Coventry City, Ipswich Town and Hull City are the three new teams in the FPL this year. In this article we analyse Coventry to see what we can learn and which of their many cheap assets we can consider.
Given FPL Towers has minimised the prices of newly promoted players, particularly defenders, it makes sense to start with some of the Championship winners as bench fodder for the 26/27 FPL season.
So if you’re looking for bright, differential FPL cheap players, this is the place to be!
Coventry are certainly the strongest out of the three new teams, and therefore the most ripe for FPL investment. Let’s take a look at their best players, and then flick through the rest of their starting XI.
Milan Van Ewijk (DEF, £4.0m)
Van Ewijk is a fullback who started 43 out of 46 games in last season’s Championship, playing 90 minutes most of the time. He missed the last game because they’d wrapped up the title, but he is one of Frank Lampard’s most important players.
He currently has the second most FPL ownership of any newly promoted player, at over 15%. His 8 assists last year, plus his security of minutes, mean that he is a solid option.
On the flipside, his 8 assists came from only 5.9 expected assists, and one of his specialities, long throws, may be nerfed slightly as Premier League teams develop intricate set piece tactics. The data points to an overperformance last year, plus a low 6.4 defensive contributions per 90. Although this is very likely to increase in the Premier League, the chances of him hitting 10 in a game are somewhat low.
However, these are £4m defenders from newly promoted teams, so we can’t expect the world. One of the best newly promoted assets in the game, that’s for sure.
Bobby Thomas (DEF, £4.0m)
Centre-back Thomas is another great option in Coventry’s backline. He started 33 games last season, however, he would’ve started more had it not been for some injury problems. He is nailed on, plays 90 minutes and is a good DEFCON option, having hoovered up 8.6 per 90 last season. Again, this is expected to increase in the high intensity world of the Premier League, and he could plausibly reach 10 quite often.
He also nabbed three goals and four assists as well, so he has goal threat too.
Interestingly, Van Ewijk’s 8 assists are only one more goal involvement than Thomas’, and once you factor in that a defender gets 6 points for a goal, Thomas is comfortably better than Van Ewijk in both attacking returns and defensive contributions.
Jack Rudoni (MID, £5.0m)
Jack Rudoni is Coventry’s only standout attacker. He scored 7 goals and 6 assists last season, and had a goal involvent rate of 0.54 per 90. However, he didn’t start every game. In fact, he only started 24, appearing as a sub in 6 more. However, this is more because he is injury prone, not because Frank Lampard doesn’t trust him. In fact, he’s just back from a shoulder surgery, but should be fit for GW1.
He plays mostly as an attacking midfielder and is explosive. He scored 5 goals in four games between February and April last year, either side of a calf injury. That purple patch included a brace in a 30-minute cameo on his return.
He is a great option for £5m, but is certainly not someone you should be looking to start, of course, but rather keep on the bench and maybe for a GW2 Bench Boost.
So having seen through these players, let’s have a look at their fixtures, and then at the rest of the team.
Fixtures
Coventry’s opening fixtures are pretty terrible. They face Arsenal and Man City, both away from home, in their first three Gameweeks. The Hull at home game does provide some relief in between, however. A GW7 trip to Tottenham, under new manager De Zerbi, is also pretty mediocre.
However, once the opening three weeks are out of the way, Coventry’s fixtures are actually incredible. Our Fixture Ticker has them on an all-green run, excluding Tottenham in GW7. Should they look lively at the start of the season, in a similar way Sunderland did, then they could be up for investment on FPL managers’ first Wildcard.
Carl Rushworth (GKP, £4.5m)
Unsurprisingly, FPL Towers have not gifted us a free £4m goalkeeper this year. Rushworth, who completed a permanent move having spent last season on loan with the Sky Blues. Not the best because there are certainly better options like Kinsky in the same price bracket. It’s probably better to go with an outfield option, if you want a piece of the Coventry defence.
Jay Dasilva (DEF, £4.0m)
A Welsh international who came through the Chelsea academy, he is not an option simply because his backline teammates are better FPL options. Only 3 assists and a measly 5.12 defensive contributions per 90, neither of which set the world alight.
Aurele Amenda (DEF, £4.0m)
A new signing from Frankfurt, expected to go straight into the starting XI. He is unproven in the Premier League and has almost no goal threat, having not scored at all in 42 games at Frankfurt. However, he did get 8.97 defensive contributions per 90, a sign of his potential in that field. We wait to see how he adapts to Premier League football, and just like Dasilva, there are better options in Coventry’s backline.
Matt Grimes and Frank Onyeka (MIDs, both £5.0m)
Not much to say. Onyeka joined in the January window. They are both important parts of the team, but won’t hold much FPL interest with low defensive contribution numbers and little goal threat.
However, if the Premier League brings some tactical change and they start to rack up real defcon numbers, they could be brought into play.
Ephrem Mason-Clark (MID, £5.5m)
Scored 10 goals and got 6 assists last year, in 36 starts on the left wing. An xG/90 figure of 0.29 and an xA/90 of 0.17 mean he’s actually a decent option. The occasional benching plus the extra 0.5m over Rudoni and others is what puts people off him as an FPL asset. But with the Premier League having only 38 games to the 46 of the tier below, those with the luxury of an extra 0.5 might find him not a bad option over Rudoni for Bench Boost in GW2.
Tatsuhiro Sakamoto (MID, £5.0m)
The Japanese international plays on the right wing, opposite Mason-Clark. For £0.5m less, he is just behind Mason-Clark as an option. He scored 7 goals, but only from 4.38 xG. He spent a lot of last season competing with Romain Esse for minutes, but towards the end of the campaign, the position became firmly his. Doesn’t play 90 minutes much, but Loum Tchaouna has now signed anyway, which makes him somewhat of an avoid as Tchaouna will be his main competition. He’s somewhat overshadowed in FPL by the other Coventry attackers.
Haji Wright (FWD, £5.5m)
Wright was Coventry’s top scorer last year, with 17 goals. As their main striker, his main downside is his game time. Although he is the main striker, Ellis Simms really eats into his minutes sometimes. He had an xG/90 figure of 0.64 in the Championship, but only started 31 games. Although that number is lower than it should be due to a couple of small injuries, it’s still a sign that Simms is too much of a threat to invest into Coventry’s main striker just now.
Brandon Thomas-Asante (FWD, £5.0m)
Started only 21 games last year, so he shouldn’t be in the conversation. However, he is very flexible and a quality player too, racking up 13 goals and 4 assists despite his lowly minutes. Most of his gametime came around October and November last year, when Frank Lampard played around with his side’s tactics. Should the intensity of the Premier League call for a big tactical change, he could emerge as an option later on.
Conclusion
Frank Lampard’s team have several good FPL options, and especially for those on a GW2 bench boost, players like Thomas, Van Ewijk, Rudoni and maybe Mason-Clark throw their names in the hat for a spot on the bench.
FPL newly promoted players are almost all at the cheapest price point, particularly for defenders. This gives us lots of FPL cheap players and bargains for this year, so do watch out for our articles on Hull and Ipswich, coming soon!
