FPL Draft Rankings Top 100, Part One

Sterling's top goals

Watch the top goals Raheem Sterling scored for Manchester City during the 2018-19 Premier League season.

It’s getting to be that time of the summer. Teams are multiple matches into their pre-season schedules and at least a reasonable amount of transfer activity has taken place. There will certainly be a few moves that upset any ranks created this far ahead of the transfer window but where there seems to be significant risk based on the rumor mill, I’ll try to point that fact out. Otherwise, here are my current ranks for Fantasy Premier League draft managers playing in the Premier League’s official game. For the purposes of this column (and estimating scarcity by position) I’ve assumed an 8-team league which seems to be fairly typical.

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1. Mo Salah – He regressed pretty hard last season and was still the highest scoring player in this format. Hard to see a cogent argument against him as 1:
2. Harry Kane – Seems healthy which is really the only thing standing between him and an assault on Salah’s top overall scoring spot.
3. Raheem Sterling – The only real question with Sterling going third is whether the return of De Bruyne has any knock on effect on his playing time. The points-minute-played stats will be fantastic, the only question is the minutes.
4. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – He just scores goals. Yes, he gets rotated from time-to-time but between his time in the Bundesliga and Arsenal we should know by now that the goals are going to come.
5. Sergio Agüero – Until Pep Guardiola shows that he’s going to give Gabriel Jesus some serious run we have to assume Aguero is going to get the lion’s share of the minutes at forward again and, along with Sterling, may be one of only two sure things week-to-week in the Manchester City attack.
6. Sadio Mané – Feels like Mane is due for a bit of regression after taking on much of the production Salah dropped from two seasons ago. Still, unless/until Liverpool have a serious alternative he’s going to start when healthy and be a threat to score every week.
7. Christen Eriksen – With it looking more and more like Eriksen will stay at Spurs for the season his prospects for draft, where consistent playing time is more of a factor than it is in salary cap formats, are rising.
8. Roberto Firmino – Divock Origi is coming on as a threat to playing time but I suspect that Firmino will be mostly unchallenged for playing time which keeps him above his City counterparts in my rankings.
9. Gylfi Sigurdsson – In case you haven’t guessed, I hate rotation risk in my early-round picks. I’m sure many will have guys like Bernardo Silva, Kevin De Bruyne, and/or Leroy Sané ahead of Gylfi but I’d rather know my first and second round pick is going to start 36 matches with strong, if not necessarily elite, production.
10. Marcus Rashford – Manchester United seem to be doing everything within their power to rid themselves of Romelu Lukaku. A full season as the center forward for United combined with the relative scarcity of potential 20-goal scorers puts Rashford higher on the list than you might have guessed.
11. James Maddison – I’m all in on Leicester City’s attack this season and Maddison is in a great position to progress after a fantastic first season in the Premier League. He’ll push Gylfi for “best fantasy option outside the big six” for as long as he’s still outside the big six.
12. Bernardo Silva – Bernardo over Sane and De Bruyne? That’s right. Of all of City’s midfielders, the younger Silva seemed the most indispensable by the end of last season. He may see some drop in playing time with De Bruyne back but my read on the situation is he’ll play more frequently than any City attacker not named Aguero and Sterling.
13. Jamie Vardy – Leicester City will score more goals than Manchester United this season and Vardy will score a bunch of them with all of those providers around him. This might actually be too low but I’m knocking him down slightly for the risk of a speed-based forward getting older.
14. Alexandre Lacazette – He’s unlikely to go wild but he’s going to be a consistent starter and point-producer at forward.
15. Paul Pogba – It’s hard to see a deal coming together given how much the two most frequently rumored clubs – Real Madrid and Juventus – have already spent. Looking at the rest of United’s midfield, the points aren’t likely to come from anywhere else so Pogba could be a value pick as early as the second round. It would fit his MO to be a pain all off-season only to remind everyone why he’s worth the trouble once the season starts.
