Nottingham Forest FPL: Who To Own, Captain And Avoid

Forest over the next six: mostly a no, with one grudging exception

Here's the problem in one line: Forest sit in the bottom half of our rankings at both ends of the pitch, and the fixture computer has handed them Crystal Palace away, Arsenal at home, then trips to Ipswich and Brentford before Manchester City visit the City Ground. That's a tough run for the attack and a tougher one for clean sheets. When both halves of the equation are working against you, the price tag stops mattering.

Start at the top, because it's where the temptation lives. Gibbs-White heads our list, he's on penalties and free kicks, and about 1 in 10 to 2 in 10 managers own him. But at £8.0m you're paying for his good weeks, and against this run our model has him pottering along at roughly four points a game — a mid-price return at a nearly-premium price. He's not even stamped as nailed. If you own him, fine, hold — the fixtures do eventually turn, and pens keep his blanks honest. Buying him now is paying full whack for a player entering his worst stretch. Don't.

The actual value, such as it is, sits at the back — which is awkward, because the back is exactly the end the fixtures punish. Still, look at who's turning up every week: N.Williams, Murillo and Sels have all started five straight, and they're all £5.0–£5.5m. That's the Cheapy sweet spot — cheap players who play. Williams gets the nod for me: he's on free kicks and corners too, so he can nick a return even in the games Forest lose. Murillo projects slightly better and almost nobody owns him, but a centre-half with no clean sheets coming is a defender earning his money the hard way.

The traps: Muñoz has started three of five — that's a rotation risk wearing a starter's price. Same story with Delap up front. Schlager is dirt cheap and nearly unowned, but four starts isn't five, and I don't pay for "usually".

The call: Forest are a swerve for the next six. Hold Gibbs-White if you've got him, sell nobody in a panic, and if you genuinely need a £5.0m defender who starts, N.Williams is the one Forest player worth your money — as a bench body who funds something better, not a weekly starter. Everyone else, walk on by.