Fantrax Top 30 on Trial: Part Two

The (subjective) case for and against players 11-20 at their current draft price

Welcome to Day Two in the Court of Popular Fantrax Opinion.

On Day One, we looked at the top 10 names by the Overthinking Football Community Ranks and litigated their value at their current rank. Day Two, it won’t surprise you, is more of the same. Whereas the first ten names felt like a group you’d be confident in returning at least ok value for the most part, things start heating up in Day Two.

We’ve got players looking to bounce back from down years, players who may not be here by September 1st, and players we’re just not sure if we can trust to repeat the year they’ve just had. Round 2 is often a bit of a minefield. For comparison, last year 6 of the players in this range by ADP fell significantly below expectations.

So with that in mind, and with no further ado, all rise for 11-20.

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Community Consensus Rank (CCR) 11: Son Heung-Min

Defence: Son didn’t return enough for his Round 1 price last year. That’s just a fact. But he wasn’t that bad (22nd in total points) and reportedly played through the season with one injury after another, eventually needing an operation, which kept him subdued for a lot of the year. He’s had the operation now. What’s there to over-analyse here? He’s got a long history of production and there’s surely another year or two in those legs. They’ve added James Maddison to the mix to ease some of the burden on the Son / Kane partnership and, if the England international does leave for Germany, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Spurs turn over the primary goal-scoring responsibility to Son next year. Bounce-back very much on the cards.

Prosecution: Anyone can fall victim to injury. But when it’s one niggling injury after the other once you pass 30 years old, alarm flags do start to raise. And when they drop your output to 50th in xFpts and 37th in WAR, you are betting a lot on a recovery taking him at 11. And the flip side of the potential extra responsibility if Kane leaves is that Son and Kane have been such an effective double act over the years that it feels like even if the responsibility goes up, the level of supply for Fantrax points goes down.

Verdict: He might bounce back, but it feels like there are just too many question marks here for 2-1. The Judge finds in favour of the Prosecution.

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CCR 12: Phil Foden

Defence: Phil Foden is a tough man to value. He always has been. But even with him not getting above 24 starts in a season, he’s regularly right up there on WAR and xFpts (18th and 17th last season respectively). That level of output is elite, even if you don’t get to rely on it every single week. And now lets consider the fact that one of the worries about Kevin de Bruyne is that City might start to move away from him. What if some of those extra minutes move to the home-grown option? An extra 3 or 4 starts could be all that it takes for Foden to break the Top 10. The second round is always about trading off upside for stability. Foden offers a lot of the upside, a little of the stability. But there’s reasons for optimism on the latter, at least.