It seemed Aston Villa were either incredibly good or relatively mediocre last season, making their best FPL players more explosive but inconsistent than most.
But with a string of high profile signings, including Philippe Coutinho (£7.0m) and Lucas Digne (£5.0m), Gerrard&#8217;s men are moving the right direction. This season, fans will expect them to consolidate their spending with a better league position than last season&#8217;s 14th.
You can find the <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/best-fantasy-premier-league-players/">best FPL players for all Premier League teams</a> in our definitive guide!
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<h2>The best Aston Villa FPL players: Philippe Coutinho (MID, £7.0m)</h2>
When Philippe Coutinho joined Villa in January, some saw it as the final stumble in a fall-from-grace that started around the time Liverpool sold him to Barcelona for £120m.
And then he started running the show.
The Brazilian scored 83 points in 1327 minutes after he returned to the Premier League in January. To provide some perspective, if he had played as many minutes as the next-highest scoring midfielder priced at £7.0m or lower (James Ward-Prowse, £6.5m), he would&#8217;ve been around 60 points clear of his tally.
Ward-Prowse had a decent FPL points-per-90 of 4.45. Coutinho&#8217;s was 5.62.
To put it another way, Coutinho scored an FPL point every 16 minutes on the pitch. If he&#8217;d had the chance to sustain that across 38 games, he&#8217;d have scored 214 points last season.
All this is to say, the lad can actually play football. Who would&#8217;ve thought?
At 20% owned, his talents are no secret, but if he can hit the ground running in the 22/23 season, expect that to double before long.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-47354" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-12.17.31-1024x800.jpg" alt="the best villa fpl players" width="1024" height="800" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-12.17.31-1024x800.jpg 1024w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-12.17.31-300x234.jpg 300w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-12.17.31-768x600.jpg 768w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-12.17.31-1536x1199.jpg 1536w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-12.17.31-610x476.jpg 610w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-12.17.31-1080x843.jpg 1080w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-12.17.31.jpg 1588w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
<h2>The best Aston Villa FPL players: Ollie Watkins (£7.5m)</h2>
When I sit down to write these articles, I start by looking at the <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/opta/">Hub&#8217;s OPTA stats tool</a>. The aim is simple: to try and find surprising outliers. Diamonds in the rough.
But in the case of Ollie Watkins, all of the attacking <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/opta/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="1" title="FPL Stats by OPTA - Player and Team Stats">stats</a> that matter are ridiculously superior to those of his colleagues. He isn&#8217;t an outlier: he&#8217;s a frontrunner, and he deserves your attention.
Last season he scored 11 goals and registered three assists. The season prior to that, he scored 14 goals and registered nine assists. He had significantly more xG (11.8) than anyone else on his team, took significantly more shots (77), had loads more big chances (17) and, most importantly, scored four more goals than the second-highest goalscorer at the club (Danny Ings, £7.0m, seven goals).
Is he the best forward in his price category? Probably not.
Is he the most important attacking outlet at a progressive, improving Villa side? Absolutely.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-47379" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-16.17.05-1024x579.jpg" alt="best aston villa fpl players" width="1024" height="579" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-16.17.05-1024x579.jpg 1024w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-16.17.05-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-16.17.05-768x434.jpg 768w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-16.17.05-1536x868.jpg 1536w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-16.17.05-2048x1157.jpg 2048w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-16.17.05-610x345.jpg 610w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-16.17.05-1080x610.jpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
<ul>
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<h2>The best Aston Villa FPL players: Lucas Digne (£5.0m)</h2>
Right, I know what you&#8217;re thinking, but hear me out.
Yes Matty Cash (£5.0m) is the more popular pick. Yes he outscored Lucas Digne last season. Yes, he had a better expected goal involvement than the Frenchman too.
But when you look at other <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/opta/">attacking stats</a>, it&#8217;s Digne&#8217;s name that keeps popping up above Cash&#8217;s.
He made more key passes (53) last season than anyone at Villa. He also had the second-most final-third passes behind John McGinn (£5.5m), created more big chances (4) than Cash (3) and had a higher xA than him too.
His appeal will doubtless have been bolstered by Villa&#8217;s defensive acquisitions, which include defensive midfielder Boubacar Kamara (£5.0m) and £30m centre-back, Diego Carlos (£5.0m). Steven Gerrard and the decision-makers at Villa have obviously identified their weaknesses, and these signings make a statement about their intent for next season.
For £5.0m, we&#8217;d want to see serious improvement in Villa&#8217;s defence (they conceded 54 goals last season, which was nearly as bad as Man United). They&#8217;ve got a good set of <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/fixture-ticker-old/">opening fixtures</a> to do exactly that, and I&#8217;m backing Digne over Cash to profit most significantly.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-47380" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-16.53.43-1024x567.jpg" alt="best villa players fpl" width="1024" height="567" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-16.53.43-1024x567.jpg 1024w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-16.53.43-300x166.jpg 300w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-16.53.43-768x425.jpg 768w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-16.53.43-1536x850.jpg 1536w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-16.53.43-2048x1133.jpg 2048w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-16.53.43-610x338.jpg 610w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-20-at-16.53.43-1080x598.jpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
<h2>Do you agree?</h2>
What are your thoughts? Comment on this article and let me know whether I&#8217;ve missed anyone. I&#8217;d love to hear who else from Aston Villa deserves to be on this list!
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