FPL Budget Picks: The Best MID Under £9.0

Mids under £9.0m: who's actually worth your money

Seventy-seven midfielders come in under £9.0m this week. Most of them are noise. Here's the shortlist, ranked in the order we'd actually buy them.

Mbeumo (MUN, £7.9m) tops the pile. He starts every week, he's got a very kind run of fixtures ahead, and our model has him good for around 41 points over the next six — roughly 7 a game from a £7.9m midfielder. About 1 in 4 already own him, so he's hardly a secret, but the derby against City at Old Trafford first up is the only ugly patch on an otherwise generous run. Buy anyway.

Rogers (CHE, £7.6m) is the best alternative — same kind fixture run, projected just behind Mbeumo, and Hull at home to start. Nailed, proven, £0.3m cheaper. Nothing clever about it, which is exactly the point.

Further down the price list, two Brighton names do the boring job well. Groß (£5.5m) projects nearly 38 points over six at £5.5m — starts every week, average fixtures, and only about 1 in 6 own him. That's the best pound-for-pound return in this bracket. Diego Gomez (£5.0m) is the true enabler: 28 projected points at five million, a genuine starter, barely owned. If you need to fund a premium elsewhere, this is where the money comes from.

Tavernier (BOU, £6.0m) is the quiet one — 32 projected points, starts, and hardly anyone has him (about 3 in 100). Worth a look if you want a body nobody else owns.

Now the warnings. Szoboszlai (£7.0m) is owned by roughly 4 in 10 managers and Liverpool's fixtures are very tough — he projects a full 15 points behind Mbeumo over six. Owning a player because everyone else does isn't a plan. Same story for Gakpo. Cherki and Semenyo get nice City fixtures but the projections say the productive slots at the Etihad are crowded, and I don't pay £7.8m-plus to guess who Guardiola fancies. Gibbs-White and Dewsbury-Hall are starters running into tough fixtures — leave them. Cunha shares Mbeumo's lovely run but projects 11 points worse; if you're buying United, buy the right one.

The call: Mbeumo is the buy at £7.9m, Rogers the best alternative if the budget's tighter. And if you're funding either, Groß at £5.5m is doing more work than half the mid-priced field.