Club x Club: Arsenal

[Music] Welcome in to Found Tracks in Football, the first episode of of 20. We're kicking off our club by club series, starting with Arsenal. I know according to Premier League table, I should start with AFC Bournemouth, but Bournemouth begins with B and I just don't like when the table looks. We're going to kick off with Arsenal. Joining me to review every club in detail is Karl and Sean. Hello, hello. Welcome in guys. Let's kick off with Arsenal. We're going to go through the format. We're going to look at players that we really like at their ADP, players that we think are risky, especially at their ADP and sleepers that we like either later drafts or maybe early season waivers that we want to watch. We are recording all of these episodes on August 3rd. There's a long way to go before most people drafting in the next two or three weeks and there's also a lot of transfer window to go. So, I want a time stamp because if you're listening to this in three weeks and a blockbuster transfer has happened, that might change the information that we may provide, but obviously you can listen to the later episodes as we get closer to the draft. But let's kick off with Arsenal. They've obviously made one key signing this summer. Zollis, but does anyone know how to pronounce it? Zollis, right? I think it's Zollis, yeah. Left-winger from Bruges, 34 million. He scored 17 goals at 23 assists last season. We're going to talk about him in a minute. In terms of injuries right now, they've got Timber, who obviously the right back. Apparently he is scheduled back for early August 21st of August. I think that's basically a game time decision for Timber, right? He'll be interested to see if we get him back fit and healthy. I mean, a great pick if he is. And then Celeba is probably the biggest one, especially for maybe late round draft picks. Because Celeba sent it back, obviously. He's got a back injury with no return day on PremierInjuries.com. So, we actually don't know when he's going to come back. I'll talk about who might start there in a little bit. In terms of transfer rooms, we've got to acknowledge this, I think, because we're going to talk about players that are playing for Arsenal right now. Bruno, obviously, Bruno Gamerish is linked. I've been using transfer market, guys. Have you seen this? They give a percentage likelihood at assessment score. They've got Bruno at 94%. Which brings my heart as a new council fan. I was looking at that today. There's a lot of good percentages being thrown around on transfer market. 94% not good. That looks likely to happen. And then obviously, we've got Venetius Jr., the big elephant in the room, a left wing. If he goes through, then that'd be the deal of the summer would increment, massively change our top 12 draft picks. I did have a quick check. Again, time stamp August 3rd. Today, BBC reports that Vinnie is now continuing talks with Rheumadrid on the contract. So now where that goes, basically, it looks like if he declines it, he gets sold. They're not going to let him walk free. Arsenal would probably be in pole position at this point to take him on. So we'll keep an eye on that one. But we're not going to factor Vinnie into the discussion here. We probably should factor a Bruno in the discussion into this one, because it looks like that one will be done. I know Gary has said that he thinks they might play slightly differently this year. And maybe they will, as a show, we don't have Gary on. But for this episode, obviously, he's just moved. You've got your, you're going to see your basic 433 formation again this year. Set pieces. We've got, on penalties, it was Sakka Giocarez and OdeGuyden, that order, I'm pretty sure. Depending on who was playing, corners, Sakka and Rice. And three kicks, Rice seemed to be the main guy. So those are your set piece takers. Sakka would take some OdeGuyden, take some, as they had some too. Right. The Rice was, I think, the clear winner there. Quite Rice and Sakka, though, the set piece guys that you'd want if you were picking. You wanted to pick a player for set pieces. Unless you're a third pick, I wouldn't even worry about Sakka. You're going to pick him. I wanted to look at some of the players that I think are absolutely must-graphs within this squad. Sakka is a clear one. We're not going to spend any time on Sakka, right? If you've got a top five pick, we could debate his Sakka at third pick or a fourth pick or a fifth pick. Likely, it's how you feel about him and his injury and how he's going to start. Regardless, he's a first round pick. Sakka should be one of the first four or five people off the board. Yeah. So we don't need to talk about him at length at all. Declan Rice, I mean, we can break him down in depth, but he's a first round pick. Bobble second round, if you're unsure about how long are they going to rest him for. But if you were picking 11th and Declan Rice, you'd be pretty happy, no? Absolutely. That's what I think I would be hoping to get him at the start of the second. I think there's better guys there at the end of the first and I'm being honest, but he's right there. He's on the bubble. Yeah, the bubble, for sure. Gabriel, I think he is a must-drop. I would stress maybe not his current ADP or. Where