Chelsea FPL: Who To Own, Captain And Avoid

Chelsea: buy the front end, don't touch the back

Chelsea are running the second-best attack in the league right now — and the nineteenth-best defence. That one sentence is the whole page. Everything else is deciding which end of the pitch your money goes.

The fixtures make the split even starker. Brentford away, Bournemouth at home, Everton away, then Spurs and United at Stamford Bridge before Sunderland away — a very kind run for goals, a grim one for clean sheets. Chelsea will score in most of those. They'll concede in most of them too.

So the attack. João Pedro is where our model wants your money first — nailed at £7.8m, and about 7 in 10 managers already agree, so you're not being clever here, you're just not being left behind. Solid returns most weeks, and against Bournemouth and Everton-level defences he can go big. Rogers is the sharper piece if you want to be slightly different — only about 4 in 10 own him, he's on corners, and our projections actually have him outscoring everyone at the club over the next six. Nailed, starts every week, on set pieces: that's what value looks like at £7.7m. Palmer at £9.7m has the penalties and the biggest single-week upside, but he's priced for his good days; the cheaper two give you most of the points for £2m less. And if the budget's really tight, Neto at £6.5m is nailed, takes corners and free kicks, and is owned by roughly 1 in 100 — a genuinely cheap route into the league's second-best attack.

Now the honesty. The defence is a trap dressed as a bargain. James at £5.4m looks tempting — set pieces, nailed — but a back line ranked 19th facing Spurs and United is not where you park £5m and sleep well. Martinez at £5.0m will face plenty of shots; save points don't fund a season. Lacroix isn't even nailed. Skip all of it.

The call: buy João Pedro if you haven't already, and buy Rogers alongside or instead if you want the better projection for the same money. Leave every Chelsea defender and the keeper alone until the defence stops leaking. Attack yes, defence no — it's rarely this simple.