Fantasy Premier League is popular amongst the Premier League fans all over the world. There are more than seven million fantasy managers or to be more precise 7,330,418 players at the time of writing this overview. Using data available on the FPL site we will evaluate players in this analysis. Through this data analysis, we will highlight overperformers and underperformers on each position while also highlighting the best point scorers and best value for money options.
For everyone that watches Premier League, this is another factor of fun to go against the other seven million players or against their friends in mini-leagues. Everyone wants to get the edge over their friends in the mini-leagues and true fantasy fans will take their time to choose their squad and make the right transfers.
Dream team
In this section, we will take a look at the current dream team of the league to evaluate how they scored their points and can they keep their position in the dream team.
Emiliano Martinez – Aston Villa set Martinez free after his plea for first-team football at Arsenal and he repaid them in the best possible way. Martinez has three clean sheets in five matches while collecting 20 saves with one penalty save. In the next nine gameweeks Aston Villa will play only against Arsenal from the big six, where Martinez will try to make Arsenal regret not giving him the real chance. Martinez is surely the best option on the goalkeeper position given the 4.8 price and performances on the field.
Roman Saiss – Wolves defender is the only defender with four clean sheets, he was substituted in the last gameweek where they conceded afterwards. Saiss scored one goal and was in bonus four times collecting seven points altogether. Saiss’ strong start encouraged FPL managers to get him into their squad with 20.3% owners believing that he can continue his strong performances.
Timothy Castagne – he had a dream start at his new club, scoring at his debut and following with two assists in GW2. First two performances got him 23 points out of his 35 total points, he showed that he can deliver attacking returns and that he is a constant threat being 4th in threat ranking amongst defenders. It will be interesting to see how Ricardo Pereira’s return will impact on his position or playing time, but for now, he looks like he will stay in the dream team at the end of FPL season.
Kurt Zouma – French defender had a strong start with two goals and two clean sheets. Zouma is the least selected player in the dream team. Only 5.5% of FPL managers own him, his defensive teammates Reece James and Ben Chilwell are both selected more than Zouma. It looks like he secured his position in the starting XI and when his compatriot Mendy was on goal they still haven’t conceded. He is an aerial threat in attacking set-pieces which is something worth keeping eye on.
Son Heung-min – Korean is the highest-scoring player in the league right now with 69 points. Son already scored eight goals and has two assists on his name while getting 10 bonus points. With 56.1% ownership we could see him get to 60% if he continues playing like that, he is already a must-have midfielder. Given the performances, he showed the only injury can keep him out of the dream team at the end of the season.
Mohammed Salah – The Liverpool star is already on course to have 4th season in a row with 200+ points. His six goals and one assist are the reason for his 50 points, but worrying is that he only has four bonus points which could be better given the impact he has. Salah leads the league in ICT index showing that he is performing well and we can expect him to continue his performances. It is hard to imagine a dream team without him in the last few seasons and this won’t be any different.
Wilfried Zaha – Crystal Palace talisman scored five goals and assisted once while also getting eight bonus points, his impact is similar to Salah but he scored one goal less than Egyptian. Zaha isn’t the most creative winger, but he is Crystal Palace’s go-to player who has the freedom to roam and dribble as much as he wants. Given his ability to make a difference we can expect him to deliver for the Eagles.
James Rodriguez – Everton new signing had an impressive start and showed all the doubters that Ancelotti didn’t make a mistake to sign him. He scored three times and assisted the same amount of goals. He is ranked second in creativity and he is a dead-ball specialist which is important for a team that possess players strong in the air like Mina, Calvert-Lewin and Keane.
Harry Kane – Spurs skipper did this season something we didn’t expect from him, he is the league leader in assists. He assisted eight times beating his previous record(7) playing around 2000 minutes less. Kane added five goals to his name and collected nine bonus points. He leads all the forwards in threat, influence and creativity. His partnership with Son is extraordinary and having both of them in the squad is something that you should think about. We can’t imagine a dream team without Kane at the end of the season.
Patrick Bamford – got straight outta Championship to show everyone that he is Premier League calibre player. Many people doubted his finishing qualities, but with Bamford scoring six times in six appearances it should be forgotten. Bamford added two assists and eight bonus points. He has the best value in this year’s fantasy given the ratio of price and points. Most people had him as a third-choice striker, but he has output as the first-choice striker.
