Brighton & Hove Albion
American Express Stadium
Brighton & Hove Albion FPL: Who To Own, Captain And Avoid — 1 Aug
The call — Brighton: Back the Attack, Skip the Backline Here's the awkward bit about Brighton's opening six fixtures: our model rates them a favourable run for goals and a genuinely nasty one for clean sheets. Same six games — AVL (H), CHE (A), LEE (H), COV (A), ARS (H), SUN (A) — two completely different verdicts. Aston Villa, Chelsea and Arsenal will…
That split writes your shopping list for you.
The pick: Groß, £5.5m. He tops our Brighton rankings and projects a shade over 21 points across the six — call it 3-4 a week with the odd bigger return when the kind fixtures land. He's the sort of player this column exists for: starts every week, no rotation drama, no romance required. About 1 in 10 managers own him, so he's not the template — he's just quietly good value in a midfield slot most people spend £7m+ on. Buy him and forget him.
The trap: the defence. Verbruggen (£4.5m, nearly 2 in 10 own him) and the £4.5m defenders — Kadıoğlu, Dunk — all project a serviceable 15-16 points over six weeks, which is fine for the money. But "fine" is doing heavy lifting when three of the first five fixtures are Villa, Chelsea and Arsenal. Clean sheets will be scarce early. If you already own Verbruggen or a Brighton defender, hold — the price is cheap enough that you're not losing much sitting through it, and Kadıoğlu at £4.5m with barely anyone owning him is a decent bench body who actually plays. Just don't spend a transfer bringing one in before GW6. There are easier defences to back right now.
The punt: Gomez, £5.0m. Ranked below Groß for a reason — he's the shinier, riskier version of the same slot. Hardly anyone owns him (under 3 in 10... under 3 in 100, frankly), and if you want a cheeky differential he's live. But when Groß projects seven more points at only £0.5m extra, the boring option wins. It usually does.
The call: Groß in for GW1 — set-and-forget at £5.5m. Hold any Brighton defenders you own, but don't buy in until the Villa–Chelsea–Arsenal gauntlet is done. The goals are coming before the clean sheets are.