager and they’re spending this Summer on a number of (admittedly somewhat old) good midfielders. A repeat performance wouldn’t be a surprise for Dom, and I’m high on both him and Richarlison in this Everton set up (barring any more Forward transfers). He probably still won’t hit that 20 goal marker but I’m definitely not betting against 10 again this year.

Round 7 - Chris Wood - ADP 87.28

A reach based on ADP. And not a particularly sexy one. But not every pick has to be a sexy one. The version of Chris Wood that is lining up for Burnley is probably still not someone you feel good about starting every week. Yet still, for the goals he gets (and his really solid 0.51 npxG + xA) he’s pretty great value here. He started 29 times last year, so you know that more likely than not, Wood is available to you to start. And in the right matchups, he’s pretty likely to score. These are the sorts of players you want in your squad as a Forward 4 because although you’re still not going to feel good if you have to start him for an extended period of time, on a week to week basis, he can come in and help you to beat an opponent. Take a look at the ADP rankings and the players around him. How many of them can you say will likely both be starting and be a threat to get goals for your team?

*Strategy Note* At this point, I tend to start looking for different things from my Forwards. The every week star names are long gone and what I tend to target are players who have real positives going for them but that perhaps need a thing or two to go their way or players that are useful for roster building (players who will get good minutes and with solid floors).

Round 8 (A) - Sebastien Haller - ADP 88.3

I can imagine some of you are looking at this one with raised eyebrows. Antonio was just one of the best players of the post-restart playing in Haller’s spot. But here’s the thing… Antonio has played at forward before for West Ham. He has flattered to deceive before and not held a spot. Haller is a good footballer, with a great profile for Fantrax. If you’re making this pick, you know there’s a chance you’ve jettisoned all hope of it being a significant contribution to your season by November. But at the same time, if West Ham turn to this man, he’s giving you a solid PPG and could well build on his first season. Not to mention, the draft community are pretty high on a lot of West Ham assets. If Bowen, Soucek, Lanzini or any of the others are going to deliver on their ADPs, there’s going to have to be goals to go around. A round 8 pick that could return 3rd or 4th round value is not something to be sniffed at. If you’ve chosen to go for Midfielders or Defenders in any of the rounds ahead of this, you could pick up a middling forward that plays every week but chances are that that isn’t going to put you into the title challenger tier. If Antonio doesn’t settle as the striker and Haller does, he might. An early time to gamble, and an expensive ticket, but this is a reflection of the forward position and how quickly it turns from gold to something a little browner…

Round 8 (B) - Tammy Abraham - ADP 89.15

A sneaky extra Round 8 pick… and yes, I know what you’re thinking. This is really expensive for a man that just got replaced by a star signing (who just scored 4 minutes into his first start). But lets look at the fact that Tammy had an injury disrupted first season as Chelsea’s talisman, he had issues at various times with form and he struggled to hold his starting spot post-restart. Have I put you off yet? Let’s try the reverse of the story. This is a man with a great attitude, who is willing to put in work and would be worth starting any week he does play, given his xG return is very healthy compared with some of the league’s best forwards. Yes, he needs to add polish to his game at times but that comes with experience. In what’s likely to be a rotation heavy season, with a much improved supporting cast, I’d happily have shares of Tammy. And if Werner was to miss any time, or spend any time playing from the wing, I’d start him with confidence. The only real wrinkle for Tammy is that Olivier Giroud is still hanging around the squad, but the whole dynamic of the Chelsea attack is likely to be very different next season. Giroud is still a very good player (and if he had made a move to a club like Villa last season as was rumoured, I’d probably be writing this article saying how he’s a man you want shares of in every draft) but whereas his ceiling is somewhat settled, Tammy feels as though he’s got room to grow. I particularly like this pick here if you’ve gone for one of the premium Chelsea assets earlier (looking at you Timo).

Round 9 - Jordan Ayew - ADP 108.61

Ayew is right at the end of this round. But his only real competition in this spot is Steven Bergwijn and Patrick Bamford. And whilst Bergwijn looks like a decent player, his opportunity is limited by being at Spurs and in a rotation with a whole lot of other players, playing for a manager that doesn’t love rotation. So what of Ayew? He put up over 3,000 minutes playing for Palace last year and in an attacking group that were far more a whimper than a bang, he still got some fairly serviceable numbers, particularly for someone available so late. Sometimes your team needs steady workhorses to support the mercurial names you’ve hopefully picked up earlier on in the draft and Ayew last season was one such man. 8.31 PPG (standard scoring) was ok. Not great. And he did have to outperform his xG to get to that number. But he has a really nice profile of points, with only 26% of them associated with goals scored. The big risk with Ayew is that human heading machine Christian Benteke is somehow undroppable and that new signing Eze steals his place. So do monitor this as the season gets closer, but if he’s starting and the team have additional creativity injected with some of their additions, he should at least repeat on last season and may well be able to get that PPG up even further.

Round 10 - Oli McBurnie - ADP 122.78

McBurnie is a bit of a draft community crush. He’s got plenty of admirers and it’s fairly easy to see why. He isn’t totally goal-shy in the way of a David McGoldrick (though he did get a respectable 6 goals (from an npxG of 8.3) but he offers a great profile of seemingly repeatable points, with lots of his output being tied to his 187 aerial duels won. There’s definitely a part of me that wonders why we score aerials quite as highly as we do, in most Fantrax leagues. But that’s an argument for another time. If your league uses the standard scoring, Oli will be getting headers and he’ll be racking up points. You’re certainly not going to be wanting to start him unless you absolutely have to. But if you do find yourself having to, you could do worse than Oli.

