New Hub contributor Jon aka @FPLBrain has been playing FPL seriously for 3 years – 16k OR in 19/20, 28k in 18/19, 224k in 17/18. 2x Fantasy Telegraph top 500 prior to that. He wrote ‘The Universal Guide to FPL‘ to help beginners hit the ground running and others to improve their skills. Jon has played and followed football for 30 years.

Potential Breakout Players

Introduction

In this article I’m going to take a look into last year’s numbers to try and find some players who have the potential to make a big leap in 20/21 – preferably for bargain prices.

When we’re trawling through the player list and trying to decide who to include in our shiny new squads, we may find a small handful of players we consider substantially under-priced – Trent Alexander-Arnold considered to be the poster child for that this year – with those finding their way into the vast majority of competitive teams and being made (unfortunately) largely irrelevant in the process.

Those players aside, most players feel roughly accurately priced, or even overpriced, and as such are not hugely appealing. However, if we cut to the end of a season and look back, it’s a very different story. Life (including football) is inherently unpredictable, and as a result there will be players who emerge and make a mockery of their middling prices by putting up superb returns. We know this because it happens every year, we just don’t know who!

Examples from last season include (of course) John Lundstram (£4.0m starting price, 144 pts, an insane 36 pts per million(PPM)), Jack Grealish (£6.0m, 149 pts, 24.8 PPM), Adama Traore (£5.0m, 130 pts, 26.0 PPM), Mason Greenwood (£4.5m, 103 pts, 22.9 PPM in just 1303 mins), Anthony Martial (£7.5m, 200 pts, 26.7 PPM), Danny Ings (£6.0m, 198 pts, 33 PPM!), Raul Jimenez (£7.5m, 194 pts, 25.9 PPM), George Baldock (£4.5m, 142 pts, 31.6 PPM), and so on and so forth.

There is no set formula for finding these breakout FPL stars ahead of time but we can certainly hypothesise a little and try and at least be casting our nets in the right waters at least. Some of the ways we can find under-priced players include:

Out-of-position players due to a position shift or FPL misclassification (e.g. Martial, Lundstram)
Players who have performed well in low minutes and could be in line for more (e.g. Traore)
Young players who are quickly improving (e.g. Greenwood, Grealish)
Players whose teams perform better than expected, giving them a boost (e.g. Jimenez, Baldock)

My Process

That would be a lot to cover in a single article, but what I’m going to look at here are three of the above criteria that can often occur in combination – players who already returned quite well in low minutes, are still young (and so could be rapidly improving), and could be given substantially more playing time as a result. Part of the logic here is that we are much more likely to have a positive result with three bets if those bets are interconnected.

Okay, on with the hunt – here is our process laid out in simple steps:

Filter for players who played over 500 minutes & posted at least 4 points/90 mins as a first cut
Filter down to players currently under 25 with a maximum 20/21 price of 7.5m
Narrow down our shortlist to players we think have a realistic shot at bigger minutes
Consider those players’ potential for improvement, taking into consideration various underlying numbers from last season
Highlight and rank the most compelling potential breakout players
Project their potential scores based on last season’s pts/90, 5-10% improvement in output and 75 minutes per game (solid starter type minutes)

Let us begin

After stage 1 and 2 we have a shortlist of 40 players, as follows:

Narrowing down…

Next I need to apply a subjective filter – so you might disagree with me on some decisions here – I’m going to narrow our list down to some players that I believe have a reasonable shot at playing significantly larger role for their team next season.

15 players emerge as being of most interest with respect to encouraging prior performance in lower minutes, combined with the potential to improve and to play a bigger role in the 20/21 season:

Narrowed down shortlist

I will now take a closer look at each – factoring in their xG, xA and xGI stats in particular – to get a sense of how sustainable the strong points/90 numbers from last season may be.

Firstly, we can probably discard the following three players:

Pedro Neto – Had to outperform xG strongly to produce his strong points/90 figures, and faces robust competition from Diogo Jota, Daniel Podence and now Fabio Silva.

Matty Longstaff – Small sample concerns as the minutes were very low, and he greatly outperformed his xG so this looks a little fluky. He is certainly a promising young player though.

Steven Bergwijn – Promising points/90 depended on massively outperforming his xG in low minutes, and is competing with a lot of good players for midfield minutes at Tottenham.

This leaves us with a dozen prospects. Five of these players have a relatively balanced mixture of pros and cons and hence what I consider to be a moderate outlook (relative to their price, everything always relative to price), and seven players really jump out as being exciting potential opportunities.

The Inbetweeners

Players who we should keep an eye out for in the future, but who I don’t think are going to make a leap in the coming season:

Lys Mousset – Mousset struggles to play big minutes in games, already has some competition and Sheff Utd seem to be in the market for another forward. But his per 90 numbers are very promising.

