{"id":158290,"date":"2025-09-24T21:52:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T21:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/158290\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T21:52:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T21:52:12","slug":"are-any-man-city-players-haaland-aside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/158290\/","title":{"rendered":"Are any Man City players – Haaland aside"},"content":{"rendered":"

Six goals in the first five Gameweeks have Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers scrambling to buy and captain<\/a> Erling Haaland (\u00a314.3m) \u2013 even with question marks surrounding his fitness<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s visit of Burnley begins a great short and (eventually, with the exception of perhaps Gameweeks 11-12) long-term fixture run<\/a> for Manchester City:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

So, it could be worth doubling or even tripling up on assets from Pep Guardiola\u2019s side.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With so many options to choose from, the question then, of course, becomes which, if any, other City players besides Haaland are worth considering?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that very point that we aim to provide some clarity on in this article.<\/p>\n

TIJJANI REIJNDERS\"FPL<\/p>\n

With him being behind only Haaland for FPL points and total ownership, Tijjani Reijnders (\u00a35.6m) feels like a natural place to start.<\/p>\n

The Dutchman has played every single minute of league action for Guardiola so far, suggesting he\u2019s currently as close to \u201cnailed\u201d as one can hope to be under the ever-tinkering Spanish manager (we know, no one is completely safe\u2026).<\/p>\n

\"players<\/p>\n

Above: Man City players sorted by minutes played this season<\/p>\n

Against Arsenal on Sunday, it was Reijnders who set up Haaland\u2019s opener, his second assist of the week (after creating one of City\u2019s midweek Champions League goals against Napoli<\/a>). It was his third FPL attacking return in five matches.<\/p>\n

Recent history suggests this may not be a mere \u2018flash in the pan\u2019. A single-season career-high 10 goals in Serie A for AC Milan last term hinted at what was to come from his box-breaking role, and nine shots (six of them from within the opposition\u2019s penalty area) in the league so illustrate a player who loves to bomb forward from central midfield whenever possible. He came close<\/a> to scoring from inside the box against Napoli, too.<\/p>\n

\"players<\/p>\n

Above: Man City players sorted by total goal attempts (Tot) this season<\/p>\n

Now come the caveats.<\/p>\n

Firstly, he\u2019s not going to get defensive contribution (DefCon) points as regularly as other cheap midfielders. He shouldn\u2019t even have bagged them in Gameweek 5, as his defensive contributions were marked down from 12 to 11 after the Gameweek had been closed<\/a>!<\/p>\n

His minutes per shot (50) and per chance created (74) averages are really not that good, either. Yes, he\u2019s \u00a35.6m, so you\u2019re not going to get Haaland levels, but even among sub-\u00a36.0m midfielders, he\u2019s way down the list:<\/p>\n

\"players<\/p>\n

Above: The top four sub-\u00a36.0m midfielders, plus Reijnders for context, for minutes per xGI (min. 300 minutes) <\/p>\n

But the improving fixtures should boost those averages; we\u2019re still very much in small-sample territory where one \u2018big chance\u2019 is going to shoot you up the table.<\/p>\n

And with more questions surrounding most, if not all, of his City teammates, he may be the pick of the bunch outside of Haaland \u2013 particularly with his next three fixtures<\/a> being of similar difficulty to that Gameweek 1 Wolves match, when he registered his most penalty box touches (five) and final-third touches (30) of 2025\/26 so far.<\/p>\n

At his price, Reijnders is also going to help facilitate moves for more expensive picks in your FPL squad. Barring any major uptick in rotation, which would appear less likely until some more midfielders return from injury, he\u2019s also probably a comfortable long-term \u2018hold\u2019, too.<\/p>\n

JOSKO GVARDIOL\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

VOTE FOR FANTASY FOOTBALL SCOUT IN \u2018BEST IN FANTASY FOOTBALL \u2013 ORGANISATION\u2019 HERE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six goals in the first five Gameweeks have Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers scrambling to buy and captain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[72189,72190,72191,218,72192,72193,29523,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-158290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-best-man-city-players","tag-doku","tag-foden","tag-football","tag-gvardiol","tag-reijnders","tag-rodri","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}