Brighton – Fantasy Premier League Potential – Fantasy Football Tips

Well I can safely say that at this point last July I never would have thought we would be discussing Brighton players in FPL a year on. A huge amount of credit needs to go to Chris Hughton and the team for the way they approached last season and for staying up by an impressive 7pts. Home wins against Manchester United and Arsenal late in the season shows they can stand toe to toe with the big boys and have fantasy value all across the park. In fact Brighton were the only team outside the top 7 to have 5+ players to break the 100pt barrier last season. This does all come with an important caveat though. Brighton’s home/away form were polar opposites. 24pts at home with just 4 defeats from 19 compared to 11pts and 12 losses from 19 away suggest that even if the below Brighton players are considered it may be as part of fixture rotation, unless they can make huge improvements away from home.

STAR MAN – Pascal Gross (£7m)

After such an impressive first year in the Premier League it’s impossible to look at anyone else here. A relative unknown in this country a year ago he signed for a bargain £3m last May and has looked every bit the Premier League midfielder since. He started last year with a £5.5m price tag and although he has seen an in increase up to £7m it will unlikely deter many from selecting him this season. 164pts scored put him 11th amongst all midfielders and ahead of players like Sanchez, Mane, Pogba and Ozil. What makes that even more impressive is that it was in a team that were the 4th lowest scoring team in the league, averaging less than a goal a game. I’m confident that Brighton improve on last seasons 34 league goals and if that’s the case then it will almost certainly be because of the German midfielder.

Last seasons stats; Mins played: 2,928, Goals: 7, Assists: 8, Bonus: 24, Total points: 164.

HIDDEN GEM – Solly March (£5m)

Given that there have been very few new additions so far this summer for Brighton I’m going for a young player that really grew as a player throughout the last campaign. There have been rumours circulating of him being unhappy at the club this summer but I’m not buying it. Although he may have only started 18 Premier League games in 17/18 no player in the squad featured in more games across all competitions, so it is clear Hughton trusts him and sees the potential. I personally feel that his Premier League minutes will increase this season but he will just need to show more from an attacking standpoint if wants to nail down a starting role ahead of the likes of Jose Izquierdo.

Last seasons stats: Mins played: 1,838, Goals: 1, Assists: 3, Bonus: 3, Total points: 74.

BARGAIN – Lewis Dunk (£4.5m)

To be fair this is as close to a coin toss as you can get between both centre backs. Both Lewis Dunk and Shane Duffy make strong cases here for biggest Brighton bargain but Dunk just about edges it for me.

Last season there were just 3pts splitting them in FPL scoring as Duffy hit the 100pt mark whilst Dunk ended up on 97. I have looked past this though and factored in that Dunk outscored Duffy on goals, outscored him with total BPS and had the misfortune of minus points factored in for 4 own goals!!! That will not be replicated this year so I feel as though Dunk will be the higher scoring of the 2.

New to the Premier League last season many expected Brighton to ship goals for fun but it was quite the contrary as they managed to keep 10 clean sheets in 38 games. If they are to stay up again it will inevitably have to be down the defence doing the same again.

Last seasons stats; Mins played: 3,420, Goals: 1, Assists: 1, Clean sheets: 10, Bonus: 7, Total points: 97.

PREDICTED LINE UP

Ryan
Bruno – Dunk – Duffy – Bong
Knockaert – Stephens – Propper – March
Gross
Murray

Written by FPL Guru (@FPL_Guru)