With an exciting array of big hitters in this season's FPL (those priced at £10m+), we are going to have to make tough decisions over the course of the season as to which 2 or 3 of them we want in our teams. With the legendary Cristiano Ronaldo joining Manchester United (still arguably the best player in the world), who are the options that we should be looking at for our FPL teams?

The Players

At the time of writing, Ronaldo's price hasn't been confirmed yet but given that he is still considered one of the best players in the world, I can't imagine a scenario where he's not the same price as Mo Salah, if not slightly more - the last time he was in FPL, he was £14m (and still a bargain) but at 36, it's a stretch to imagine him being priced any more than £13m. So I'm punting for £12.5m - £13m and for the purpose of my analysis, I'm including both possibilities.

The Data

So as with my assessing the £4.5m defenders article, I'll share with you the Expected Goals (xG) and Expected Assists (xA) data from last season (data for Ronaldo and Lukaku are from their seasons at Juventus and Inter Milan respectively).

A few things to note when looking at this data:

1. The xG + xA for each position includes the extra point that you get for a goal.
2. The midfielder data does not include the extra point that you get for a clean sheet.
3. The data does not take bonus points into consideration (although every player is fairly consistent in this respect).

It's also worth noting that Ronaldo takes penalties and most direct free kicks for Portugal so his arrival at Man Utd will almost certainly have a detrimental affect on Bruno Fernandes's output.

What's interesting is that Forwards combined points from xG + xA are higher than all of the midfielders with the exception of Jamie Vardy and all of the Forwards listed are considered better value ((xG + xA) / Price).

Whether he's at £12.5m or £13m, only Lukaku comes close to Ronaldo for xG + xA and for value. (Another caveat here is that both of these players were playing in a different league so perhaps this comparison is less relevant.)

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Team Fixtures

The other thing to consider is each team's fixtures so using my custom metrics which considers a team's xG, fixture difficulty and home/away, we can make a comparison:

I have excluded GW3 from this because Ronaldo is unlikely to be available before the Gameweek deadline and as you can see, Man Utd and Chelsea look the strongest over this period (GW 4 - 7).

If you're looking at captain rotation, the following teams accompany each other well:

Primary Team	Supported By
Man Utd	Man City
Chelsea	Liverpool
Liverpool	Man Utd
Leicester	Chelsea
Spurs	Man Utd
Man City	Man Utd

So if you've got a player that you feel that you simply must own and are happy rotating your captain, then these are the pairings that you might consider.

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My Opinion

When yesterday's news regarding Ronaldo surfaced (initially to Man City), my decision was already made - I would be wildcarding over the International Break and I would build my team around him. (Ronaldo Captain became the ubiquitous phrase in previous FPL seasons.)

The analysis above does little to change my mind, despite the numerous caveats. What did surprise me in writing this was the comparative strength of the Forwards over the Midfielders - is a front line of Ronaldo, Kane and Lukaku a viable set and forget option, resisting the lure of Mo Salah?

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As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Will you be getting Ronaldo straight in or will you wait and see?