Manchester City FC Fantasy Premier League Preview 2020/21

It’s hard to say this but Pep Guardiola had revolutionised the way the game in England was played, he has been outstanding as a manager, unfortunately City didn’t have a good season last season finishing 18 points behind Liverpool and losing 9 games, that was more losses than Manchester United who finished 3rd 15 points behind Manchester City, they finished with a goal difference of +67. They scored 102 goals and conceded 35. Ederson won the golden glove with 16 clean sheets. Kevin De Bruyne had a wonderful season. 

In regards to Fantasy Premier League Manchester City’s highest scorer was Kevin De Bruyne with 251 points followed by Raheem Sterling with 204 points. Manchester City had 6 other players who scored over 100 points, and they were Riyadh Mahrez 175, Gabriel Jesus 146, Ederson 133,  Sergio Aguero 132, Bernardo Silva 116 and Kyle Walker, they also had David Silva who scored over 100 points but he has since moved on. Last year everyone succumbed to some part of Pep Roulette, Pep Roulette is when Guardiola rotates his players through his squad, he uses up as much depth as possible. 

Manchester City opening 5 games are:

Wolves (A)

Leicester (H)

Leeds (A)

Arsenal (H)

West Ham (A)

Manchester City do start their challenge for the title in gameweek 2 due to their European commitments at the end of last season, they do have a couple of challenging fixtures, they come up against wolves who last season did the league double over them, then come up against Leicester who on their day have beaten City at the Etihad, then Leeds could be a huge banana peel, then Arsenal who recently beat them en route to the F.A Cup final,and finally they come up against West Ham where they should beat them comfortably and produce fantasy managers with some points. Just note that they do have quite a good fixture for the last 10 games, and they do have at least 1 double Gameweek at some point in the season.

Goalkeeper:

Ederson (6.0): He won the golden glove last season with 16 cleansheets, and scored 133 points last season from 3071 minutes, he missed a couple of games due to injury. He is a set and forget goalkeeper but I feel like the value is there in other goalkeepers who will produce more save points, as Ederson only produced 68 saves. Currently in 5.2% of teams.

Defenders:

Kyle Walker (6.0): Very Versatile for City, can play as a CB or as a RB, made his big money move from Tottenham a few seasons back. He has competition from Joao Cancelo for the RB spot. He scored 114 points last season from 2392 minutes, which was down on his previous seasons in both the minutes and points department, he scored 1 goals and provided 4 assists while being involved in 12 clean sheets. I won’t be picking him but he doesn’t provide a good point of difference if you’re looking to go different to the main three. Currently in 5% of teams.

Benjamin Mendy (6.0): Ever since the loss of Clichy, the LB spot has been very difficult to find a permanent, consistent player who produces the same output as Robertson for Liverpool. Unfortunately when Mendy was bought by City he hasn’t been able to cement his spot in the team, he hasnt played more than 1500 minutes in a season. Hopefully this season he will be able to string some games together and not succumb to injuries that have been troublesome for him, last season he played 1491 minutes for City scoring 74 points while contributing 2 assists and being part of 9 clean sheets. If he can play 2500 minutes in a season then we should see him hit 120 mark, but might not sit in your team due to the output of Doherty, TAA and Robbo.

Aymeric Laporte (6.0): Was Injured for a fair chunk of last season and a lot of people used the excuse of having “No Laporte was why Liverpool won the league” which is so not true whatsoever. But he played 1096 minutes for only 63 points, scoring 1 goal and being involved in 8 clean sheets. He is definitely a quality CB. If he is injury free then we will see him score like he did when he played over 3000 minutes. Definitely consider him at some point this season. I don’t think he will succumb to the pep roulette.

Midfielders:

Kevin De Bruyne (11.5): Highest scorer last season and started the campaign priced at 9.5m, that will never happen again, he was so cheap and produced some amazing numbers last season, he scored 251 points, the most he’s ever scored in a fantasy season, in those 251 points he scored 13 goals and provided 23 assists in a single season. He is a must have but after they play Wolves and Leicester. He misses the first week this season but should make sure he is in your team as City will definitely have multiple double game weeks. He’s currently selected at 29.6% but that will sky rocket to at least 40% by game week 2.

Raheem Sterling (11.5): Unfortunately, even if he gets 300 points this season he still will not see himself in my team, yes I’m still salty he left, but to be honest I remember some of his chances he got when playing for Liverpool and he missed some golden 1 on 1 chances but when he went to city some how he was scoring them, just didn’t sit really well with me. But last season he cracked to 200 point mark for the second season in a row scoring 204 points, he contributed 20 goals for the first time assisting 6 times. I reckon he will produce the same this season but will not be in my team. I will make the points up someway or another. 

Phil Foden (6.5): He will be a superstar when he is older, he’s already a very good player and can make some passes other midfielders can’t even see, lots of talk about him taking up the David Silva role this season. If that’s the case then he is super cheap for the points he will score, if he is going to be used the same way over the last few seasons off the bench with a few occasional starts due to pep roulette. He scored 69 points from 888 minutes played scoring 5 goals and providing 2 assists, if he gets the role everyone is expecting watch him go big.

Ferran Torres (7.0): Moved from Valencia to Manchester City this summer window, and even was called up by the national team and got his first start for Spain against Germany in the Nations League. Last season in La Liga he played 34 times starting 26 times and came off the bench 8 other times, he missed only one game last season due to injury. In those 34 games he played, he scored 4 goals and contributed 5 assists. He also is only 20 plus has champions league experience. I don’t know where he will fit into city’s lineup but he might do very well in the premier league. Just keep him on your watch list for now. 

Riyadh Mahrez (8.5): He flew under the radar a bit due to the way De Bruyne and Sterling. He scored 175 points from ONLY 1934 minutes, he produced 11 goals and 14 assists. He is 3m cheaper than de Bruyne and Sterling. He finished 76 points behind de Bruyne but played 800 less minutes, that’s nearly 10 games difference. He produced 24 goal contributions, if he is on the right for the season he will easily get 200 plus points and that is a bargain at 8.5m. Definitely consider him, he’s only owned by 2% of coaches, hopefully he won’t succumb to Pep Roulette because if he avoids it I will be having this guy in my team for the first time since his Leicester days. 

Forwards:

Sergio Aguero (10.5): Unfortunately he got injured towards the end of the season which enabled his strike partner to produce the points but if he can play a full season he will scored well over 200 points and win the golden boot. Last season he only played 1450 minutes, he scored 132 points producing 6 assists and scoring 16 goals. Definitely consider him but be wary of Pep Roulette.

Gabriel Jesus (9.5): Last season he had his best season for Man City since coming in 2016/17, he scored 146 points points from over 2000 minutes, scoring 14 goals and producing 8 assists. Definitely a chance to be in your team but is always second fiddle to Aguero. I would save the 1.0m and go Jimenez or Ings.