Rate my team 22/23

Could be Podence as CF? They've a couple of friendlies this weekend so that might shed some light.

They're a team who want to break their way back into the top 6. They weren't even giving him the Conference League games last season so he was a clear backup there and not someone they were grooming to take over from Schmeichel. Extremely unlikely they're letting Schmeichel go without bringing in someone they consider to be at the same level or better.

Possible, they are not exactly acting like a team who want to break back into top 6 though, only club to not sign anyone yet (granted its only late July, but still!). We will see what happens, would not be one bit surprised if Ward is number 1.

I'm seriously thinking about taking TAA out of my team and putting Robertson in. By doing this it frees up enough funds to go from Bailey to Sancho.

Robertson was 20 points behind TAA last season but he had a lot of changes in front of him with Jota, Mane and Diaz all getting long runs in the LW position. I think he'll be a lot closer to TAA points wise this season.

Only issue is the high TAA ownership.

Where else are you going to get almost guaranteed ballpark 200 points (plus or minus a few) for 7.5? If you think Robertson is going to score similarly at 7.0 stick them both in.

I would almost guarantee that some of the players you're looking to spend money on by sacrificing TAA are higher priced guys who probably haven't achieved/don't likely project to hit the 200 mark.

Funny enough in my latest draft I’ve just doubled up on TAA and Robbo. It’s means I have Salah in midfield instead of Diaz. My reasons being that Diaz maybe has a rotation risk and he’s still new enough to the Pl. Do we know if he’s really explosive? His price is fantastic mind you. With Robbo, we know what we’re gonna get with him plus he ended the season so well. With Jimi injured it also means I can switch Diaz to Neto, to allow Robbo. Think I’ll stick with that.

I did have Barnes in for Grealish, i think grealish will get more time this year. Nunez is a risk granted but im gonna gamble. I plan on playing Hendo a bit yeah. Same with Lingard but ill take a chance and hope forest hit the ground running.

When you compare TAA with VVD, there isn't that much in their returns when both play full seasons, is TAA worth the 1m more? Is he worth the 0.5m more than Cancelo? Is he worth 1.5m more than James?

Comparing him to other more expensive players proves your point, however comparing him to cheaper options, and what they have returned would imply that he's not priced correctly - for example, is he worth 2m more than Allison - last season he scored 36 points more than him, would you consider this worth 2m? For all his hype TAA doesn't score many goals, and when you compare him to James, or indeed Chilwell/Alonso - if they had a full season of no injuries chances are they would be a lot higher in terms of their points.

You could have TAA and Nico Williams for 11.5m or you could have James and Walker for 11m +0.5m spare - whose going to return more over the course of the season?

Trent will because the other 2 won’t play as much due to injury & rotations

There was 25 points between them last season and 32 points between them the season they played together and won the league. Trent played 2 less games than Van Dijk last season (so you can add whatever sub points you'd get to that 25 points).

You're telling me that you think the player who projects to get approx 30 points more than the other guy isn't comfortably worth a million more? Cancelo has one season scoring in the same stratosphere as TAA. Yes I think TAA is worth 0.5 million more. Reece James' highest scoring season is 141 points (TAA outscored that highest score by 44 points in his debut season) so yes I believe TAA is a significantly safer bet than Reece James who sometimes plays as RCB in a three.

Trent is probably the only defender in the game who you can pretty much say is going to be give or take 200 points (Robbo is pretty close to that too). You pay 10+ million for guys like that in other positions (which makes sense given the pricing structures), so you absolutely cannot be refusing the same at 7.5 for a defender when its offered.

Comparisons to Alisson don't work because the position is priced differently. In the same way that TAA outscores Kane last season but still definitely could not be priced similarly to Kane because the positions are priced completely differently from top to bottom.

This was touted all the time last season and never happened

Having said that I wouldn't be taking TAA out for Robbo, ever

I would go Robbo + Neto/Bailey

The only issue I'd have with your team is there is nowhere to go if your formation doesn't work out, say Sancho and Maddison go mental, its major surgery or probably the WC to get there

That Toney striker spot is tough. I had him and moved off because I needed 1m but I could also justify it that their good run doesn't really start until GW3. The Ronaldo situation could change everything but I wouldn't be adverse to Martial.

The 4.5m goalie is tough too. Hub says Sanchez and Guaita are the best two. I'm currently on Pickford and Meslier

Whether you play Nico or have him on your bench is your choice, however in terms of comparing what you can get for your money on returns, I would go for James/Walker +0.5m over TAA and Nico.

For all the talk of 200 points, TAA has only got over 200 points twice. Will he get it this time, who knows, but GW1 is probably the only GW were you can judge whether or not it's the right move having him as it's the only time in the season that everyone's team is worth the same, so if say TAA gets 18 points in his first game, and you end up on 92 points and someone who doesn't have TAA ends up on 97 - can you say you were right about TAA even though if money spent differently you could potentially get different points?

As another poster pointed out, Robbo significantly outscored TAA in the backend of last season, TAA is a streaky player - two seasons in a row, he scores the majority of his points in burst of 5/6 games and then the fanboys say he's all this, whereas he usually goes "quiet" for the rest of season . Look back on when he was dropped from England Squad 2 years ago - think he went 5/6 games of getting double digit scores.

The main reason i see so many going with TAA from the start is down to his ownership - if he was at 30% I doubt so many one jump on board, but there is this fear of missing out - despite his price tag - he's only 4th in the list of most selected, despite being cheaper than the top 3 - does that make sense?

TAA is a genuine captaincy option in a lot of GWs. Are any other defenders a captaincy option?