FPL expected goals – projected points and value for money analysis

Here’s our FPL expected goals article where we look at last years data and rank the players by projected points and points per value.  We then show you the first draft of our expected goals team which last season finished a reasonable 47k

FPL expected goals – projected points and value for money analysis

The article has starts with some preamble about what expected goals is and the methodology in the article.

Skip to the tables and the team at the end if you can’t be bothered or are familiar with it.

Expected goals is a stat where the probability is evaluated that any given shot will end up as a goal.

Expected goals are based on a number of factors, such as where the shot was taken from and where the opposition defenders are at the time. The shot assumes it is being taken by someone of average ability in the league. To state the obvious , a shot from inside the 6 yard box in front of goal with no defenders around will have a very high probability it will end up as a goal.

In essence it shows you what should have happened rather than what has happened.

The expected goals are now all wholly from the excellent free site understat.com.

METHOD AND CAVEATS FOR PLAYER RANKINGS

This is just one part of ranking players it’s not the be all and end all. I will continue doing a player rankings series which uses more stats than just xG and xA. There’s no filtering here for gametime security or injuries.

Here I have taken the Non penalty xG per 90 minutes (NPxG90) and the xA and converted them into goals and assist points and then total points as if they were playing over the whole season 90 minutes each game. I haven’t added on appearance points, adjusted for average minutes or bonus points or clean sheets for defenders. It’s purely just the goals and assist points. There was a minimum minutes played of 1000 minutes. I’ve also added a points per million column.

Players don’t perform on a straight line with the stats. Some like Hazard and De Bruyne have shown they can over perform. Others like our dear departed friend Tadic have a history of under performing. I have not tried to adjust for this. That’s more for the player rankings articles.

This article is very time consuming and laborious and easy to make mistakes so apologies if there is any

Player Stat abbreviations

Value £m: The FPL price at the time of the article. In this case Tuesday 24th of April

NP xG90: the non penalty expected goals per 90 minutes played

xA90: the expected assists per 90 minutes played

Pts: the projected attacking points based on the current NPxG90 and xA90 if the player played 38 games 90 minutes in each. No points for starting,no bonus, no clean sheet points, just goals and assists points.

PPM: the projected points above per £m value. An average is around 10 and it gives you an indication of value for money.

Defensive team rankings

Here’s the teams ranked by their expected goals conceded last season.  I have just lumped the 3 promoted teams on the bottom as obviously there were no stats for them in the premier league.  I’ve done an article on the 3 promoted teams which you may find worthwhile reading

I’ve then put a cheap defender, a premium defender and a goalkeeper against each team.  Then I’ve put a short term option for teams with players late back from the World Cup.  You can see more in my article on this subject.  Where there are gaps it’s because there is uncertainty over the option or it doesn’t exist.

Midfield by projected points

Forwards by projected points

The NPxG/xA team.

It maybe worth reading my players back late from the world cup article

I put together a team with a reasonably set and forget top 4 expected goals players.  Then I went for a 5th midfielder who was the best expected goals conceded £4.5m player which was Cedric.  I did the same for a £4.5m GK which I decided just to have 1 GK with a £4.0m reserve.

The attack saw the top 2 attacking players as captain options and then the rest were looking at the value ratio while trying to get players in who weren’t late for the world cup.  There are better value options but I have picked these players due to a reasonable level of gametime security.

I’ve also tried to spread out the funds at different levels although with a strong defence and the 2 captain options that was a bit more difficult than I thought

Here’s the team:

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