Aston Villa FPL: Who To Own, Captain And Avoid — 6 Aug

The fixtures explain it. BHA (A), ARS (H), HUL (A), NFO (H), TOT (A), BRE (H). Plenty of games Villa can score in — Hull and Forest especially — but Arsenal, Spurs away and Brighton away is not the diet on which shutouts are built.

So the pick is Ollie Watkins at £8.0m. Our projections have him around 25-26 points over the six — call it 4-5 a week with the odd game he goes big, because a nailed striker in the league's sixth-sharpest attack facing Hull and Forest will get his hauls. Only about 1 in 10 managers own him, which at that price and that fixture run is the sort of quiet value this column exists for. He starts, he plays 90, he's the focal point. That's what £8.0m should buy.

The defenders are where I'd pump the brakes, and I say that as someone who loves a boring 6. Konsa (£4.5m, roughly 1.5 in 10 own him) and Cash (£4.5m) are cheap and nailed, and 13-15 points over six games is perfectly serviceable for the money — as fifth defenders go, fine. But you're buying them for clean sheets, and the fixtures say those will be scarce until the run softens. Same story for Martinez at £5.0m: honest keeper, save points, but don't expect a string of shutouts against this lot. Hardly anyone owns him (about 1 in 2 in 10, if we're being precise — call it nobody) and there's a reason.

McGinn at £5.5m is the deep cut — barely 3 in 10... no, barely 3 in *100* territory, hardly anyone has him — and he'll chip in, but our model prefers Watkins by a distance and so do I. Don't get clever.

The call: buy Watkins now, before the Hull and Forest games arrive and the price of admission goes up. Konsa or Cash only if you need a £4.5m body who actually plays — bench fodder that starts is never wasted money. Leave Martinez and McGinn alone. One Villa attacker, one cheap defender at most, and move on.