is his current ADP? Does anyone have it in front of him? I don't actually have it right now, but I can find it real quick. Be here with him. About 31. Okay, 31s. Here, I've got 25. Okay, maybe I'll be moving up. Yeah, he must be moving up because I've seen him pick on the 24th pick at the back end of the second round. So, to me, Gabriel is a guy that I think you want on your team. You want to draft him. I don't, I wouldn't pick him second round. There's better players. I think they're on the turn that I would look at. And we talked about defender's guest, he before. And the other guy that I think he's an absolute must-draft at is current ADP. And I want to get your thoughts on this. Is Yuri in Timber? Right, Yuri in Timber currently being picked at the 59th spot, so end of the fifth round. Last year, he was 10.83 points per game and 11.5 points per start. Now, let's we're going to focus mostly on points per start, right? Because when they start, how much does this go? 11, nearly 12 points per start. Now, he was a bit gold, gold-dependent, I think, beginning of that year. But he's going to the end of the fifth round. Does that not seem like a kind of an injury discount? I think that's probably about where he should be going personally. I think there's a lot of players who are going to be available before him that I would be picking in the fifth round. But yeah, I think like, back end of the fifth round is probably about where I would expect him to fall. There are players in the fifth round that I love. We'll talk about them in other clubs, but the midfielders, the midterms, the taves, the Uotairas, the SARS of the world, the Haver nonsense of the world, no matter what Sean says to me. And so, you know, those guys, I'm probably taking over Timber because I want to pick high-abset midfielders. I'll talk about the depth that you have at defense. So regardless of how well they scored last season, you've got a lot more options in defense than you do in midfield and things like that. Although saying that, it's more of the high ceiling. You know, the defenders have a high, who have high flaws, a kind of few, an aren't few and far between. So that kind of reflects where you're going to take them in the draft. I would rather you're in Timber the Mk. Gay, and you can get in five or six picks later. Yeah. I defend the picks, not actual picks. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree with that. I'm on my fence there. I think Gay, he's got a bit better ghost points, which I like to see. So, you know, I think you're a little bit more goal contribution reliant on Timber. So I can go either way there, but obviously, there's going to be a little bit more value just based on Timber's ADP. Yeah, definitely. Let's look at some other plays. Those to me, the plays that I really like, are really, really like. Now they're that, I would say later on, that there are other questions around some of these players. So, let's talk about Arsenal defence in general. Right? I think they're reasonably good assets to own for the most part. Hinkope, he's going to ADP 130. Fine. Can I be your ray at 76? Seems like a budget Timber, and maybe a similar upside. So, if you wanted to ignore Timber and go for a midfielder, wait a couple rounds and you could maybe pick Call of Duty up later on. Don't have you noticed, but Call of Duty, when he does start last year, 10.6 points per game per start, which is fantastic. He just was in that team with injuries and inconsistency. I think if he wasn't injured last season, we'd be talking about him as maybe even a top 10 defender. Someone would be looking to pick in the first four rounds, five rounds. Where he is right now, I think there's some serious value at that pick. Yeah, but a budget, a budget Timber for sure. One other ask would feel like he's a highlight here. Moscaira, his ADP is 227. But Gabrielle, sorry, I'm Celeba, out right now indefinitely. We don't know how long he's going to be out for. Moscaira looks like the likely be the guy that steps into that role. I guess the question though is the next man up doesn't always equal points. So, would you take Moscaira and I can have a last two rounds, fill out your roster? And maybe you've got an Arsenal starter that is going to play. Am I, I think they played Coventry first game of the season, don't they? Yeah, I think we have to look at the fact that a lot of these players we're going to talk about as Celeba as a kind of people that you would pick up in the later rounds. And you're quite happy to put them back on the wave of wire. Yeah. So, I think Moscaira isn't awfully bad pick around then. Because like you say, Coventry first game of the season, if he starts, you know, you're pretty close to almost guaranteeing a clean sheet points there. And then if he doesn't keep providing, you can throw him to the wire and pick up someone. who maybe went under the radar to start with. Is it safe to say that you're last pick? Sorry, indeed, it'll not be 15 to 16 rounds, right? That to me is, can I grab someone there? Either it's high upside, right? I really believe that they could hit, but they're hugely risky. Or they're like, is there somebody here that I know start week one week two, give me some quick value, and then I'll quickly tough