FPL Budget Picks: The Best MID Under £6.5

Budget midfielders under £6.5m: one obvious answer, eleven ways to overthink it

Here's the least romantic stat you'll read all week: our model gives Groß roughly 50 points over the next six gameweeks. The next-best midfielder under £6.5m gets about 30. That's not a gap, that's a different sport.

Groß is £5.9m, starts every week, never gets hooked on 60, and Brighton's run is a very kind one starting at Sunderland away. About 3 in 10 managers already own him, so he's hardly a secret — but at this price you're buying the guaranteed starter who's good for 5-6 most weeks and clears 8 projected points per gameweek on average. That's what value actually looks like.

The rest of the bracket, briefly and without sentiment:

• Tavernier (BOU, £6.1m) — starts, average fixtures, Chelsea away first. Good for roughly 30 over six. Owned by fewer than 1 in 10.
• Schade (BRE, £6.2m) — starts, but the fixtures are tough from Villa away onwards. Pass for now.
• Barnes (NEW, £6.1m) — lovely run of games starting at Coventry, but projects well below Groß despite it. Fine, not essential.
• Diego Gomez (BHA, £5.0m) — the quiet one. Starts, proven, same kind Brighton run, nearly 27 points projected at a pound less than most of this list. Barely 4 in 10... sorry, 4 in *100* own him. If you need the cash, he's the enabler who actually plays.
• E.Le Fée (SUN, £5.7m) and Xhaka (SUN, £5.5m) — both start, both face a very tough run. No.
• Belloumi (HUL, £5.1m) and Slater (HUL, £4.5m) — starters, but unproven and the fixtures are brutal. Slater's the £4.5m bench body if you must.
• Ndiaye and Anderson (MCI) — favourable fixtures on paper, Liverpool away in reality, and neither projects enough to justify the slot.
• Stach (LEE, £6.0m) — starts, Arsenal away, very tough run. Admire from a distance.

Fifty-five midfielders qualify at this price. The model's answer is boring and correct: buy Groß. If the £5.9m doesn't fit, Diego Gomez at £5.0m buys the same fixtures and a real start for less; Tavernier is the respectable fallback if you're Brighton-full. But the call is Groß — and in this bracket, boring is the whole point.