Fantrax Top 30 on Trial: Part One

The (subjective) case for and against each of the top 10 players at their draft price

Aug 04, 2023

Back in August 2020, I dropped my first Fantrax articles onto Substack.

After a post discussing whether Timo Werner might succeed in England (don’t worry, I won’t spoil the outcome for you), I immediately jumped to the high-concept. The conceit was simple: I made myself ‘Judge, Judy and Executioner’ and set about breaking down the Top 30 Fantrax players to:

Provide the case for drafting this player at the price that they’re currently being drafted in.
Argue why that price might not be as good as it seems.
Provide a far too early draft verdict on taking the player in the spot they fall

A fair few things have changed since then. But one thing that has not changed is my appetite for this sort of self-indulgence. So welcome to a pre-draft three part series in which we look at the Top 30 players and defend (make the case for why they’re value in that spot or higher), prosecute (make the case against taking them in that spot) and judge the draft value of every single member of the Top 30 based on where they currently stand in our Community Consensus Ranks (CCR). So over the next three days, you’ll be getting one a day delivered straight to the inbox / your Substack app.

Court is, once more, in session.

CCR 1: Erling Haaland

Defence: Some (non-fictional) lawyers get incredibly tough assignments and somehow win. Johnnie Cochrane’s rhyming gloves come to mind. This, on the other hand, requires basically no fancy training or wordplay gymnastics. Erling Haaland, at the age of 22, moved to the Premier League and demolished the goal scoring record. He got 36 goals in 33 games. And there was a point in the season where there was even a narrative if he was making Man City better . . . Going into Year 2, there’s room to repeat the feat goals-wise but also to add more to his all-round game as he gets more familiar with what Pep wants. Year 2 attacking players for Guardiola tend to outperform their first year. That’s scary. And it’s worthy of 1-1.

Prosecution: It could be xG, but that’s a fools argument for someone like Haaland. Instead it’s going to have to be durability. He’s not going to get a month off mid-season every year like he did last time out. Incredibly, his WAR value last season was only good enough for 7th overall (though his average WAR was higher at 5th overall). So if he doesn’t add additional facets to his game and he plays less, he might not return 1st overall value.

Verdict: The judge rules in favour of the defence. Barring an injury, it’s near impossible to picture anything less than a top 5 performance for Haaland and he is a clear favourite to finish 1 overall.

CCR 2: Bruno Fernandes

Defence: We’ve run WAR for 3 seasons now at Overthinking Football. It’s designed as an objective way to compare the impact a player has for your Fantrax team. Bruno has finished first in two of those years. The only year he didn’t, he still finished 9th. And there were some extenuating (fellow Portuguese) reasons for that drop. He’s the picture of consistency and he collects Key Pass points at a rate you just cannot look past. He’s almost definitely going to be in the top 3 again (and he might be my personal choice for 1-1). He’s clearly the safe pick here.

Prosecution: Bruno has finished as a top 3 player almost every season he’s been in the game. We don’t deny it. But . . . to make a leap to competing for titles it seems pretty intuitive that United need at least a striker to hit. And the one season where Bruno didn’t finish in that level of value was the season they had a selfish shot-taker (who also wanted penalties) playing in front of him. If Hojlund arrives and is successful, Bruno’s hero-ball could become less needed. Add in a little Champions League rotation and maybe he’s not as sure a thing as a top 2 pick as we’d think.

Verdict: The judge rules in favour of the defence. Bruno has basically been the most consistent Fantrax contributor since entering the league, aside from that season.

CCR 3: Mo Salah

Defence: Liverpool were rubbish last year (sorry Will), but Salah was 14th in Total WAR nonetheless. He’s getting older, but he’s still good (0.72 npxG+xA per 90, which is an excellent number for a player who lines up as a winger). And as Liverpool started to put things together again back down the stretch, Salah had a consistent run of performances that saw him score double figures in all but two (2) games between April and the end of the season. All it’ll take is a better supporting cast and he’ll be back to his usual level. Liverpool have spent big on upgrading that cast for him. He’ll bounce right back to his usual level which is generally right around this spot.

Prosecution: He played 37 times last season and that was good enough for 14th in Total WAR. Add on to that that this season he’s going to AFCON during the season. Even if we assume he can put out similar output to last year, it’s going to be tough to return 3rd overall value if he loses 5 of those starts. And we also shouldn’t ignore that he’s 31 now and Liverpool may choose to manage his workload over the next couple of seasons to get the most out of the contract he signed.

Verdict: The judge rules in favour of the defence again. Age and fewer potential minutes is definitely a risk but the output should increase back to his more typical level anyway. (Andrew’s editors note: For what it’s worth, the only Overthinking Football team member with actual legal training is requesting a retrial).

