For the third defender in our new ‘Player Value’ series, we assess the potential value for money Andrew Robertson could provide

One eye on the past – in the long-term, he has averaged 1.8pts per game (goals, assists & bonus points), which is very close to our target of 2.1pts per game (4.1 including appearance points) – throw in a clean sheet every 10 games and we have value for money.

What is more impressive, is that he has missed 20% of games over this period (due to being rested around Liverpool’s Champions League campaign) – so with more game-time he might well hit our target regardless of clean-sheets.

One eye on the future – defensively, our algorithms are forecasting that Liverpool are unlikely to keep too many clean-sheets in their opening five fixtures. There is a decent chance versus West Ham at home in GW1 and a probable clean-sheet versus Brighton at home in GW3, but that is all.

You’ll have seen a lot of speculation that their defensive prospects are going to improve with the arrival of Goalkeeper Alisson and while this is possible, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that they are a very attacking team and are going to concede chances.

If Robertson continues where he left off, the one clean sheet on top of his goal-involvement and bonus point returns will serve us well.

Indeed, we are forecasting Liverpool to score 9 goals in the opening five so there should be opportunities for goals or assists – and also looking at his stats versus similar opposition, he has an impressive 0.8 (per game) big chance and goal involvement versus three of them, so attacking returns look very probable.

What to do? – Robertson’s value for money (excluding clean-sheet points) is close to where we’d expect a £6M midfielder to be – indeed, if he has a good run of game-time (fewer rests) we’d expect him to hit target.

So based on that, he is definitely a worthy signing, as clean sheets can effectively be considered a bonus, and we saw how good Liverpool were at keeping clean sheets at home last year.

FPL Tip: the key to FPL is about finishing as high as possible after week 38 – so be patient because it is a marathon not a sprint.