Marmoush - the FPL game breaker?...

His first half hat-trick against Newcastle in FPL GW25 has sparked a lot of talk about the one many have begun calling the ‘Egyptian prince’. Don’t get me wrong, I hate a reactionary transfer as much as the next person, but on this one I’m siding with the casuals…

At just 7.1m - that’s less than HALF the price of his Manchester City teammate Haaland - Marmoush is priced around players like Gakpo, Mateta, Wood and Cunha, coming in cheaper than Watkins and Isak but more expensive than the likes of Wissa and Welbeck. This situates him in a super interesting (and very competitive) bracket of players - so let’s take a look at whether or not he’s a viable FPL option…

Stats Compared

When it was announced that City were signing Marmoush, many english football fans would have already been aware of the Egyptian and his talents. 20 goals and 13 assists in 26 appearances for Frankfurt, including 15G in 17 in the Bundesliga. He certainly made it clear that he was ready for a big move, be it to the PL or elsewhere.

Fbref has him listed as both a forward and as an attacking midfielder/winger, but as we will in this post be comparing him principally to other strikers the former categorization makes perhaps the most sense. 0.56 Goals and 0.33 Assists per 90 puts him in the 77th and 96th percentile respectively for each of those metrics (over the last 365 days). His underlying numbers suggest that this season has been somewhat of a purple patch, but are still fairly good.

Base Stats

Key: Top 3 of each stat are in green, next 3 are in yellow and lowest 3 are in orange.

What does this tell us? Weel firstly it tells us that Isak is an elite player as he is out-performing even Haaland this season. With regards to Marmoush, it tells us that he’s more productive than everyone bar Isak, but that he has been over-performing so far up to this point. But how would this translate to FPL? We all know that assists are worth 4 points and assists are worth just 3 (for strikers), so what do these stats mean in terms of actual points?

Points per Game

And if we were to use these numbers to predict points per game for these players it would look something like this… (All I’ve done is multiplied their goal and assist per 90 numbers by the amount of FPL points a forward gets for scoring (4) / assisting (3), this method does not take into account bonus points and/or playing 60+ minutes).

While this table doesn’t necessarily mean anything, I think it’s helpful sometimes to visualize goal and assist points, as the raw numbers don’t exactly give us the full story due to their different weightings in FPL.

Clearly Marmoush has been over performing this season, and was in somewhat of a purple patch - but so has Isak, so has Wissa, so has Wood, so has Cunha - while we shouldn’t expect a player to continue over performing for the rest of their career, it’s a sign of a player in form, and shouldn’t be used as a reason to avoid a player necessarily. So while it should be noted, it doesn’t mean that Marmoush is automatically a bad option - in fact, as I will argue, quite the opposite!

Marmoush at City

One of the main reasons that I’m starting to look at Marmoush is because of his role in Pep’s system. Against Newcastle he played as a second striker, making runs off of Haaland, and using the Norwegian as somewhat of a decoy. This worked excellently, as Haaland was being double teamed, and Marmoush was thus able to exploit the space that Haaland vacated.

Lots of analysis has been done of this, and it’s been talked to death, so I won’t go over it here, all I’ll say is - if he keeps playing that role (ie. when Haaland is back fit) then he will get so many chances in this team. But my advice is wait until Haaland is fit, without Haaland he is a much less attractive option.

One of my key principles in FPL is trying to get in players from the best teams. A common FPL strategy is to pick the best players from the worst teams, eg. Eze at Palace or Cunha at Wolves or Vardy or Leicester, to try and get the most points for the fewest £$£. This is of course a reasonable thing to do, and has worked in the past, but it’s risky. Often it’s better to pick a decent player (be it an attacker or a defender) from a great team, and hope that they are able to get a slice of the points, even if they’re not the star.

This may sound obvious, and it is in many respects, but it is something that many FPL players do not take into account as much as they should. Marmoush is playing for one of the best teams in the league, alongside one of the best strikers in the league, beyond some of the best creative talent in the league - and he’s cheaper than all of them…

Fixtures

One of the most important considerations in FPL is the fixture list, and boy-oh-boy the Citizens have some good one’s coming up!

After GW28, City face just 1 of the current top 6 (Bournemouth at Home), and just 2 of the current top 8 (the other team being Villa again at Home). They face 2 of the promoted sides (1 home 1 away) and 6 of their final 8 fixtures are against teams in the bottom half of the table (at time of writing).

Need I remind you that City are renowned for their end of season runs, going 10-15 games without a loss to finish the campaign comes naturally to Pep’s sides, and it’s something they may need to do in order to cement their place in the top 4 - they still have something to play for. The likes of Fulham, Southampton, Palace, Everton, United and Brighton on the other hand will likely be on the beach by then.

Pep’s side are just now coming into form - rejuvenated by new signings, players returning to fitness and an excellent run of fixtures they are certainly a team to target.

Conclusions

I really like Marmoush. I think he’s a great player and at around 7 million he could be an absolute gem. If he can continue his excellent form and create the partnership with Haaland that was promised in the Newcastle game he will become an essential end-of-season FPL pick in my opinion.

For now, with Spurs and Forest up next and Haaland sidelined through injury, it’s probably best to wait it out, but come GW29, well…

You heard it here first! Thank me later ;)