CCR 4: Bukayo Saka

Defence: Firstly, even in a fictional exercise, how could anyone convict Bukayo Saka of anything? The Arsenal forward has gone from strength to strength, reaching a peak of 4th in Total WAR last year, with a Quality Start rate of 83%. What’s more, he’s still seemingly on the upwards trajectory of his development, with his npxG+xA/90 number showing small but steady increases year-on-year as Arsenal have improved. With the money Arsenal have spent this Summer ostensibly being about improving on their second place finish, Saka feels like a player who could go up to even another level. In which case this feels like his floor price.

Prosecution: Arsenal were very clearly good last season (no matter how it ended). But almost all of their attacking players ran hot on their numbers (Saka, for example, was +3 over his xG). That’s not a huge overperformance, but it does indicate some risk. And their recruitment has been a mixed bag of very obvious signings (Declan Rice) and slightly less obvious signings (Kai Havertz). It feels like this season is a real ‘show us who you are’ one for Mikel Arteta’s team. And if they were to be even a bit less dominant, or run a bit less hot as a group, it’s possible you’re buying Saka here at his peak price, not his expected value.

Verdict: The judge is cautious about proclaiming Arsenal to have clearly improved on last year as a whole. The judge rules just about for the prosecution on that basis. Saka is definitely a first rounder, though.

CCR 5: Kevin De Bruyne

Defence: In real footballing terms, it’s hard to argue that De Bruyne hasn’t been the most influential player of the last 5 years in the Premier League. His game is also tailor-made for Fantrax, with his ability to get respectable goal tallies combined with his creative abilities. Now lets mention that he’s playing behind an actual cyborg. He has, for the second time, had to go off in a Champions League final with an injury which you could say is indicative of a durability risk, but his on-pitch output shows no real sign of decline. In fact, his output last year was a bounce back from a down year (by his standards, he still finished 5th in WAR) in 2021/22. Pep seems to think he’ll be back for the season start. If anything, he’s underpriced here, given he was 2nd in Average WAR last year (3rd Overall).

Prosecution: Even the fictional prosecution here recognises greatness. But he is getting older, he’s getting injuries more frequently and he gets rotated more than the others in this price range. If you spend top first-round capital on a player that is there two thirds of the time, you have to be that extra bit better in every other roster spot to account for the other games. Add to that that we’re probably getting towards a point where Pep himself will feel a need to start reshaping the team around the likes of Phil Foden, in the same way he did when he transitioned from David Silva to De Bruyne, and this just has that little bit too much risk to be totally sure.

Verdict: Tolerance for whether KDB is a top 3 pick or a top 10 pick basically comes down to how you value explosiveness versus guaranteed minutes. This fictional judge will rule in favour of the defence, given KDB still has both potential and pedigree to finish as a top 3 player.

CCR 6: Trent Alexander-Arnold

Defence: The defence of Trent starts one place and one place alone. Liverpool last year were allowing opponents to generate a tonne of npxG from open play against them. And it tanked the defensive solidity points floor that just about everyone in their defence previously had bumping them up. And that basically was the difference. Trent remained at his usual excellent levels when it came to npxG+xA and was a very respectable 4th in Goal Creating Actions / 90 in the squad. And Klopp seemed to have found a way to fix their leaking defending late in the season, leading to an excellent run of Fantrax performances from Trent that finally repaid draft managers’ faith. That new set up looks set to continue. Therefore, value.

Prosecution: It’s lazy to say it, I know it is. But you can’t fully separate how Liverpool were defending from the defenders on the pitch. And Trent was one of them. There’s also the question of set piece duties with the addition of a whole bunch of new set-piece capable players. It seems likely Trent will retain free-kick and corner duty, but not a guarantee. And, although I accept things looked good with the tactical tweaks late in the season, Liverpool have near enough turned over all of their starting midfielders this Summer. It’s not guaranteed that it will just work perfectly.

Verdict: The prosecution seems to just be splitting hairs. The judge rules that Trent is almost definitely the Defender 1 and this is not just value, but it might be the point at which the tier drop in Round 1 occurs. Defence wins.

CCR 7: Martin Odegaard

Defence: Martin Odegaard did so well last year he seems to have reinvigorated the demand for number 8s the league over. He was at the heart of everything Arsenal did and they’ve just added Rice and Havertz to the midfield which should give Arsenal more control and Odegaard more freedom to focus on making things happen. His 4.81 shot-creating actions per 90 could potentially rise even higher next year if Arsenal are able to go up another level which would put him into Bruno / KDB territory as a Fantrax asset. It seems fairly accepted as a community truism that there’s a drop off in the first round but there’s at least a case that the top end-outcomes are still there for Odegaard.