Dominic Calvert Lewin – popular DCL continues his progress by each season and he is already on the path to beat his goalscoring record in the Premier League which was 13 goals in the last season. DCL has 7 goals and he scored in the first five gameweeks at least once with a hattrick against WBA. He is the biggest aerial threat in the league scoring four headers till now. We shouldn’t be surprised if he scores more than 20 goals this season given the self-confidence he currently shows on the pitch.
Goalkeepers
This year it is really hard to spend much on top goalkeepers because none of them proved worthy enough with De Gea and Alisson price dropping already. It was a bumpy ride the first six gameweeks for those spending big to get clean sheets, only Schmeichel and Patricio had more than 20 points from keepers with price above 5.0. One interesting name pops out and we will see why on the graph below. The graph shows us the value(total points divided by price) and % ownership of each keeper with the size of the circle representing the price.
Last season we saw Newcastle goalkeeper Martin Dubravka being a popular option for FPL last season delivering 143 points in 38 appearances, many didn’t even consider Darlow who is his replacement because of his 5.0 price, but he already has 30 points on his account. Darlow had 31 saves with one penalty save as well which makes him second-best in total points behind Martinez who has exceptional value 7.1. Even with a second-best value which is 6 Darlow is still only owned by 1.6% of managers which could be a good differential for those looking to change their pricey keepers and free some budget.
Pope after his fantastic season is a fifth-most owned keeper even at price 5.5, but it looks like this season Pope will have troubles getting clean sheets with Burnley looking a lot worse in defence. Martinez is, of course, highest owned goalkeeper (26.5%) and his price already rose to 4.8 from starting 4.5 after his fantastic performances in Aston Villa. Both Johnstone and Meslier cost 4.5 and have 22 and 24 points respectively presenting themselves as good value options. Second-most owned keeper is McCarthy and he delivered what was expected from him and given the amount his owners wanted to invest in keepers, three clean sheets and 12 saves got him 24 points in first six gameweeks. McCarthy has 5.3 value while the third most owned keeper Ryan performs badly with 2.4 value. Ryan had a bad start with only 11 points and his owners should turn for other options.
Based on the graph and data we possess we can determine that the biggest overperformer is Darlow, nobody expected him getting too many points and it will be interesting to see if he can get a few clean sheets to drag managers to transfer him in. Biggest underperformer is De Gea with value 2, he has only one clean sheet and he already conceded 12 goals in five matches meaning he has the same amount of saves and goals conceded which is unacceptable for a keeper of his qualities.
Defenders
After looking into goalkeepers we will now evaluate defenders based on the same graph. It was expected that Liverpool duo Robertson and Alexander-Arnold would be preferred options for most of the managers because of their attacking potential. Liverpool had a bad start defensively having only one clean sheet in six gameweeks and now with Van Dijk season-ending injury, it is hard to expect a similar number of clean sheets like last season meaning that Robertson and TAA owners should cross fingers for attacking returns.
The highest value is possessed by Saiss and Zouma; both of them are in the dream team. We saw Martinez having the highest number of total points between keepers means that his defenders are having high value as well. Konsa and Mings have collected 29 and 30 points respectively with Konsa having slightly bigger value because his price is 4.7 compared to Mings 5.2 price. Leicester wing-back duo Justin and Castagne look pretty popular with the managers and both are delivering, but it will be interesting how Ricardo Pereira’s return will have an impact on them. Vestergaard has had a fantastic FPL season so far with 27 points, he has three clean sheets and one goal on his account.
Vestergaard could be a great differential because only 2.3% of managers own him. Mitchell is highly popular between managers because everyone knew he would get a starting spot till Van Aanholt returns and his price was only 4.0 at the start of the season. Another cheap and interesting option is Max Kilman who appeared in the last three-game weeks collecting 23 points with two clean sheets, one assist and got two times the maximum amount of bonus points. Wolves have a lot of defensive options and it will be interesting to see will Saiss get back on centre-back position where Kilman played now when Marcal is healthy.
Two left-backs could have massive seasons: Ben Chilwell and Lucas Digne. Both of them are a threat in the attack and often take set-pieces, Chilwell has 27 points in only three matches and possesses 4.7 value while Digne possesses 4 value because of his three assists and one clean sheet. Cresswell surprised this season, even though he plays in a new position as left centre-back in three-man defence he already has three assists paired with two clean sheets and he is first in creativity between defenders. Cresswell plays a similar role as Azpilicueta played in his highest-scoring FPL season when he played under Conte in three-man defence where he often got in halfspace behind his wing-back to receive the ball to cross from open space.
