Some would call this article ‘negative’. To these people, I would say… you’re bloody right it’s negative! I’m in a negative mood! I was top 16.5k in 2021/22, and so far in 2022/23 I’m a humbling 1.1 million!
Basically, this is an undisguised way to vent my FPL-induced rage so far this season. I could very well do a ‘Top 10 Players Who Seem to Have a Personal Vendetta Against Me’, with Trossard and Zaha topping the list. But I doubt anybody would care.
Instead, I want to run through the 10 most disappointing players in the 22/23 Fantasy Premier League season so far… some of whom I have indeed owned, and you probably have too.
2022/23 Fantasy Premier League Season So Far – 10 Most Disappointing Players
One thing you can say for me – I’m an equal-opportunities whiner. My list of the 10 most disappointing players in FPL so far are drawn from all positions, prices, and teams.
I’m not just piling on the most expensive flops here – I’m also having a pop at other players who were/have been/still are hyped beyond their production.
Without further ado, let’s get to it.
#1 – Trent Alexander-Arnold, Feat. Andy Robertson (Starting Price 7.5)
Congratulations to Trent Alexander-Arnold, for seeing off the competition to take the top spot by a wide margin.
He came into the season as the most expensive defender in the game, by a whole 0.5 (Robbo and Cancelo were both 7.0). After 15 gameweeks, he is currently – *scrolls* *keep scrolling* – the 28th highest-scoring defender. That’s actually higher than I thought, but it’s not exactly the best return on investment.
There had already been a sense that Trent’s production was… slowing down, to put it nicely.
In 18/19 and 19/20 he put up a monstrous 13 and 15 assists respectively. In 20/21 this plummeted to 8 assists, in only 144 fewer minutes (1.6 games) than the previous year. This rebounded to 12 assists last season, but most of these came during a scorching-hot first half. In his final 14 games, Trent only got two assists.
If he was slowing down before, he’s smashed right into a bollard now, and given a huge number of FPL players whiplash in the process. So far in 2022/23 he’s started 11 games, and managed a whopping 1 assist. It would take a titanic turnaround in the second half of the FPL season to make us consider him again.
Since the old reliable Liverpool defensive double-up was so popular to start the season, I’ll also give a shoutout to Andy Robertson. He’s managed to double Trent’s assist tally, with an impressive 2, but that’s still not exactly brilliant when your starting price is 7.0.
Neither player has been helped by Liverpool’s terrible overall defence. Clean sheets have helped swell both of their scores in recent years.
Trent picked up a massive 18 cleans last year, for example. This season, that number has dropped to 2. If you were being mean, you’d point out that Trent’s awful defending has been partly responsible for that. But we’re not being mean in this article – certainly not!
#2 – Son Heung-Min (Starting Price 12.0)
Sonny, Sonny – wherefore art thou, Sonny?
I lamented Son’s woes after only three games this season. Well, it hasn’t exactly picked up since then. His substitute hat-trick against Leicester was admittedly electric. Unfortunately, he hasn’t scored any other goals before or after, and has only tallied two assists. All of this when Spurs are fourth in the table, and Kane has been his usual excellent self.
Taking off my Arsenal fan’s hat, Son has been one of my favourite players in the Prem to watch for years now. I’ve loved having him in fantasy too, where he’s often been almost as consistent as Kane while being vastly cheaper.
He’s only 30, so I’m hoping this is all a blip. For now though, based on his track record and a massive 12.0 price tag to start the season, he has to be #2 on this list.
#3 – Ivan Perisic (Starting Price 5.5)
FPL managers after seeing Perisic play as a striker and facing Leeds next week pic.twitter.com/NKZ2zWOvjC
— FPL Marcin (@FPLMarcin) November 6, 2022
‘Come on, he’s been all right!’ I hear you cry.
‘No, he really hasn’t!’ I wittily retort.