Prosecution: Most of the nervousness around Odegaard is similar to the ones laid out with Bukayo Saka. It’s amplified a little further with Odegaard, however, as his xG performance was pretty large (5 goals above expected, a 50% overpeformance). On xFpts, he actually finished 24th (!) last season. That’s still someone you want on your Fantasy Team, but you don’t want to pay 1-7 to get it. There’s also the Champions League minutes to consider, alongside the addition of Havertz (and injury to Jesus) and there’s enough uncertainty here that it’s hard to make a definite case for taking him here.

Verdict: The xG overperformance was so large that he needs to simultaneously make a leap output wise and maintain his total minutes just to tread water. Judge rules in favour of the prosecution (and Chris and Andrew are now disappointed in their Discord draft).

CCR 8: Kieran Trippier

Defence: 2nd in Total WAR in a team on the ascendancy. That’s basically the case right there. Newcastle defended so thriftily last season that he started with an instant boost in the Clean Sheet department and then he added a whole bunch of attacking / set piece numbers. He’s over 30 but not showing any signs of physical decline yet from an output perspective. If a player is 2nd in WAR and 8th in price, with a settled role, it looks pretty comfortably value to take them here.

Prosecution: He did have an incredible year last year and, although it was surprising, the underlying xG stats for Newcastle hold up to scrutiny. They were very good. The case against Trippier then comes in a few parts. Firstly, Newcastle have added Champions League minutes and will want to be sure of having their best team available for the big games in Europe. Secondly (and relatedly), Newcastle have just signed Tino Livramento from Southampton as a backup to Trippier. And lastly, they’ve also added Sandro Tonali, who comes with a reputation for effective dead ball usage. It seems as though Newcastle have already started succession planning. It may not be this year where it truly hits, but it’s coming.

Verdict: The concerns are real, but it’s so hard to look past the WAR upside here. It looks like good value when compared to those around him. Defence wins.

CCR 9: Marcus Rashford

Defence: What a few seasons Marcus Rashford has had. It’s hard to think of anyone with more highs and lows than the young Englishman over the same period. The 2021/22 season was largely forgettable, which we’re now comfortable writing off to club dysfunction and the injury he delayed treatment on to report for International Duty the previous Summer (which left it’s own scars). He was back healthy last season and his response was his best season since 2019/20 (when he also featured in the original version of this article, positioned at 7 overall) with 17 goals and 5 assists. If Year 2 under Erik Ten Hag leads to further improvement at Manchester United, you can bet Rashford is going to be a big part of that.

Prosecution: Surprisingly, Marcus Rashford was not in the Top 10 for xFpts last year. Nor the top 20. He was 38th. I had to check that working a lot of times because I had assumed he would’ve finished much higher. There were a few low start tally guys (between 5 and 15 starts in there), which helps explain some of the variation. But even removing the expected values and just turning to Total WAR, he was 25th (14 spots below his Fantrax points rank). To put that another way, even repeating the excellent season he just had may not be enough to put him in the mix for a top 10 selection if he regresses to his xFpts. He’ll still have to improve further on total output.

Verdict: The Judge loves Marcus Rashford as a person and player, but you can’t ignore that this would require a career peak year to return top 10 performance. He’s probably not that guy in game. Prosecution it is, sorry Marcus :(

CCR 10: James Maddison

Defence: Maddison just got relegated. He did it whilst finishing 7th in xFpts and 10th in WAR. No wonder, then, that the vultures were quick to circle and he was enticed down to North London as part of the new Postecoglou regime. He’s a creativity machine, which means points in Fantrax. There’s a fairly convincing argument that he takes shots he perhaps shouldn’t take (his xG per shot is fairly low). But those shots are still worth 2 points if they hit the target. Pair him with a better supporting cast and he should be comfortable to return value with the 1-10 pick.

Prosecution: Who knows what Spurs attack will actually look like? Harry Kane is flirting with Bayern Munich. Son Heung Min just had a pretty big down year. Richarlison has struggled to bring his previous form back to London. Manor Solomon is, I regret to inform, probably not the answer either. Maddison is probably one of the safest output / minutes projections of the bunch, but supporting cast does matter for a creative player. Uncertainty isn’t ideal for a first round pick.

Verdict: Given he just output a top 10 season combining with the ghost of Jamie Vardy, the Judge finds the prosecution’s argument here flimsy. This feels like good value at 10.

That’s it for Day One of the trial. Look out for Parts Two and Three over the next few days. For those of you on the free subscriptions, you will only be able to preview Parts Two and Three, but do consider joining us on the Paid side if you’re enjoying what we’re putting out to read all thirty!

And, as ever, feel free to message with comments or thoughts. Has justice been done for these ten guys?