them to the waiver and go pick up the next percent. Yeah, I mean realistically, you're not like the guys you draft from the eighth round onward, probably aren't going to be on your team at the end of the season. Like it's just a fact. Maybe if you're lucky, maybe one or two, and then you drafted a really good guy. So no, you have to be very cognizant of those first, you know, five fixtures. And yeah, you're essentially just picking a guy that you might just pick off the wire. So you almost look at them like that. And you know, mascara, I'm not really a huge fan. Like I don't think he does well enough to be a real asset long term, but you're right. If you can get a clean sheet that first week, maybe yeah, 14, 15th round, you can start taking a look at them. Yeah, it's just a last minute kind of a addition there. I think there are three players that I really want to talk about and get your opinion on. Yolk Perez, we talked about him in previous episodes as we lead up to the draft. He's currently going 40 second, which my mouth is not fantastic, but that's about mid fourth round in 12 team, leagues in early fourth round and 10 team leads. I like Yolk Perez this year in terms of I wouldn't mind having him on my team. I do not want to pay fourth round value for him. And I think that means that I won't get him. Just so you ever know this, he averages 3.3 goes points for start. I don't think that's surprising. He's a gold dependent striker like most of it. So the question I've got to ask you is what is the right value for Yolk Perez? Because at 42nd, can I give you some names about players you could draft outside of Yolk Perez? Harry Wilson, Minter, Minter to Vurnier, Doug Dorgu, Sar and Uotara. Let me compare ghost points, 3.31 of Yolk Perez, Wilson 5.6, Minter 8.5, to Vurnier 7.6, Uotara 6, Sar for Dorgu 9.83. Right? There's bankers, there's better bankers at that level surely. Absolutely. I think we need to caveat this, to bring the first, I think caveat of the podcast this season. We need to caveat this with the fact that, you know, if you're not multi-positional, Yolk Perez is going to be more valuable. So this from like a multi-positional point of view. And I think the value of Yolk Perez in the fourth round in a non-multipositional league is very low. If you're playing like a set sort of like standard league where you don't have MFs and you don't have DMs, I think that Yolk Perez in the fourth round is probably people grabbing early on a high potential ceiling. So maybe in set position, I think he's probably fourth round, but multi-positional, I would take every single one of those players before him. Definitely. I sure, your ghost point guy, I mean, I kind of like you to screw. No, like I think I'm basically do not draft with Yolk Perez this season. There's just no way he's going to fall. Like I've got him ranked here 74th overall. There's no way he's dropping out far. So, 32 later than 80. Yeah. So it's, he's just weighed on my board. I'm not going to spend too much time on him. At this point, I'm going to draft guys like Ezra ahead of him, you know, Califurie probably. Well, that's that's that's used this perfect segue into Ezra. Fifth round right now. What's Carl, you're pretty high on Ezra. Are you not? Yeah, I like Ezra as a player. Obviously, it's policy was an absolute ghost points machine. And I think like a second season Arsenal will see him settle more. If I had the choice between Yolk Perez and Azay in the fourth round, I would take Azay every time. And regardless of whether it's single position or multi positional, I am drafting Azay before Yolk Perez because I believe he will have a better season than Yolk Perez this year. I've struggled truthfully to kind of find where I like Azay and I've basically in every mock draft I've done not take it except one. You know, he's currently at the 85th 70. So that's what the sixth, seventh round ish. Sixth round in 12 team leagues. So, you know, as I'm looking on kind of on the draft list right now, you go through that. The players, you know, like I just said, the Boulson's the styles of Ua Tarras, DCL Fodans, those are all gone now, right? Now you're into Tindallon's Timber, Croupey Robinson, Echo Williams, Reese James, James Madison. And then just below them, true Fay and Ezra, right? So if I come out and I take Madison over, Ezra and we'll talk about Madison on Spurs. But if I've got an option of true Fay, a Woby and Ezra, who should I be taking there? Because true Fay seems like the safe pick. A Woby would normally feel like the safe pick, but I just don't know how good, I don't know what's in store for full of this year. And so then do I take Ezra there or? I would lean towards it. We'll be there just because we have history. I think we have it. We'll be doing well over the years. That would be kind of where I would go, but it would be hard for me to pass up on as a. I don't know. There might be a bit of a weird one, but I think I'd go with true Fay just because he's ghosting better than both these guys. I mean, a Woby had not a significant drop off, but I'm looking at 6.4 ghost points per start last season. As is even lower. I mean, I'm looking at 4.5. So we know it goes point machine. Yeah, I mean, granted I'm assuming Ezra gets more starts