Perisic wasn’t breaking your bank to start the season, but 5.5 isn’t exactly cheap. He was a very sexy preseason pick, following an excellent season at Inter Milan, and the probability that Conte would play him as an out of position left winger.
The latter was certainly true. Perisic has played in extremely attacking positions, as well as being on corners. Unfortunately, he’s also spent a good chunk of the season positioned firmly on the Spurs bench.
Of Spurs’ 15 games so far this season, Perisic has only started eight of them. Admittedly, he did manage an assist off the bench against Bournemouth, but playing so few minutes severely caps his potential for points.
As such, it’s no surprise to see Ivan the not-so Terrible down in 17th place among defenders so far, below the likes of James Justin (4.3), Sven Botman (4.4), and Ben Mee (4.6). Somehow, he’s still at over 22% ownership, which – no exaggeration – continues to be the most baffling thing in FPL for me right now. He doesn’t start half the games, for God’s sake!
#4 – Phil Foden (Starting Price 8.0)
Foden owners seeing another 1 pointer pic.twitter.com/Kp5BKavcaJ
— Fledgling (@FPLFledgling) November 7, 2022
Ah, speaking of not starting games…
Nobody has caused me more pain this season than FPL player Phil Foden. Real-life Phil Foden is blameless, since – as usual, with City players in FPL – it’s all Pep’s fault.
Here were young Phil’s returns in the first 10 gameweeks:
Six goals, and four assists, in 10 games. At this point, he and De Bruyne were almost exactly tied on points, but Foden was around 3.0 cheaper. I was deploying my wildcard precisely at this moment, and naturally swapped Kev (who I owned) for Foden.
Unfortunately for myself and FPL managers around the world, Pep – after a single narrow loss to Liverpool – decided to change up his attack.
Since then, Foden has been benched in all three games, and has provided everyone who kept starting him anyway with precisely 1pt per game. Man City have gone from trouncing everyone to narrowly beating Brighton, Leicester, and Fulham, with the attack looking a bit crap.
I am completely and utterly baffled. Also, I am raging, and have been for weeks now. You had to keep Foden, since he was playing Leicester, then Fulham, and his replacement – Grealish – was doing nothing, and he’d been so good already, so surely Pep would bring him back.
Nope!
Welcome to The Disappointments, Phil. If it’s any comfort, none of it’s your fault.
#5 – All Chelsea Players, Except Kepa (!)
The one Chelsea player who’s done himself proud this season, from an FPL perspective, is Kepa Arrizabalaga. I couldn’t have imagined writing that sentence back in July, but here we are.
Apart from that, and despite being littered with big names, everyone had disappointed for a whole variety of reasons.
Mount was good in FPL between 2019-2021, and great in 21/22 (10 G, 10A). This year he had one decent spell in GW’s 10 and 11, when you wouldn’t have owned him anyway. In the other 13 GW’s he’s started 12 games and registered zero goals and one assist.
It seemed like Aubameyang might be fun. He scored 11 goals in 17 games after his move to Barca last season, after all. Nope. He’s scored one Premier League goal this season, and that was in his debut.
Sterling’s drop-off has been remarkable. His goal involvements the six years prior to this one: 21, 25, 32, 26, 19, 20. His goal involvements this season: 4. He hasn’t returned once since gameweek 5.
Personally, however, the defenders have been the biggest disappointment.
We went into this season looking at one of the best back-lines (on paper) in Europe: Cucurella/Chilwell; Koulibaly; Silva; James. Through a combination of injuries (Reece James, who only had one goal and one assist anyway) and rotation (everybody else), they’ve been a disaster from an FPL perspective.
Thiago Silva has the most points from all of them. He’s the 30th-ranked defender in FPL. He’s got fewer than Trent, for God’s sake!
They’ve done well in the Champions League, and all right in the real Premier League. In Fantasy Premier League, this is the biggest underperforming squad of them all.
