Liverpool FPL: Who To Own, Captain And Avoid

Liverpool: paying champions' prices for a mid-table attack

Here's the number that should stop you at the door: our model rates Liverpool's attack 15th in the league right now. Fifteenth. That's the going-nowhere end of the table, attached to some of the most romantic price tags in the game — and the fixtures are about to make it worse. Bournemouth away, Manchester City, Brentford away, Brighton, Arsenal, and only then a trip to Palace. That's a very tough run for the forwards and a tough one for clean sheets too, even with a defence our model has a more respectable eighth.

So where's the value, if there is any? Not where the crowd thinks. Isak at £9.1m is priced for the player he can be, not the returns this run is likely to hand him — over a pound dearer than Szoboszlai for barely a point more across the six. When two team-mates project the same and one costs £2.1m less while taking the penalties, the free kicks *and* the corners, that's not a debate. Szoboszlai is nailed, he clears a return most weeks off set pieces alone, and about 3.5 in 10 managers already know it. He's the one Liverpool attacker whose price matches his floor.

Wirtz at £7.4m is the shiny one, and hardly anyone owns him — but he projects below three team-mates, and I don't pay midfield money for the fourth-best route into a 15th-ranked attack. Same logic, harsher, for Gakpo.

At the back, the honest budget story is Jacquet: £5.0m, starting every week, owned by almost nobody. Eighth-best defence into City, Arsenal and Brighton isn't a clean-sheet machine, but a nailed £5.0m starter who never blanks on minutes is exactly the sort of player who funds your Haaland. Virgil and Alisson are fine players at prices this fixture run doesn't justify.

What changes the call? Get past Arsenal in that fifth fixture and the run softens — Palace away is where you'd want Liverpool assets waiting on your bench, not bought at full price beforehand.

The call: one Liverpool attacker maximum, and it's Szoboszlai — the set pieces make him the only one whose floor survives these fixtures. Jacquet if you need a cheap defender who actually plays. Everyone else, including Isak, is a hold-off-or-sell until the fixtures turn.