Young Players – The Over Rated Part 2
Looking at over rated players doesn’t give me the Friday feeling.
But it’s on the schedule and as I said in Part 1 – dodging weak trades is key to overall profits and cannot be ignored.
Back to positivity next week though!
Player
Billy Gilmour
Club
Chelsea
To cut to the chase, Billy Gilmour is too deep to ever be a top performance player without a serious change in playstyle and position.
He should be high baseline, and we can expect assists. But goals are rare. He’d need to be taking Chelsea’s penalties to get me excited. At his best, assuming great progression and penalties, I think he’d be quite similar to Jorginho. But that’s a huge ask and a long way off.
He’s also Scottish, not English, and that matters a lot with a hype trade.
Gilmour is an obvious candidate for a pump and that has clearly happened already.
It can continue rising as long as he keeps starting, but the mediocre scores will eventually weigh on him outside of a rare goal which would be fortunate.
But he’s basically headed for a dead end in my opinion. No transfer. Probably no Euros unless Scotland qualify and if they do they probably don’t win many games.
Obviously if you are an early holder you’ll be very happy with the rise. But when a player has no real prospects you want to be thinking about selling whilst mugs still hold optimism for him.
It’s no different to what we saw at Chelsea with Mount or Abraham (And Gilmour isn’t as good as Mount). Eventually, Gilmour is very likely to join the long list of young Chelsea players who rise and then tank once people realise they are extremely overvalued.
Player
Jann Fiete-Arp
Club
Bayern Munich
Arp is an awful performance player and probably always will be so deserves his spot here. Over rated probably doesn’t quite capture it though. I don’t think he’s a bad trade at the moment.
He’s had a rough time with injury since he moved to Bayern, and he’s been overshadowed by Zirkzee too.
He is a good goalscorer though and that’s something. He’s been knocking them in in recent B team matches and remains a part of Bayern’s plans. He is just 20 and has not been written off yet.
It is likely he gets his chance at some point either in the rest of this season or next, and at £1.34 you can see people making the comparison to Zirkzee at £2.64 and those prices moving closer together.
Arp will need to start and score but with the number of chances you get at Bayern and his finishing ability that’s fairly likely.
You’d just need to be patient because it may take a while for him to get his chance.
There is still a place in trading for bad performance players but you have to buy them when the spotlight is off them and they are unfashionable like now. And at least he has value for IPD purposes which isn’t nothing.
Player
Joao Felix
Club
Atletico Madrid
I feel like I’m betraying my boy as he was something of a last season darling on the site and a big winner from my £1k portfolio challenge.
I picked him up very early last season for peanuts but this party looked over as soon as he was set to move to Atletico and I gratefully cashed out as others were piling in as he moved to La Liga. Had it been a better performance club, I may well have held.
That was a good call – he’s been an awful hold this season. He hasn’t lost much in pure value but in the context of how much the market has risen and what you could have used this money for – holding this was a failure. And a very avoidable one which is the worst kind.
Felix could have performance suitability eventually, I liked him for a reason. The problem is even if he was doing well at Atletico and scoring, I don’t think we’d be seeing good performance scores anyway. He has shown flashes of good stats but typically against very weak sides like Cup games.
In the absence of football he might gain some traction as people hope “maybe next season he’ll do well” but it’s unlikely at Atletico. And the price is still too high to make that a value bet.
Player
Brandon Williams
Club
Manchester United
This price is a travesty of logic.
And I mean £1.92 not even the insane £2.56 he was at in January.
There is nothing here at all to suggest he is anything other than bang average on FI or ever will be.
People often over estimate the impact of being young and English on a defender time and time again. It’s not particularly relevant for defenders – England defenders do not win lots of media and we know that. Media goes to goalscorers.
This is the type of garbage people buy if they eat up the “Flying Fullback” nonsense. They’ve been heavily punished already if buying late, and the more football we see, holders are likely to be punished further.
Player
Lee Kang-In
Club
Valencia
Kang-In has had a few periods of hype, usually in the absence of football when hope tends to overshadow reality.
He has his pumpers and you see them currently hiding behind “his scores are only bad because of limited minutes”. But no, his scores would likely be average or worse even adjusted for 90 minutes.
What you can say though is that at least the price isn’t insane at £1.48. This could be bought now without sacrificing 50% of your brain cells BUT I would say you are hoping for anticipation for next season to drive the price rather than hope of real success.
So it’s one to cash out whilst he is coming off the bench and maybe getting a goal and a price rise rather than holding too long.
Player
William Saliba
Club
Arsenal
Because the current scoring system doesn’t let many defenders shine regularly, the higher priced ones tend to thrive on hype and hope rather than reality.