*Strategy Note 2* This is where things get speculative. There are very few startable or even roster-able forwards that you’re going to find after Round 11. So instead of picking up a Joelinton, who will never start, has very little chance to deliver a good scoring week and an even lower chance of being in your starting lineup if he does, from this point on I would tend to target upside heavily. I would try to avoid taking too many of these though, and might only take one or two of the names I list below. Too many of them on your bench and you only achieve two things:

1. You show your hand to the league around who you might favour in waivers if the players drop.

2. You might end up holding them far longer than you should, because you’re chasing upside and have weeks where you struggle to field a full team.

Round 11 - Che Adams - ADP 127.6

Southampton seem to be everyone’s tip for delivering great per player value and the caution I will give with making any Southampton recommendation is that they do still only have 11 spots on the field each week. That is very relevant when seeing Ings, Redmond, Armstrong, James Ward-Prowse all going fairly high and then players like Djenepo, Adams and co being seen as sleepers with breakout potential. They almost certainly can’t all hit. That said, there are a few reasons to be optimistic when it comes to Che. He started off slowly in the league (like most of his teammates, it’s fair to say), not returning too much value for his 7 straight starts. And it was really not until post-restart that Che really hit something resembling a stride. In particular, the Manchester City and Sheffield United games offered Che a chance to start and to show that he belonged at the Premier League level. He responded with 3 goals. Now it’s fair to say that the Manchester City goal probably isn’t the most repeatable thing that he’s ever done. But nonetheless, it was the sign of a man who has not had his confidence dampened by his first year in the top flight. I expect him to get opportunities to make a claim for a starting spot and if he gets it, he’s in a great place to produce, surrounded by players with good fantasy value.

Round 12 - Callum Hudson-Odoi - ADP 133.51

This one’s a quick hit. If he’s at Chelsea, he needs an injury to one or more of the stars ahead of him to be relevant. But here’s the thing… Callum is one of the most promising young English players in the league and Chelsea will know the importance of game-time for the wingers development, particularly as he’ll be expected to have recovered more completely from the injury that cost him his explosiveness for most of last season. So, like Loftus-Cheek before him, he could be an option to be loaned out. If he was to end up at a Premier League club where he’s starting more than 50% of the time, you want a piece of him as he’s got the potential to return a lot of value. It’s also very possible that at least for the first couple of games, Callum might get to start at Chelsea as new signings are still trickling in / getting familiar with their new surroundings and with Ziyech having picked up a minor knock in Chelsea’s first pre-season game. Especially looking at the Brighton fixture, Callum could be a good one week spot start. You’re not taking him round 12 just for the chance at a one week start, but it is a nice bonus.

Round 13 - Kelechi Iheanacho - ADP 154.11

Kelechi is probably going undrafted in most leagues (as will probably all of the names below him in this article). But remember that that is a reflection of opportunity, not of production. Kelechi’s got great underlying stats (and yes, I know that he’s benefiting from sub production) but he’s been a stats darling since his Man City days. He’s also the clear cut number two striker behind a man that turns 34 this season and doesn’t get a lot of rest. The argument for Kelechi is one of “why not?”. If you can afford to hold him, he’ll play the occasional game, get some goals but has the potential to elevate into a very startable forward if any injury to Vardy was to happen. I like Kelechi and would probably look to get some shares in him in most leagues as a bench stash. He also did start 12 times last year, so it’s not like he doesn’t have any value without something changing ahead of him in the selection ranks.

Round 14 - Wesley - ADP 296.79

I don’t really want anything to do with Wesley. But the reason he makes this list is that right now, he is still Aston Villa’s main striker. This is probably going to change (surely Dean Smith can’t have been happy with what he saw from the depth behind Wesley post-restart). And though you might not think it, from looking at their goals for column, being the striker for Villa means you’re getting chances made for you. We all know the stats about Jack Grealish and all his key passes. If Grealish is going to maintain and deliver on his status as a round 2 level player then someone is going to have to at least occasionally put the ball in the net for Villa. Matty Cash also just signed and profiles as an improvement at the right wing back position which is an additional supply line. So although I’d be drafting for the position, not the player, as things currently stand, this wouldn’t be an indefensible pick.

Round 15 - Takumi Minamino - ADP 334.25

Is this one crazy? Probably. Klopp didn’t show much intention of rotating out his front three very often last year. Nor has Minamino particularly set the world alight in his small sample size so far… But he hasn’t looked bad either. And when you’re going into a disrupted season, just an injury away from starting for one of the league’s premium attacking lineups, that’s got to be worth something, right? He has a bit of preseason hype building under him, so if your league has any Liverpool fans in it, you might find they’ve already taken their speculative punt at him before this. I certainly don’t recommend that, as you might be able to find value at other positions (particularly defence) anywhere in or before this round. But if you’ve got a roster you’re happy with and lots of regular starting players, this is a fun dart to throw.

And that’s it for our tour of forwards. This one is the hardest position for me, particularly in the late rounds. I would almost certainly do everything I could to get at least 3 Forwards by round 7. If you don’t have that solid base, you probably can’t go after many of my late round dart throws and you’ll find yourself in the unenviable position of trawling for a 7 PPG player that you can throw in as your Forward 3. There probably will be bargains to be had, I know John Wallin (Fantasy Gaffer) is a big Lys Mousset man, for example, but I’m personally not sold.

Let me know either in the comments or on Twitter who you are targeting in each round and don’t forget to subscribe to make sure that you’re getting all of this into your inbox every time! Keep an eye out for the final article in this series (Defenders) later this week!