BRYAN MBEUMO (£4.5m) is arguably Dream Team’s pound-for-pound champion this season.
Mohamed Salah (£8.1m) is the runaway points leader but Brentford’s talisman is the romantic choice for MVP (excuse the Americanism) purely for how he has defied logic from the get-go.
Mbeumo is currently Gameweek 18’s standout performer having amassed 23 points at Southampton’s expense on Saturday.
MBEUMO’S PERFORMANCE AGAINST SOUTHAMPTON:
The Cameroon international’s best haul of the campaign has propelled him up the rankings.
With an overall total of 196 points, he’s currently fifth among all players and third among assets in his position – Bukayo Saka (£6.6m) and Cole Palmer (£6.1m) being the only midfielders with more points to their name.
Mbeumo’s lofty status is particularly impressive because he’s achieved his mountainous points total from league appearances plus 133 Carabao Cup minutes.
Of the top 20 performers this season, 15 of them are active in either the Champions League, Europa League or Conference League.
Without European commitments to bolster his schedule, Mbeumo generally has fewer point-scoring opportunities at his disposal.
For comparison, he’s played 288 mins fewer than Bruno Fernandes (£6.1m) so far this season, the man immediately below him in the rankings.
That Mbeumo has defied this disparity to outscore the Manchester United playmaker (and several other high-profile stars) is a measure of blistering domestic form.
Having bagged a brace against Saints, he now has 13 league goals from 20 outings – Salah and Erling Haaland (£7.8m) are the only players ahead of him in the Golden Boot race.
A lack of European fixtures is just one hurdle the 25-year-old has vaulted without complaint.
There’s no denying Southampton are easy pickings at present but the Bees have faced a relatively tough run of fixtures since the start of December.
Prior to their St Mary’s respite, Thomas Frank’s side faced Aston Villa, Newcastle (x2), Chelsea, Nottingham Forest, Brighton and Arsenal.
Four of those teams are currently in the top five of the table while the other two (Villa and Brighton) are inside the top half.
Dream Team managers would have been well within their rights to expect a downturn in returns from a player throughout such a run but Mbeumo has emerged on the other side with an improved rank.
He has notched eight goal involvements since the start of December.
His schedule doesn’t ease much this month either with Manchester City and Liverpool due in West London after an FA Cup meeting with Plymouth.
But Mbeumo’s owners won’t be too concerned given the way he’s made a mockery of the fixture list this season.
Whether he’s able to sustain an average of 8.5 points-per-game until May remains to be seen but he deserves heaps of credit for his output to this point.
Another reminder that there is no foolproof formula for Dream Team, which is what makes it such a compelling game.
Play Score Predictor with Dream Team this season!