What we can conclude is that the whole Sheffield United defence can be labelled as underperformers because they had 13 clean sheets last season and for now they don’t have any. It is clear that losing Dean Henderson and injury for Jack O’Connell left a mark on them. Biggest overperformer is Ezri Konsa because nobody expected Aston Villa to have three clean sheets while Konsa also scored the winning goal against Sheffield United which got him three bonus points. Aston Villa plays with high self-confidence and with few quality signings they look like a new team compared to the last season which surely reflected on defensive stability.
Midfielders
We saw big changes this season in positions in FPL. Aubameyang, Rashford and Greenwood were changed from forwards to midfielders. Neither of them had a good start of the season even if their goal now worths one point more. On the graph below we will see which players show high value and which expensive players didn’t start as expected.
We can see that the already mentioned four dream team midfielders are in the top five selected by the managers with the best FPL player Son having the highest value of 7.3. Grealish collected 39 points and he is owned by 28% managers. Aston Villa skipper has three goals, three assists and three clean sheets to his name and he showed quality performances at the start of the season. Leeds duo Costa and Klich are both owned below 10% and have high value with 5.6 and 5.4 respectively. Klich is an interesting option because he is pretty cheap for a midfielder and he takes penalties.
Two value options worth mentioning are Bowen and McGinn because both of them have 29+ points with less than 3% of managers who own them. The player who could be massively transferred in the next gameweeks is Barkley. Barkley’s move to Aston Villa instantly reminded us of his performances for Everton when he was in demand in FPL. In three matches for Villains, he collected 20 points by scoring two goals and having one clean sheet.
Bruno Fernandes(ranks 1st in creativity), Mane, Rashford and Sterling had a quality first six gameweeks delivering for their FPL managers, but their price lowers their value. Two players who at the start of the season were one of the most owned players De Bruyne and Aubameyang are largely underperforming. They are the most transferred out players since the start of the season with more than 2.4 million managers transferring them out. Both of them scored only once and assisted once, Aubameyang played almost double minutes than De Bruyne who had a minor injury and one game less in the schedule. There were many injuries at the start and managers now can expect the rise of Pulisic, Maddison, Ziyech and Bernardo Silva. All of them have value if they get in form because they are not in the highest pricing rank.
We already labelled De Bruyne and Aubameyang as biggest underperformers, with Aubameyang slightly being a bigger disappointment for his FPL owner because of his bigger amount of playing time. Biggest overperformer is Jorginho. Nobody expected that after Chelsea’s transfer market activity Jorginho would be the highest scoring player. Jorginho scored three times and assisted twice. His penalty taking is what got him most of the points, but ranked 26th on ICT index it is clear that he has overperforming largely.
Forwards
In this section, we will talk about forwards. Dream team attack Kane, Bamford and DCL are having a magnificent season, but now its time to talk about other goalscorers.
There are three players who have 41 points three less than DCL and those players are Vardy, Wilson and Ings. Vardy continues his lethal performances in front of goal by scoring six times and Ings who had a great campaign last season kept the same momentum for this season by scoring four times and assisting twice. Wilson transferred to Newcastle from Bournemouth who was relegated and made an instant impact by scoring four times and assisting twice just like Ings, but his lower price 6.5 compared to Ings 8.5 means he has bigger value and is surely a quality option for attack.
German international Timo Werner had a slow start into the Premier League, scoring three or fewer points in five out of six gameweeks, but his double-digit haul against Southampton in GW5 brought hope to the owners who had faith and didn’t transfer him out. Maupay is another value option because he already collected 36 points by scoring four goals and having one assist, he is also penalty taker for Brighton. Those looking for cheaper options who have differential value should try with Adams, Watkins, Antonio or Callum Robinson. They all have at least 22 points and two goals on their account with Antonio being the most expensive out of them with price 6.3.
Martial is the player who underperformed badly, not only that he didn’t score any goal in his 206 minutes on the field, he also got a red card which suspended him for three gameweeks. He scored 17 goals and had 9 assists last season and will have to perform at the highest level till the end of the season to reach these numbers. Biggest overperformer is Bamford by scoring six goals in his first six games. With the Leeds offensive playing style, we can expect Bamford to keep scoring.
Conclusion
This analysis was made for FPL fans to have a closer look into the data of Fantasy Premier League. Based on graphs and the sections we can now have a clear picture of players we should consider transferring in and out. Graphs can help us compare players based on their statistics and see their impact more clearly than it is displayed in an FPL application or site. Hope this analysis will help you make your FPL team better.
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