Next in our new ‘player value’ series, we take a look at Manchester City: Leroy Sané is first up.

One eye on the past – based on the long-term, he has returned an average of 2.9pts per game (goals, assists & bonus points) – which is short of where we’d need him to be versus our value for money target of 3.3 points per game (5.3 including appearance points).

He has missed 30% of games over this period (mostly due to injury), so his medium-term form of 3.4pts per game might be more indicative of what we might expect – therefore more-or-less on par with our target.

However, there is a watch-out – looking at the underlying stats in his last ten games, it is visible that his goals and assists often come with very few big-chance shots or chances created, so we have to ask ourselves whether he can continue to deliver such high returns – this is why our algorithms have forecasted his influence so low.

That said, a player scoring, or assisting difficult chances every few games has more chance of continuing in that vein when his team are scoring 3-4 goals a game (as City tend to do under Pep).

One eye on the future* – despite the forecasted low influence percentages, he is ranked third at Man City, behind Sterling (very doubtful to start the season after the World Cup) and Jesus (might start the season after the World Cup) – it is worth noting however, that City’s share of goal involvement across many players, coupled with the injury to Agüero and compassionate leave of David Silva, do distort the stats somewhat.

Regardless, the point is that Sané is likely to start the season, as he missed the World Cup with Germany and should be fully rested. There might be doubts over his long-term involvement, but we’d advise you to focus on the short-term for now (because an early wildcard is advised given how many players will be rested in the Premier League as a whole, following the World Cup).

Our algorithms are forecasting Man City to score 2 to 4 goals per game across their first five fixtures – which suggest at least one of their assets is essential with two and even three a sensible approach.

Finally, all his stats versus similar opposition are zero – in part caused by his missed game-time coupled with how we gather the data – but also because he hasn’t produced the goods versus similar opposition – we don’t think this is a cause for concern, but it is certainly something to be mindful of.

*note that goals forecasts might have changed slightly versus previous reviews because of enhancements to our algorithms.

What to do? – It is a simple choice really – if you believe Sané’s lack of big-chance involvement is irrelevant, bring him in, because with other key City players missing at the start of the season he could feature heavily among the FPL points – if however, you believe he cannot continue producing the same sort of form, give him a miss.

We do have the advantage of seeing how City might line-up for the season on Sunday with the Community Shield, so we’d heavily advise watching this and seeing if he starts, what system Pep plays and how Sané fits into it, and obviously how he performs – then make your decision.

FPL Tip: we said it in the article, but a lot of players are going to miss the start of the season following their World Cup exploits. So start without these doubtful players, then early wildcard when they return. You could potentially put a lot of distance between you and those millions of FPL’ers not fully aware of all this – it’s a viable strategy that many top FPL managers will be doing.