Best FPL Budget Forwards(6.5 & below) for 2022/23 season

Picking a budget forward in FPL can be very tricky, especially because the number of forwards in the game is much smaller than midfielders or defenders. Also, managers tend to choose forwards last when picking a team and often compromise when it comes to forwards. It is a challenging task to pick three forwards that all get a reasonable amount of minutes and that is why budget forwards are so important in FPL.

This season brings with it an exciting bunch of forwards. Many are coming from promoted sides while some have signed for Premier League sides that have required a forward. In this article, we must discuss budget forwards and compare them with each other. For the sake of this post, all forwards are below the price of 6.5m in the game and will play a considerable amount of minutes. These players are:

Aleksandar Mitrovic
Dominic Solanke
Deniz Undav
Armando Broja
Bryan Mbeumo
Jean-Philippe Mateta
Taiwo Awoniyi
Sekou Mara

Link to all our 2022/23 Pre Season articles including a transfer tracker of all new signings, all team pre-season friendly updates, team previews, fixture analysis, position-wise analysis, and more. Completely free to access as well!

Aleksandar Mitrovic

Last time around, many expected Mitrovic to do well in the Premier League after Fulham was promoted in the 2020/21 season. Although Mitrovic had an underwhelming season and disappointed managers that initially got him in. He scored only 63 points while accumulating 3 goals and assists each. But this time around things are different. Mitrovic is coming off the back of a record goal scoring season where he scored 43 goals breaking the previous individual goalscoring record set by Ivan Toney in the season before by a staggering 13 goals.

While these numbers are unrealistic to translate into the Premier League, he might have a decent season with the newly promoted Fulham. Mitrovic accumulated an xG of 34.69 and an xA of 5.14. He overperformed in both these metrics scoring 43 goals and assisting 7. Mitrovic possibly being on penalty duty for Fulham only adds to his appeal.

Pre-season form- Mitrovic has been in great form during the pre-season with 3 goal and 1 assist from 3 games. Detailed updates of Fulham’s pre-season games available here.

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Dominic Solanke

After two very strong seasons in the Championship, Solanke will finally play in the Premier League for the 2022-23 season as an “experienced” striker. Having two 15+ goal seasons under his belt and almost equaling the previous individual goal scoring record of 30 goals in the last season, he surely is ready for the Premier League. He accumulated an xG of 33.72 in the Championship last season scoring 29 goals while assisting 7 from an xA of 6.47. Solanke started all 46 games he played in the Championship last season which makes him a very attractive option among the budget forwards.

Pre- season form: In an another wise dull pre-season for Bournemouth where they lost 3/4 games and scored only 4 goals, Solanke was the lone bright spot with 2 goals. Detailed updates of all the Bournemouth’s pre-season games available here.

Further Read: Best FPL Forwards to Consider Ahead of the 2022/23 FPL Season

Deniz Undav

Brighton has always looked like a team that could use a consistent striker to lead their frontline and the seagulls sure hope to have done just that after signing Deniz Undav from Union SG. The German striker comes to Brighton after an excellent season in the Belgian first division where he managed to score 25 goals and assist a further 9 in just 33 games. What is even more interesting is that of the 25 goals he scored, only three were from penalties.

Further Read: Best FPL Assets to Consider from Promoted Teams | 22/23 Season

Armando Broja

Was Armando Broja a trap last season? Maybe. Will he be a trap again this season? Probably not. Chelsea has been very firm on their stand on keeping Broja around for next season, warding off interest from Premier League teams like West Ham United and Southampton. This could be indicative of Thomas Tuchel’s intent on using the Albanian. Chelsea is rather slim in the striker department at the moment. Kai Havertz and Timo Werner are the only options they have and neither has cemented their place in the team. This gives Broja a fair fighting chance to make the number 9 position his own.

He racked up an xG tally of 7, scoring 6. It is worth considering that Broja will get more chances at Chelsea than he did at Southampton and in turn score more goals. His npxG/shot tally stood at 0.15 while Havertz and Werner had an npxG tally of 0.17 each. This shows that Chelsea forwards got better quality shots than Broja did at Southampton and even then Broja managed to score more goals than Werner and just 2 goals less than Havertz.

Further Read: Best 8.0 Million FPL Midfielders- Stats, Comparison & Verdict

Bryan Mbeumo

Mbeumo was a very exciting FPL asset at the beginning of last season. He arrived in the Premier League with Brentford last season and managed to get 4 goals and 7 assists in the 2021-22 campaign. Even though his appeal as an FPL asset fell through towards the end of last season, he still had a great campaign for his first season in the English top flight. This season, he has been registered as a forward in the game instead of a midfielder. This means he won’t get clean sheet points, and lose out on the extra point for every goal he scores. Not only that but his base price has also changed up to 6.0m from 5.5m last season.

His underlying statistics have been great last season, accumulating an xG of 9.7 and an xA tally of 3.6. This indicates that he should be scoring more goals than he has been. Christian Eriksen signed for Brentford in January and was a great creative force for them. With his departure, it remains to see if Brentford can still create as many chances for the forwards as they did in the latter part of last season. Ivan Toney often partners upfront with Mbeumo and is a bigger goal scoring threat. In conclusion, if you want to have a Brentford attacker in your team, consider Toney over Mbeumo.

Pre-season form: Mbeumo had a fantastic pre-season with 4 goals from 6 games. Detailed updates of all the Brentford’s pre-season games available here.

Further Read: Best FPL Assets to Consider from Promoted Teams | 22/23 Season

Jean-Philippe Mateta

Jean-Philippe Mateta is priced at a decent 5.5m in the game this season and looks set to be the starting striker for Crystal Palace for the upcoming campaign. He scored 5 goals and assisted 1 in 22 matches, which is rather underwhelming but if Crystal Palace are two improve like they did last season, these numbers could be easily brought up by Mateta. He accumulated an xG of 5.5 and an xA of 1.3 last season. He stood 15th in the league last season for shots/90 and had an npxG/shot of 0.15. This shows that Mateta is a volume shooter but the quality of shots he is taking is average. If Crystal Palace does start the season well, Mateta could be an interesting option for FPL managers.

Further Read: Best FPL Forwards to Consider Ahead of the 2022/23 FPL Season

Taiwo Awoniyi

Newly promoted side Nottingham Forest made their record signing after being promoted to the Premier League this season. The player they signed was Taiwo Awoniyi. One of the top goalscorers in the Bundesliga last season where he managed to score 15 goals from an xG of 14.0. Despite the German top flight being one of the “easier leagues” to score goals in, 15 goals n the league is a huge accomplishment. If your team has too many safe and proven assets and want to have a few “adventurous” players, Awoniyi could be a safe gamble to take.

Further Read: FPL Player in Focus: Erling Haaland | Complete Analysis

Sekou Mara

Last on the list is the new Southampton man Sekou Mara. After failing to secure Broja on a permanent transfer, Southampton signed Mara from Bordeaux, a 6-foot-tall, 19-year-old striker from France. Only in his second season of top-flight football, Mara managed to rack up 26 appearances for the French team. Scoring six goals in the process. Most of his appearances came off the bench though and we could see him rotate with other Southampton attackers in the upcoming season. Nevertheless, he is certainly one to keep an eye on.

To conclude, there exists a pool of awesome budget options for managers to choose from. Some players like Mitrovic, Awoniyi, and Solanke will be guaranteed starters but will be playing for teams that may not score many goals. While others like Broja, Undav, and Mateta might not start every game but will play for teams aiming for a top 10 finish.

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