16. Kevin De Bruyne – We’re at the end of the second round of an 8-team league and now’s about when I’d be willing to take the risk on De Bruyne’s playing time. There’s no doubting his talent but his recent injury history combined with the competition for spots at City have me worried about how reliable he’ll be week-to-week.
17. Raúl Jiménez – There aren’t many quality forwards left on the board and Jimenez was a model of consistency last season. With the key players like Jota and Neves so young, you could see a case where the attack is better after Jimenez’s creative pipeline picked up some experience in the top flight.
18. Trent Alexander-Arnold – Liverpool’s defense should be exceptional again and there’s no reason to think that Alexander-Arnold won’t pile up both the clean sheets and assists again.
19. Andrew Robertson – See Alexander-Arnold, Trent above.
20. Virgil Van Dijk – Less upside with attacking stats but he’s going to play every week and likely lead defenders in clean sheets and chip in a few thundering headers. The Reds’ defense is enough better than everyone else to justify early selections at a position that isn’t a premium.
21. Ryan Fraser – I wouldn’t argue with taking Fraser earlier in the 3^rd round or even at the back end of the 2^nd if you want consistency. He led the league in chances created by a wide margin and the attack should be potent again on the south coast. I see more upside than downside for Fraser based on last season’s results.
22. Pascal Gross – Will we see the Pascal Gross of two seasons ago who did his best Gylfi Sigurdsson impersonation or the injury-riddled version from the season just past? With a more attacking style under new management and time to recover, the bet here is that Gross will look more like the guy from two seasons ago.
23. Hueng-Min Son – By the end of the past two seasons, Son has been among the most prolific midfielders in this fantasy format. The problem has been that both seasons have seen him backload his contributions to an almost-comical degree. The potential is there for first round value but the threat of Champions League semi-final hero Lucas Moura taking away playing time balances out the upside and lands Son in the 3^rd round.
24. Diogo Jota – I’m feeling a breakout season here. He was consistently good over the back half of last season and given his age and reputation it felt more like a future star coming into his own rather than a non-sustainable hot streak. I’m trying to keep my hype in check but I’ll probably consider drafting him higher than this.
25. Richarlison – Still so young, there’s a potential breakout to be had over and above what was already excellent production the past two seasons.
26. Leroy Sané – He’ll be long gone by now in your draft but the threat of rotation has grown for Sane and I’m not willing to take the risk. If you’re more confident than I am that he’ll be a regular starter then be the person who takes him in the top 20 picks overall.
27. Callum Wilson – Injury risk knocks him down but he’s in the same tier of likely 15-goal scorers with Vardy and Jimenez given the creative players around him at Bournemouth.
28. Felipe Anderson – He came on strong over the second half of the season at West Ham. A full season of what we saw in the second half of last season would mean this is a bit of a bargain. Still, West Ham is West Ham so I’m not going to go too crazy assuming things will happen in such a straight line.
29. Youri Tielemans – Maybe I’m putting too much stock in Tieleman’s short stint at the King Power Stadium last season but, as I mentioned earlier, I’m all in on Leicester City and I think Tielemans will be at the root of a lot of the good things that happen. His goal and assists rates won’t be at the obscene levels of last season but, like Salah heading into last season, it won’t take sustaining a seemingly unsustainable rate of production to justify this valuation.
30. Wilfried Zaha – With the loss of Wan-Bissaka and no replacement for Batshuayi yet I’m a bit concerned that Zaha will be isolated at Palace. He’s a great talent but he may underperform unless he gets some help between now and the transfer deadline.
31. Dele Alli – Dele Alli has regressed since the outrageous form of his breakout at Spurs. He’s still a very good and productive player but Spurs seem like they’ll be adding more talent to the attacking midfield which may see Alli lose some playing time. Given his age and what we’ve seen in the past there is also a solid case for progression forward as well. This is about the right spot to take that sort of risk.
32. David Brooks – Given his age and what we saw last season in his maiden Premier League season I have high hopes for Brooks sophomore campaign.
