The Premier League is reaching the final ten Gameweeks of the season, and there are a lot of points to be won for those teams who are trying to earn a spot in European competitions next season, but also for those who are trying to avoid relegation. Manchester City look like the clear favourite to win the league, being 14 points clear of Manchester United at the top, while the likes of Fulham, Newcastle United and Brighton are involved in a tight relegation battle.
Similar to the Premier League teams, there are a lot of points to be won for Fantasy Premier League managers as well, who have had tough times this season with tight schedules, postponed matches and many injuries from key players which probably disrupted their strategy.
Through this data analysis from data collected from the official Fantasy Premier League site, we will take a look into the players who marked this season so far. This analysis will show us whether there was any “Lord Lundstram” this season and which players underperformed. We will as well highlight players who could be differentials for the rest of the season.
Overview and dream team
In this section, we will first take a look at the current dream team of the league to evaluate their performances so far this season.
Emiliano Martínez – Aston Villa keeper is having a magnificent season. He kept a clean sheet in 14 out of 26 matches this season and only Ederson has more clean sheets(15). He is also the first in bonus points amongst the keepers and 3rd amongst the all players just behind Fernandes and Kane which is impressive to see by the goalkeeper. Martinez averaged 5.7 points per 90 minutes and given the fact that he played all the matches so far it shows that he is one of the most reliable fantasy assets this season.
Aaron Cresswell – West Ham left-back revived his fantasy value after a disastrous last season where he had 79 points in 2727 minutes. This season he already has 133 points in 2430 and he played all minutes for West Ham so far. Cresswell assisted 10 times and was part of clean sheet performance 10 times as well which is extraordinary output for Hammers defender. He has the highest value amongst defenders, value represents the number of total points divided by price.
Rúben Dias – most of the FPL managers know the struggle with Pep rotations each season, but Dias somehow managed to be one of the most reliable assets, because he only missed one match in Premier League so far which is the reason why he is in the dream team. Dias is part of the best defence in the league, he collected 14 clean sheets and 12 bonus points while managing to score and assist once. If you are looking for an outfield player that has the biggest chance to play in Manchester City starting XI then Dias is probably the best option.
Aaron Wan-Bissaka – Manchester United right-back was often criticized for his bad offensive performances, but this season he managed to score twice and assist three times which shows that he is on the right path of development when it comes to the attacking phase. Wan-Bissaka has 11 clean sheets and he only missed two games this season meaning he was 26 times part of the Red Devils starting XI.
Son Heung-min – had an impressive start of the season with four double-digit hauls in the first six gameweeks. He scored 13 goals and assisted 9 times which earned him a total of 22 bonus points. However, Son found himself on the scoresheet only once in the last 11 gameweeks which is concerning and many managers are looking for swapping him for his teammate Bale who is in red-hot form.
Mohamed Salah – is the only Liverpool player that didn’t let down fantasy managers this season. Salah managed to score 17 goals and assist 6 times meaning that he participated in almost 50% of Liverpool goals this season. However with Liverpool form inconsistent and he is the highest-priced player in fantasy, managers who are looking to make difference in mini-leagues could turn to cheaper in-form options.
Bruno Fernandes – the first player this season that hit 200 total points. Fernandes scored 16 goals and assisted 12 times which just like Salah means that he participated in almost 50% of Manchester United goals. He didn’t miss a single match this season and he averages 7.8 points per 90 which is bettered only by Bale who played almost 5 times less than Fernandes. It is not surprising that he is the most-owned fantasy player with 57.3% owners.
Ilkay Gundogan – Manchester City midfielder is the player who disrupted a lot of plans with his unexpected high-quality form especially when De Bruyne was injured. After blanking the first 12 gameweeks he managed to collect 12 goals and 3 assists which earned him 21 bonus points. His price was 5.4 when he scored the first goal and it rose to 6.2 which just shows how many new owners he earned since scoring in gameweek 13. He is a cheap asset in the midfield, but Pep rotations can sometimes be annoying.
Marcus Rashford – Manchester United winger is the least owned player from this dream team with only 9.6% owners and given his output he could be a good differential for those looking for new midfield options. Rashford managed to score 9 goals and assist 9 times, but he only earned 6 bonus points. He had 3 double-digit hauls this season and didn’t start only one match in the Premier League. He averages 5.44 points per 90 minutes.
Patrick Bamford – at the start of the season he was a third option for forwards because he was a cheap option with a price of 5.5 and now his price is 6.8. He started all Leeds matches and even though he has only three double-digit gameweeks he was a constant points supplier. Bamford scored 13 goals and assisted 8 times which made him the second-highest owned player in FPL with 51.2% owners.
Harry Kane – Tottenham captain is having an impressive season especially with the amount of sacrifice he makes for the team. In the last three seasons he had 10 assists in EPL and this season he already has 13 which shows extraordinary improvement in that department. Kane as well scored 16 goals and earned 31 bonus points which puts him only behind Fernandes in total points this season.
The graph above shows us the value of the players and points per 90 to determine which players could be good options for the rest of the season. When we look at value options there is Martinez who is, of course, the best goalkeeping option, but also Meslier and Areola could be interesting options if someone wants to make changes based on team schedules. Cresswell, Dallas and Targett are the best value options in defence who can deliver attacking output as well. Gundogan, Soucek and Ward-Prowse are the best value options in midfield given their goal-scoring ability. Bamford is the best value option in the attack followed by Wilson. Amongst the players who haven’t played too much but made an impact when on the pitch Bale is the best in points per 90. Worth mentioning are Lingard, El Ghazi, Cavani, Ziyech, Giroud and Jota who recovered from injury last week. In the next sections, we will go through each position and evaluate players. The differentials and players who have good value for the rest of the season will be written in bold.