this year, but I think I'd go with true fare there. Would you go, what about Yuri Tilliman's use about, or he's exactly 10 spots ahead of Ezra on the board? That one seems a bit. I'm not the biggest Tilliman's fan. I said this on this podcast before, but is Tilliman's 10 picks better than Ezra this year? Well, yeah. The full one. I always worry about the man United drop off. I mean, it's like I was scared to draft from Bumo and Cuny last season for the same reason. I love Tilliman's. I think he goes pretty well, but he's kind of waiting to see, especially at his ADP. I think you can do a little bit better. So what about Kai Havitz? Is he a budget Giorgio Reza 72? So he's kind of that early step-and-throw there. That's very interesting because he wasn't fit at the start of last season, right? It wasn't fit for a long time. Let me give you just a couple of stats. So if you go on fan tracks, you'll see that he has 76.7 points per game. But if you look at his points, start 8.43. Right? That is for a forward that's quite decent. He's going to, he just think that for a relatively knockoff price, I think you could have a half decent guy here that is loved by the manager. And by some accounts, I've been looking online. They've got him hired in Giorgio Reza starting role, which I think might not be quite accurate, but I guess we did national fan to tell us about that. I don't know. I could see him starting. I mean, I could see them also just splitting starts right down the middle, to be honest with you. But there's no no good for anybody really. No, and that's basically why I don't know if I would take either of them after ADP. I think Harvard's ADP is still a bit high for me to be honest. I'd like to get him as somebody who is going on in the radar. So yeah, for me, it's a stay away from both those guys. He's also four point, well, it was a ghost points per start of four just over four, which is again not not only mergely better than Giorgio Reza. He did end the season with 1315 points, 15 points of it, 50 points twice in the last six games. Yeah, I'm not. I'm probably avoiding him just based on who else is around him. Carl, any thoughts differently? No, I'm pretty much in alignment with both of you there. Let me talk about a couple of risky players that I'm, that these are, well, one of these is a no-draft of me at that this year. And maybe I'm but her from having him last year. I traded for him and he was absolutely awful. Ode to guard at ADP of 27. And that's 27, I think he's actually low from what I see in a mock draft. He does still seem to go back end of second round in every draft that I've been in. I did have a quick look. I was pretty sure that that guy was leaving. The most recent news appears to be that he is not going to go. So he is going to remain an after-play. So we've removed transfer risk theoretically as of today. But do you know where he finished last year after being a second round pick? No, not yet. 165th overall on point score. Right. I mean, that is a miserable letdown. 80 points per start. Six points. Six goes points per start for a guy that you spent top 24 draft capital. But only 16 only 16 starts right. He's he's surely getting what 30 this year. What do you think? Well, you don't know because I mean, I've had a last year a bit pretty much had two squads. One for the Champions League and one for the Premier League. You know, as they start almost every Champions League game, but barely played in the Premier League. So we're going to see how he's going to deal with that. I think overall when it comes to Arsenal outside of like the top five that you know are pretty much going to pick. Every other one is borderline risky for rotation. Yeah. I mean, look at looking at Arsenal. They've got Rice, Zuberman Day, Odegaard, Ezze, Marino and soon to be Bruno Gomerish. Right. So pretty crowded sentiment field. Yeah. There. Over under Sean, I think he plays more games. I just would like I would like more than eight points per start out of my second round pick. I'm with you. I think it's more of a question of, you know, when does he become interesting? You know, it's it's it's not the third round. But is it the fourth? Right. Yes, you probably the fourth, but is there a world where he drops to the fourth? There's so many ask the fans of the world. That's the thing. That's the thing. And so maybe he's not a guy we have to worry about. And you know, sometimes a lot of the time, I'm happy to let him be someone else's problem and and focus on somebody else. Yeah. Look at the players. You could get in a third round. Kudu's Poro. Grosch. Grosch. Grosch. I'll do. Minter. I take all of those over, over my no to God without a second thought. Yeah. Bruno Gamarish, when he does join, he's a massive risk for me. I'm staying well clear, especially at the cost. It's going to cost you an early third round draft pick, maybe even late second round draft pick to get Bruno G. Yeah. That to me is bonkers. Like, let's say he drops another, another, another round and they don't drop that far because you know when you're drafting actually in the draft room, it's usually sorted by ADP. So when when you get five or six picks past a player's ADP, you just know, people start thinking, oh, I should pick him. Oh, I should pick