#6 – Marcus Rashford (Starting Price 6.5)
Marcus Rashford – Marcus Rashford! – priced at a mere 6.5. No wonder he was such a popular pick heading into the 2022/23 season. FPL Towers are basically giving him away at that price, right? This is somebody who started at 9.5 both of the prior seasons. 3.0 off, for a Top Six starter, in his prime, playing next to Bruno, Ronaldo, et al? Where do I sign up?!
Well, it hasn’t quite worked out that way.
Amid all the (deserved) Man U banter over the past few years, it’s easy to forget that Marcus Rashford has been really good. In the three seasons between 2018-2021 he got 17, 25, and 22 goal involvements, despite various injuries limiting his minutes.
Last season he was rubbish. He got injured, but still only got 4 G, 2A, which – on a pro rata basis – still would’ve been comfortably worse than he’d been managing.
This year he’s been just as bad. He’s on 4 G, 2A again, which doesn’t look terrible… the problem is that you probably didn’t own him when he registered any of those.
He only got 1 G, 1A in his first five games. Most managers gave up heading into Gameweek 3, with a massive net transfer of -199,000 and an upcoming game against Liverpool. Naturally, he scored. Net transfers in… +123,000!
Most people held him during this time, despite tricky games against Arsenal and City approaching. Arteta’s suicidal second half tactics in the former game saw him bag 2G, 1 A.
Everyone immediately rushed to get him back in (net transfers that week: +164,000)! He’d looked great, was finally starting up top for a dangerous, counter-attacking team, and only cost 6.4 at that point.
Talk about a false dawn. In the seven games post-Arsenal he’s started six, scored one goal, and got zero assists.
Basically, he’s been a Grade-A FPL troll this season. Hundreds of thousands of managers have suffered at his inconsistent hands – including most recently my colleague, James – which easily gets him a mid-table ranking on my list.
#7 Pedro Neto (Starting Price 5.5)
The days when we thought a £5.5m Pedro Neto was a good idea seem light years ago.
– 600 minutes played
– zero returns
– four clean-sheet points
– injured
– now worth £5m#FPL— FPL Bateman (@FPL_Bateman) October 31, 2022
If there’s one serious contender for the ‘Ivan Perisic Sexy Pre-Season Pick Who Let Us All Down’ award, it’s Pedro Neto.
League-leaders Arsenal were pushing to sign him in the summer. He was an incredibly trendy shout among FPL content creators heading into this fantasy season. It’s hard to remember why, now.
Wolves averaged exactly one goal per game last season. It’s hard to get more boring than that. Neto got 1 G, 1A, albeit while only playing 459 minutes.
That return actually would have been welcomed by FPL players this season. Neto managed 0 goals and 0 assists in his first eight games, each of which he started, before picking up a serious injury in Gameweek 9 against West Ham.
If you weren’t on the preseason bandwagon, you might not think Neto was a big enough deal to warrant a place here. In that case, my friend, I’d urge you to take a peek at these net transfer numbers:
By the time he got injured in Gameweek 9, Neto was already well on his way to breaking the 1 million mark in net transfers out. That’s pretty impressive, and is more than enough to merit a solid spot in The Disappointments.
#8 – All Villa Players
We all know Steven Gerrard was rubbish now, but on paper – heading into the 22/23 FPL season – Villa had some serious FPL players. Martinez, Digne, Watkins, Coutinho, and Ings have all been big names in Fantasy Premier League. Many of us, myself included, have flirted with the likes of Cash and Mings, Ramsey and Buendia too.
Well, this season they’ve all stunk. Going by position, their highest-ranked player is Watkins at #11 among forwards, who has managed a mighty 2 G, 3 A. Martinez is only the 11th-best goalkeeper, and – unsurprisingly – no Villa players rank among the top 30 defenders.
The most annoying player has probably been Bailey, because he’s actually quite good. He seemed a snip at 5.0 heading into the season, and made my personal starting lineup against Bournenmouth. Along with over 488,000 other managers, I gave up after Gameweek 2. Naturally he returned in Gameweek 3.