Goalkeepers
This season is the best for those who don’t want to spend much on keepers and they stick with low priced keepers.
Martinez of course is the highest owned keeper with 40.5% and is the best value option along with the best points per 90 output. Pope, Meslier and Areola are just behind him as best value options. While Chelsea goalkeeper Mendy, Ederson and Forster are the best in total points per 90 except behind Martinez and Pope. Forster is an interesting backup option and he was starting goalkeeper for Southampton in 2 out of 3 last matches. He could see more playing time given the Southampton goal conceding trend in the second half of the season. His price is 4 which could be good for those trying to mix things on the goalkeeper position, but still keep the budget for offensive assets.
Based on the graph and data this season there were a lot of underperformers on the goalkeeper position especially Alisson and De Gea who are highly-priced and they were a reliable source of points in the last seasons. Ryan is the goalkeeper who had high ownership at the start of the season given his output last season and 4.5 starting price, but his terrible performances were one of the reasons why Brighton is underperforming so badly this season. He is now back up for Leno in Arsenal.
Defenders
After looking into goalkeepers we will now evaluate defenders based on the same graph. It will be interesting to see the best value options except already mentioned dream team players.
Who would have thought at the start of the season that Alexander-Arnold and Robertson won’t be one of the best in points per 90 and that they will have less than 15% owners? One player is a gem this season and it is Dallas. He started on the left-back but ended playing as a central midfielder and his ability to thrive in transition earned him a lot of attacking deliveries(5 goals, 3assists). Targett as well started the season at 4.5 price and he is now priced at 5. He collected 15 clean sheets and assisted three times. Cresswell is the highest owned defender and he is followed by the Manchester City trio: Dias, Cancelo and Stones. Cancelo was particularly interesting because he was getting into advanced areas of the pitch and showed that he can deliver attacking output. The best points per 90 performers are Stones, Hause, Azpilicueta and Dawson. Dawson could be a good option for those looking for a cheap option(4.5price) because since his arrival he started the last 12 matches and scored three goals while West Ham kept 6 clean sheets in those matches. He is only owned by 1.1% of managers. Adarabioyo and Aina are getting under the radar of fantasy managers and the reason for that is the Fulham bad start of the season which didn’t look promising especially defensively. Since Adarabioyo first match for Fulham in gameweek 5 they managed to collect 9 clean sheets and both of them are cheap options priced at 4.5.
We already know which defender let most of the managers down and most of them play at Liverpool and Sheffield United. After last season strong performances everyone was looking for high output from pricey Liverpool defenders and good output from cheap Sheffield United defenders, but over the course of the season most of managers decided to search elsewhere and those who chose Manchester City, Aston Villa and West Ham defenders made a smart decision.
Midfielders
There was never such a high amount of quality midfielders to pick from for fantasy teams. Not only there were some new names like Havertz, Ziyech, Bale, Thiago and Van de Beek, but also Aubameyang, Rashford and Greenwood were changed to midfielders. After looking at those names mentioned in the previous sentence we can only say that Rashford made a notable output while Bale and Aubameyang are starting to heat up in the last few gameweeks.
It is interesting to see so many tiny dots which means there are so many players with low ownership, while most of the fantasy managers are picking mostly between 25-30 best performers. Mane is at 5% ownership, Adama at 1.3% and Sigurdsson is owned by 1.9% managers. We already mentioned Bale, Lingard, Jota and El Ghazi as good performers when they played and if their playing time is constant they could be a good option to try to finish the fantasy season strong. Neto, Grealish, Soucek, Ward-Prowse, Raphinha and Mount are having a very good season and probably the best midfield options from their teams. Mahrez is currently one of the hottest performers for Manchester City scoring 4 goals and assisting 4 times in the last 6 matches. Recent performances remind us of his Leicester season when he was the best midfielder option in the league. Players who are overlooked and have low ownership are Tielemans, Lookman, Neves and Harrison.
Barnes, Grealish and Maddison had fantastic performances, but the injuries kept them from getting more points. Grealish could end in the FPL dream team if he returns soon because he was part of the dream team before the injury. There are a lot of players who underperformed compared to the last season like Mane, Adama Traore, Aubameyang and Bernardo Silva.
Forwards
In this section, we will talk about forwards. Just like in the midfielders section there were 10 forwards which most of the managers had and others had low ownership. It didn’t help that Jimenez, Aguero, Gabriel Jesus and Cavani missed a lot of matches due to injuries.
If we exclude Nketiah who scored and assisted in 317 minutes he played, Kane is the best player in points per 90. Nketiah didn’t get too many chances to play this season which is surprising given the playing time he had when Arteta took over the Arsenal manager position. The best value option is Bamford of course. Wilson and Adams are behind Bamford as best value options, but both of them are owned less than 6%. Calvert-Lewin and Watkins are the only forwards except Kane and Bamford who are owned more than 25%, DCL is owned by 39.7% and Watkins by 26.6% of managers. Vardy is in bad form the last few gameweeks since Barnes and Maddison injury he didn’t get into enough quality chances in front of goal.
Werner and Martial are the biggest underperformers amongst the forwards this season and they are finding it hard to get into constant form. It is hard to avoid having Kane and Bamford in the attack, while also DCL and Watkins look like good options as well. Jimenez recovering from injury and Aguero getting more minutes could mix things up a little for the end of the season.
Conclusion
This analysis was made for FPL fans to have a closer look into the statistics of the Fantasy Premier League and how players performed this season so far. Based on graphs and the sections we can now have a clear picture about players we should consider transferring in and out. There are still a lot of Gameweeks to be played and making the right transfers could improve the output of your team for the better.
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