Moise Kean – Badly underperformed his (impressive) xG/90 and xA/90 figures. Still just 20 years old and considered to have huge potential, but I believe he’s unlikely to get enough playing time.

Ismaïla Sarr – Was expected to see strong interest from teams after Watford’s relegation, but as yet nothing has materialised. Solid underlying numbers despite playing for a struggling side.

Ruben Vinagre – Very unclear picture, with Wolves apparently in for the very highly rated Alex Telles, and Vinagre linked with a move away. If he were the starter he’d be a huge bargain at just 4.5m.

Aaron Connolly – Looks to be behind Neil Maupay and the possibly out-of-position Leandro Trossard in the pecking order to play up front for Brighton, but certainly there are promising signs here.

The Super Seven

This leaves us with our super seven! In this case I’ve ranked them according to my own judgement of their breakout prospects for 20/21, factoring in their likelihood of playing a major role for their teams, and a combination of last year’s actual and underlying numbers:

Phil Foden – We don’t even need any points/90 improvement here (and Foden was already 25% over his xG and xA so I wouldn’t want to apply any) – all ‘the Stockport Iniesta’ needs is for Pep Guardiola to put him on the pitch. If Foden could play anything close to 75 mins per game, then he has the potential to approach 200 points on the season for the relative pittance of 6.5m.
Che Adams – There’s so much to like here – Adams should improve on a poor finishing year, has extremely strong underlying numbers when on the pitch, is almost certainly in line for more minutes, came in at the very affordable price of 6m and plays an improving Southampton team. He faces some competition from Shane Long and Michael Obafemi, but those names don’t hugely worry me. Adams is potentially a huge bargain.
Allain Saint-Maximin – Badly underperformed his xG figures last year and still produced solid per-minute returns. If he can convert opportunities at a better clip and stay healthy (he will certainly play big minutes if so) then the upside here is very attractive for the 5.5m price tag. The main drawback here is Newcastle (and I say that as a fan), but the additions of Fraser and Wilson help.
Mason Greenwood – The advantageous position change could help Greenwood make a second consecutive leap this season, however this is partly offset by his enormous, unsustainable outperformance of xG in 19/20. If Jadon Sancho doesn’t join (if he does that’s a major impediment) and Mason gets close to 75 mins/game, there’s actually the potential for a 200-point season here.
Harvey Barnes – Barnes posted fairly impressive xG/90 numbers, which he underperformed, and surely still has plenty of improvement in him at just 22. I think he’s sure to play more minutes this season given his promise and value, it’s just a question of how many more. A lot will depend on what formation Brendan Rodgers decides to go with, but the talent is absolutely there.
Jarrod Bowen – Strong xGI/90 numbers but badly performed the xG side of that and his shot selection is considered to be a bit of a weakness. Should play a lot more minutes in his second season for West Ham United and there’s serious upside here if he can be more clinical.
Kelechi Iheanacho – If Iheanacho ever approaches 75 mins/game for Leicester then he would approach must-own territory very quickly. Extremely high xG and xA/90 numbers (not just last season but also prior), still only 23 and with the potential to develop into a high-end player in either the number nine or ten roles.

Lofty Projections

And just for fun – please apply a hefty pinch of salt – here’s a table which shows the points these players would post if everything falls into place perfectly. That is, if they carried over their 19/20 points/90 figures into the 20/21 season and played a chunky 2850 minutes (75 mins of every game), along with added projections factoring in 5% and 10% improvements:

Lofty Projections

I want to be absolutely clear that I’m not at all suggesting these players will hit these numbers – or even come close in most cases – but these are the absolute best case scenario projections based upon prior production combined with big minutes and some improvement (in the case of the 5% and 10% sections) in output. They are more of an indication of these player’s powerful return potential when when on the pitch for any sustained period of time.

Conclusion

I hope this article has been helpful. With respect to my own team, it has firmed up my interest in Foden, Adams and Saint-Maximin in particular, while bringing Barnes and Bowen onto my radar. Greenwood’s prospects depend so heavily on whether Sancho signs and we won’t know that until the transfer deadline which is around Gameweek 4 or 5. Iheanacho I would be very interested in if Vardy was injured or if Rodgers came out and said he was going to be the first choice number ten for Leicester this season, but that’s unlikely to happen.

I am almost certainly going to start with Adams, possibly Saint-Maximin also, and will most likely be looking to bring Foden by Gameweek 3 or 4. Good luck with your own squad selections and I wish everyone a strong 20/21 season!

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Potential Breakout Players

Introduction

My Process

Let us begin

Narrowing down…

The Inbetweeners

The Super Seven

Lofty Projections

Conclusion

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