The FPL teams whose players you should sign and why – including Chelsea & Aston Villa

We’ve only got a fortnight before the start of the new Premier League season – and that means precious little time for us to figure out how to pick our FPL teams for the coming campaign. Fortunately, that’s where 3 Added Minutes can help.

As our resident Fantasy Premier League expert, I’m spending the rest of pre-season poring over the stats and data to figure out which players you should sign and which you should swerve – and I’ve already compiled lists of the best budget goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders and forwards for your perusal.

Today, though, I’m going to step back from specific players and look at their teams. While some players may be great picks on paper, a combination of challenging early fixtures and poor pre-season form can make them rather riskier propositions. Conversely, of course, some teams are heading into the new season in great shape, so in this article I’m shining a spotlight on a few sides whose players become bigger considerations because of the way their squads are entering the campaign.

Chelsea

While Chelsea may not have been completely convincing last season, they still made it back into the top four and were excellent in winning the Club World Cup - and while I don’t think they’ve got what it takes to challenge for the title just yet, I am generally optimistic about their prospects. For FPL purposes, it helps that they have a pretty gentle start to the season.

Unless you believe that Manchester United will make a major turnaround this summer, none of their first six matches seem too tough, and that makes me interested in quite a few of their assets.

Cole Palmer tops the list, and is in most of my early drafts. Over the course of the campaign I could see other mid-to-high end midfielders offering better value, but based on the form we saw in the United States and the way Enzo Maresca uses him, I’d anticipate a strong start.

I could also see Levi Colwill being a good pick-up for the first few weeks. While I don’t think he’ll be a year-round hold and he may not make the Top 20 highest scoring defenders due to a modest volume of defensive contributions, he could easily slot in at £4.5m and slowly accrue clean sheets.

Elsewhere, Moisés Caicedo is on my shortlist for midfield enablers anyway and I can envision a world in which Liam Delap is a good selection, although with question marks over his minutes early doors I doubt I’ll start with him. One player I’m dodging, partly for similar reasons, is João Pedro. A couple of Club World Cup goals doesn’t persuade me that he’s a great buy when his work with Brighton over the course of years implied otherwise.

Aston Villa

In general, I feel pretty so-so about Villa’s chances of making a splash this coming season. They haven’t made any major signings at the time of writing and their attacking output fell off quite heavily last season, scoring fewer than any other team who finished in the top half of the table. I don’t even think they have many great FPL assets. But those I do like, I’m starting to like a lot.

Villa open up against a Newcastle side who have endured a chaotic and degrading pre-season, then play Brentford, Crystal Palace, Everton, Sunderland, Fulham and Burnley. It’s about as easy a fixture list as one could plausibly hope for, and I’m not too worried by a couple of dodgy pre-season defeats to Walsall and Hansa Rostock given that only a few first-teamers were involved.

Ollie Watkins is my first port of call. I suspect Viktor Gyökeres will blow past him over the course of the season at the £9.0m mark but he may take time to settle in or be rotated in and out to start with. Given the fixture list, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Watkins outpaced him early on.

I also may sign Ezri Konsa on much the same logic that I could pick up Colwill – his defensive contribution points probably won’t be sky high, but he should pick up enough to be solid for the first month or two of the year, and I like having reliable low-cost players whose prices hopefully shouldn’t be too volatile. The more cheap set-and-forgets I have, the easier it is to manoeuvre around unexpected fluctuations in form, injuries and the like.

I’m less interested in Villa midfielders. Morgan Rogers is a fine player but his price point is just a touch too steep for me to feel confident in him – for just £1m more, I can get Florian Wirtz, and Bryan Mbeumo is only half a million higher still.

Nottingham Forest

It’s tempting to simply assume that Forest will regress to the mean this season, and a winless pre-season through four matches hasn’t made them look any more likely to enjoy another charge up towards the top four. Last season was a tough act to follow, and losing Anthony Elanga won’t make life any easier.

That said, they’ve kept three clean sheets in those four friendlies so far – they’ve loved a 0-0, basically – and have kept their very impressive defence intact, so when I see fixtures against Brentford, Palace, West Ham, Burnley and Sunderland inside the first six gameweeks, I find myself rather keen.

Their defenders should all be high quality assets and I’m feeling comfortably dropping £5.5m on a Murillo, a Milenković, or picking up Ola Aina at £5.0m. I’m not sure I’m confident enough to double up, admittedly, but I don’t have too many fears about the way they start the season.

Elliot Anderson is a decent option in the enabler slot thanks to all his defensive points, and while I’m going back and forth on Chris Wood, it seems foolhardy to bet against him based on last season and he probably has the best run of early games out of the £7.5m options up front. I don’t necessarily expect Forest to improve, but I doubt they get enough worse that I want to steer clear.