The defenders who might move somewhere good later attract more interest than the players who are already playing there week in week out.
Before they see them play, there is space for people to dream the prospect might do well. Where as the established players have already proven they’ve got nothing.
But in defence in 95% of cases the replacements won’t do any better than the existing players. Not in this scoring system anyway.
Saliba is £1.39 on the basis of coming to Arsenal. But he’s got nothing at all to suggest he’ll be a force in performance scoring.
When you consider that current Arsenal defenders without hype can be picked up for 60p and under, you see the issue here.
The ones with hype like Tierney get initial traction but then when reality hits and games go by without success the price slide starts.
There is no reason that should be any different for Saliba. Holders may squeeze a bit more hype out of this as it will be a while before Saliba pulls on an Arsenal shirt. But once he does we almost certainly know what happens next.
Trading on the hype is perfectly fine with the skill and knowledge to time it right. Ignorance and believing a bang average player will actually do anything useful later is just bad trading.
Player
Eberechi Eze
Club
QPR
Eze does have some decent numbers that suggest he has some potential, but as is often the case, the price is running way out ahead of ability.
Goal threat is good. Assist potential is there. Involvement is a bit weak to compete in midfield. These numbers are just about good enough but the problem is this is at Championship level.
Is he going to do this well in the EPL anytime soon? Almost certainly not.
Shorter term, I’d expect him to do quite well and he has some reasons he might rise such as a bigger club move. There are some pitfalls, like declaring for Nigeria instead of England which remains possible.
Not an awful hold but this needs careful monitoring and it’s another to cash out if he hits a wave of hype rather than holding with real hope.
Player
Bukayo Saka
Club
Arsenal
Another price that is all kinds of crazy. Even after the drop from £3.36 to £3.15.
The stories told about this to keep the price going are so twisted it is actually quite impressive. It takes brains to keep this one afloat.
He starts with a bang, getting a decent FI score in September and flying to £2.94. Which at that time was already a very high price for a youngster, even with such a good trend profile.
Then it fades to £2.28 in the coming months, particular as he is converted to a left back.
The assists record from defence is very good so far but it’s not going to be even close to enough because of the rest of his bang average numbers.
But what are we betting on here when we buy because of his performances in defence? He’s been good in reality, poor for FI. The more that continues the lower the price will get because the shine will wear off.
Do we want him to keep that role and covert full time? If so, he’s almost certainly not going to justify that price in defence, and it kills the whole reason he had any chance of being an established highly priced player in future – i.e becoming a leading EPL forward.
Do we want him to go back to midfield or forward? This is better and possible as other left back options will be fit again. He may drop out of the side, and see more gradual introduction in attack.
In which case, he’s back in the same situation he was months ago just even more expensive.
At least he has some potential if he goes back up front but for me, there are too many uncertainties on the board for this to be a smart bet for £3.15.
£2.25 might be tempting.
Player
Sandro Tonali
Club
Brescia
No doubt a big talent and linked with big clubs. But he’s got very limited suitability for FI and £2.71 is a price I cannot see him holding beyond any transfer.
It might get a further price bump if he goes to Manchester City or Barcelona. Inter or Juventus? Probably less exciting for many.
Beyond that transfer hype, holders are going to be really struggling. You’d reasonably expect his baselines to improve over his time at Brescia.
But in the end, without goals, big baselines count for very little. It’s a goals-centric platform and if you understand the mindset of FI as a company – it’s always going to be.
They want a fun product where people will be celebrating goals and that’s always going to be the focus. The unsung heroes who control the middle of the park will remain unsung unless they can add regular goals. And there is no evidence Tonali will.
Player
Eddie Nketiah
Club
Arsenal
Nketiah is another weak performance player where it can still be a good trade as long as you time it right and are aware of his real prospects.
He’s been doing pretty well in recent games before the shutdown, with 3 in his last 6 and plenty of first team minutes. Goal threat is nice and consistent.
Are big scores likely? Nah. Does this matter at £1.87 as a youngster playing for Arsenal? A bit but it’s not terminal.
There could be IPD value there and if you really think he can become a leading EPL striker there is possible media in it too. So he’s not a no hoper.
The major factor with a trade like this is price, we must get him for a reasonable fee on a downswing like now after a drop from £2.10 to £1.87. If he does score and rise in value I wouldn’t be chasing that in.
Ideally, you buy when it’s quiet, wait for that wave of hype and for social media to be pushing him which is when you sell because unlike the mugs you know he isn’t all that great really.
Back on Monday where I’ll dig for some more good value picks! I think I’ll take a look at some of the 20-29 year olds that could be great value and rise if we get more good news about leagues restarting. And maybe dive into the ineligible leagues for next season prospects too.