He’s only got 3 goals and 1 assist in the 11 games since, so he hasn’t exactly been setting the FPL world alight. Bailey is definitely one to watch heading into the second half, however, in part because he only costs 4.6 now, and also because Unai Emery is his manager now (you can read me fangirling over Emery here).
#9 – J-Lingz (Starting Price 6.0)
Jesse Lingard might be the only player signed on a free that wasn’t worth the money.
— CarefreeMF (@CarefreeMF) October 30, 2022
If Pedro Neto being targeted by Arsenal and a darling of FPL content creators seems a lifetime ago now, then Jesse Lingard being the subject of a bidding war between West Ham and Notts Forest feels like ancient history. Forest ‘won’ that particular contest, but with Lingard this season – in real-life and in FPL – there have been no winners.
Like Rashford and Neto, Lingard was another of those so-cheap-you-can’t-say-no midfielders. We all had Mo, Haaland, Trent, and Cancelo. We had to save money somewhere, and this lot seemed the perfect place to do so.
Turns out they were all rubbish, which is why they were cheap to start with.
Lingard was the least popular pick, hence why he’s lower than the other two on this list. Make no mistake though – he’s been the worst of the bunch. Rashford might have been wildly inconsistent, to say the least, but he’s still amassed 60pts in the process. Well, Lingard has 26pts. He’s started nine of Forest’s 15 games, come on in three others, and has truly justified his massive wages with a whopping 0 goals and 1 assist.
I’m sure somebody has done the Danny Drinkwater-style calculations to find out how much that assist has cost Forest, but I can’t be bothered to look it up. Lingard isn’t worth the effort. Congratulations on the contract, Jesse. Shame it’s only for one year, because nobody will be offering half that much next year, and if your FPL ownership is above 2% I’ll be shocked.
#10 – Ronaldo (Starting Price 10.5) & Bruno (Starting Price 10.0)
If you’d asked me to pick a pair of relevant, proven players I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole, heading into this FPL season, these might be the first two that came to mind.
Ronaldo’s name is still Ronaldo, so he still gets talked about constantly every time he flounces off or posts some silly Instagram post. He’s been completely irrelevant in a footballing sense though, and particularly for FPL. Ten Haag keeps coming back to him, so his net transfers keep on bouncing up and down. He’s got 1 G, 0 A all season, however, for a mere 20pts (tied with fellow legendary marksmen Neal Maupay and Chris Wood, at the time of writing).
As an Arsenal fan, I find Man U’s continuing waste of Bruno (their best player) a constant source of amusement. Following a monstrous first 1.5 years, they decided to completely take away all his space, and his production has declined accordingly.
He’s started 14 games this season, and has 1 goal and 1 assist. This is somebody who – when the team was based around him (and getting a lot more penalties, admittedly) – registered a ridiculous 18 goals and 14 assists in 2020/21. Even without the penalties, he’s still a world class creator.
I’m not sad about any of this from a real-world perspective. Bruno is the biggest moaner in the league, and – hey – I’m an Arsenal fan. That said, it’s a bit annoying to lose out on one of the most consistent players in FPL, however.
(If CR7 does force his way out in January, however, look for Bruno to immediately become relevant again.)
Final Thoughts
Was that too negative? Probably. But the article’s called ‘The 10 Most Disappointing Players’ – what did you expect?!
Maybe I’ll look to bring balance to the force with a ‘10 Most Pleasant Surprises’ article. I can put the font in all the colours of the rainbow, have gifs of unicorns prancing across meadows – the works.
In the meantime, we’ve got plenty of tasty content for you to seek your teeth into. I’ll be back later this week with our final pre-World Cup preview, for Gameweek 16 (Punt Alert). After that, we’ll be turning the Full 90 FPL beam on full blast and directing it straight at Fantasy World Cup. Check out all the stuff we’ve already written for that here, including a full guide to the rules.
Right, that’s it for me. I hope you weren’t too disappointed by this article.