him, right? And someone's going to pick him. Bruno Gamarish, barely a top five pick, top five rounds pick for me. Right. This is a guy that is is usually been not a very good ghost pointer and largely rely on goals and assists and just so happen to be Newcastle's Beall and Endal last year. He will not be Arsenal's Beall and Endal next year. Overperformed when he wasn't injured for Newcastle, that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think I'd much rather take a gamble on Oda guard over over Bruno. And I think they're probably going to be drafted in a fairly similar area. So yeah. Absolutely. So just a few sleepers here. I don't know. This is probably maybe disingenuous to call Madiweka sleeper. I mean, this is not somebody that he's been ADP 128. For me, that has going to get arrest, right? We all know this. That Madiweka went deep into the tournament, but he didn't play as much. You know, especially the later part. So is there a chance that he is in that starting role come at the beginning of season for a couple of weeks? Could you get a bit of value out of him? He may still be too expensive to be picking purely on. Do I get a couple of weeks out of him? So it's a maybe not the other person that could hear me out here and let me just fantasize for a moment. Could start at right wing if they decide to let Madiweka arrest and that arrest is maxed down them. We just had another brilliant game in preseason. Could he start the season for a game or two? He's not being drafted by to ADP of 271, which is kind of, you know, dynasty deeply stuff, right? That's not anything you need to worry about in redraft. Downman, if you've got a week or two, could downman against Coventry City, right? He could be a last couple of rounds. Yeah. Again, this is a sleeper for me where if you're looking, if you think maybe there's a chance he starts that first game, listen, it could be highly unlikely too, but you maybe just throw him as your 16 pick or you pick him up on the way for wire. Not somebody to invest any draft capital, but this is definitely a sleeper or one to watch. If the max no, downman hype train leaves a station at any point in the season, you want on it. You don't want to be chasing it down the tracks. I can't blame you for looking at it, but I think just realistically, when it comes down to it, I'm going to take a pond on somebody else, to be honest. Yeah, he's a fantastic young player, absolutely. And yeah, there is a world where he gets a few starts in a row, but I don't know. The best thing you could do with max downman is be fast as finger first. If you see the news, make sure you get the fan tracks before everybody else. So yeah, keep them on your short list all season. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Everyone, hopefully, everyone knows you can go into fan tracks and put a favor on somebody to watch. So yeah, let me tell you my favorite value pick in the draft out all the clubs, not just Arsenal. This is my favorite sleeper pick of every club I've looked at so far. And it is going back to the very beginning of the show. It's Zollis left wing. A guy who is going to be the de facto starter at left wing unless Vini Jr. does join. I still think that's a long shot, but if he does, then obviously ignore everything I'm about to say. But Zollis with 70 goals 23 assists last year, though, those numbers, that doesn't matter what league you play in, those numbers are absolutely crazy. They scored the other day in his in his preseason game with Arsenal. He's going to be the starter over Marnelly. We talked about we talked to Gary about it on the last episode. Do you know where he's going in all of my mock troughs? 15th round. Yeah. His ADP is 189. So his ADP is still reflecting 15th round pick. If you're in the 15th round, pick that man. I would move him up. If I'm you, I'd pick him 12th. Pick him before somebody else realizes that this is that he's still there. There's a few really good value picks for me in the last few rounds. And Zollis is a badass as good a cost to upside ratio that you can get. Surely his ADP rises before we all draft closer to the season. So I think where you want to target him is completed, depending on what his ADP is. But I would start to look at him. I don't even know. Nice 10th round. I think that would be sure. I think he could be a top 100 player in this. So definitely and potentially draft accordingly. Again, you want to make sure that this name is so far buried down the ADP rankings that no one's scrolling that far down to remember that they actually wanted it. You know what I mean? Because I really want him and I forget about him in drafts if I'm not have my notes in front of me. So so I really, really like that that pick. Yeah, that's what I have to sleep is guys. Am I missing anywhere? Are we missing any kind of key stories about Arsenal? Is there anything we need to kind of mention? No, I think I think the like I said earlier, I think Arsenal outside of the top five is kind of like a crapshoot and you've got to pick who you fancy. Yeah, absolutely. All right, guys, lovely chatting about Arsenal. Everyone good luck in your draft. Make sure you draft Zollis before anyone else can grab him. Yeah, and as Vinnie Jr. signs, he can walk up to things.