33. Nathan Redmond – I’ll again show my bias for certainty over risk with Redmond over Chelsea’s two wide attackers. Redmond came on strong under Ralph Hasenhuttl and I expect him to continue while starting regularly.
34. Callum Hudson-Odoi – I know Hudson-Odoi is back in training and projected to be ready for most if not all of the season. I’m still nervous about his injury otherwise I’d probably have him rated higher.
35. Christian Pulisic – Yes, I’m American and have incredibly high expectations for Pulisic’s Chelsea and international career. Still, the expectations of replacing Eden Hazard and his injury history has me very wary of the difference between star of the USMNT and what we saw at Dortmund which was a very nice complimentary player but not a star. Drafting him like he’s going to replace Hazard’s production from the get-go would be some serious homer-ism.
36. Lucas Digne – This pick is at some risk assuming Idryssa Gueye heads to PSG but Digne will still contribute on the attacking end even if his clean sheet production will be dented.
37. Anthony Martial – I’m not confident in this pick at all because Martial has consistently underdelivered on his talent level but with Alexis fading and Lukaku potentially on the way out he should get opportunity after opportunity.
38. Matt Doherty – Will he regress from last season? Maybe a little bit but still a rare two-way threat at outside back that’s worth a relatively early pick given that Wolves should be good for a bunch of clean sheets and Doherty personally will chip in some goals and assists.
39. Aymeric Laporte – You’d like to have more City defenders higher up this list given the quality of the side but there’s so much uncertainty about who will start, especially in the wide positions, that it’s hard to justify a pick any higher than this.
40. Ricardo Pereira – Did I mention that I’m all in on Leicester City this season? Just another reminder.
41. Ayoze Pérez – And another.
42. Joshua King – Just a good, solid fantasy starter for draft leagues without quite ever suggesting that he’s going to nudge toward being a star.
43. Kyle Walker – The second most likely Manchester City defender to start regularly. He certainly has regressed as a fantasy player since his Spurs days so hard to avoid feeling a little disappointed with his current level of production given the quality of the team around him.
44. Gerard Deulofeu – A solid second forward who has some upside as he continues to refine his prodigious talents into actual end product. Don’t underestimate the value of the continuity that Watford will enjoy from last season to this.
45. Dani Ceballos – He isn’t an Aaron Ramsey clone by any stretch but he is likely to get the playing time vacated by the Welshman. Of Arsenal’s midfielders, he’s the one who doesn’t make you super-nervous that you’ve just wasted a pick. Perhaps that says more about the state of Arsenal’s midfield than it does about Ceballos. In case you’re wondering, this is a fairly wild guess given how little Ceballos has played over the past two seasons.
46. David Silva – Having announced that he’s on his way out of the Etihad after this season you have to expect that Pep will start phasing him out. He could seriously outperform this spot if he plays regularly (it certainly isn’t a commentary on his talent), but with all the caveats about the volume of players at City for limited minutes, David Silva seems likely to be one of the prime candidates to take a step back.
47. César Azpilicueta – The Blues are in flux which makes picking players for the season difficult. One thing that you can bet on is that Chelsea will be pretty good and Azpilicueta will start as often as he’s available. I got him a few rounds later than this in a mock draft this summer and felt like I’d stumbled on some serious value.
48. Benjamin Mendy – Coming off of injury and perpetually a candidate for Pep’s doghouse, he’s on the list because his upside is as the runaway top defender in this scoring format.
49. Sébastien Haller – It appears Haller will still have Chicharito to battle for playing time but after spending the way they did on him, you expect that the Hammers will eventually start Haller unless he’s a complete bust and there’s an Arnautovic-sized hole to fill in the attack.
50. Manuel Lanzini – If he can stay healthy he should start as the fulcrum of a potentially interesting attack. There’s definitely some risk here but I like the upside.

In an 8-team league we’re just into the 8th round so most players will have all of their starters at forward, most, if not all, of their starting midfield and a defender or two. The second part will feature more defenders, some fliers on new arrivals, and some newly promoted players as well as eventually getting around to goalkeepers.