I think a lot of sides would be locking him in except for their round 3 bye. This is why I'm not starting him.
Yeh he's in and out of my side at the moment.
The issue is that I've also got Flanders locked in at the moment and have played around with Touk as an option too. Really trying to just have one premo out per bye round in those first few mini-bye weeks.
The midfield feels really stacked this year as well.
Other than Bont, it feels like spots 2-8 in the midfield premos could go to 15-20 players.
Based on starting value, the players currently outside that top 8 midfielder group that are looking to move up are Butters, LDU, Gulden, Serong, Green, Brayshaw, Parish, Walsh and then fallen premos like Touk and Steele.
It's why people are opting to the Butters, LDU, Serong, Parish and Steele options to avoid that early bye. Then it becomes a choice between Walsh, Touk, and Green if you're comfortable taking a hit on an early bye round - and Walsh (and to a lesser degree Touk) at their price point makes more sense.
I know some people have tossed up the idea of starting Green and trading to Walsh at Round 3 after the Blues bye but I'm not sure I'm on board with that. I think Green and Walsh are two that I want in my team by mid year so starting one, trading him to the other, just to find another way to trade the other in a few weeks time feels like a lot of work and likely lead to
The extra trades definitely help, but we also know what happens in Rounds 1-3 every year where we realize we've missed must have rookies/ mid pricers and we don't want to be locking in to missing them for the sake of a pre-planned premo switch to accomodate a bye.
Anyway... will likely change my side 29 times in the next 29 days, so it's all a guess at the moment.
