Where should we spend on money in fantasy premier league? Were do you get the best returns? I’ve done some basic calculations to see if it sheds any light n how we should use our cash
I’m sure you’ve had discussions with various other fantasy premier league managers as to how you spend your money. There’s definitely a large group who believe you should have only £4.0m-£4.5m defenders play 3-4-3 and spend all your money on midfielders and forwards. Is that right? I look at this in 2 articles on the subject.
Firstly I took the top 10 Points per game defenders, midfielders and forwards but disregarded those who hadn’t played a decent amount of games and compared their price to the amount of points per game they returned. I turned this in to a ratio of points per game for every £1m spent and put it in to the tables below. I’ve showed them individually and then averaged them to see what that showed. Again apologies to any statisticians for the small sample sizes but hopefully it will get a general message
| Defender | FPL price | FPL PPG | Ratio of Price/PPG | |
| 1 | Ivanovic | £7.1m | 4.9 | 0.69 |
| 2 | Evra | £7.0m | 4.7 | 0.67 |
| 3 | O’Brien | £4.5m | 4.6 | 1.02 |
| 4 | Gibbs | £5.6m | 4.5 | 0.80 |
| 5 | A Cole | £6.5m | 4.4 | 0.67 |
| 6 | Zabaleta | £5.9m | 4.3 | 0.73 |
| 7 | Rafael | £6.0m | 4.3 | 0.72 |
| 8 | Evans | £5.8m | 4.3 | 0.74 |
| 9 | Johnson | £6.4m | 4.2 | 0.66 |
| 10 | Baines | £7.5m | 4.1 | 0.55 |
Defence average ratio for every £1m you get 0.725 points per game in return
| Midfielder | FPL value | FPL PPG | Ratio of price /PPG | |
| 1 | Bale | £9.8m | 6.5 | 0.66 |
| 2 | Walcott | £9.0m | 6.3 | 0.70 |
| 3 | Fellaini | £7.4m | 6.2 | 0.84 |
| 4 | Mata | £9.9m | 6.2 | 0.63 |
| 5 | Michu | £8.2m | 6.1 | 0.74 |
| 6 | Cazorla | £9.6m | 5.8 | 0.60 |
| 7 | Gerrard | £9.4m | 5.4 | 0.57 |
| 8 | Hazard | £9.5m | 5.2 | 0.54 |
| 9 | Snodgrass | £6.2m | 4.5 | 0.73 |
| 10 | Walters | £6.6m | 4.4 | 0.67 |
Midfield average ratio for every £1m you get 0.668 points per game in return
| Forward | FPL value | FPL PPG | Ratio of price /PPG | |
| 1 | RVP | £14.0m | 7.1 | 0.51 |
| 2 | Suarez | £10.4m | 6.3 | 0.61 |
| 3 | Ba | £8.6m | 5.8 | 0.67 |
| 4 | Rooney | £11.8m | 5.8 | 0.49 |
| 5 | Tevez | £8.9m | 5.6 | 0.63 |
| 6 | Berbatov | £7.1m | 5.1 | 0.72 |
| 7 | Fletcher | £7.0m | 4.9 | 0.70 |
| 8 | Lambert | £6.3m | 4.8 | 0.76 |
| 9 | Podolski | £8.2m | 4.6 | 0.56 |
| 10 | Defoe | £8.5m | 4.6 | 0.54 |
forward average ratio for every £1m you get 0.619 points per game in return
Summary and findings
Defence average ratio for every £1m you get 0.725 points per game in return
Midfield average ratio for every £1m you get 0.668 points per game in return
Forward average ratio for every £1m you get 0.619 points per game in return
Lets also compare similarly priced players:
approx £6.0m
£6.0m Rafael 4.3 PPG
Snodgrass £6.2m 4.5 PPG
Lambert £6.3m 4.8 PPG
approx £7.0m – Evra £7.0m 4.7 PPG
Fellaini £7.4m 6.2 PPG
Fletcher £7.0m 4.9 PPG
Here’s some key points
- Whilst defenders gave the lowest PPG they returned the best ratios on average suggesting that they definitely shouldn’t be ignored
- when comparing similar priced players in defence, midfield and forwards though, the returns weren’t remarkably different apart from Fellaini distorting the figures
- However no defender gets you the high PPG you would want so playing 5-4-1 with a forwards emphasis wont be the answer either
- The difference between forwards and midfield average ratio isn’t that significant
- Remember while RVP may seem bad value ratio wise his captain reliability makes the ratio irrelevant
- Buying the right midfielders and forwards at the right time, eg by looking at fixtures as one way of identifying bursts of returns, you maximise your point returns. Defenders who will mainly only return a clean sheet and no bonus and there cant give you those bursts of returns
To finish off then there doesn’t seem any evidence to ignore the defensive side of your team as on average they give better value returns and similarly priced players in defence midfield and forwards seem give similar returns. However to get the higher PPG returns you wont get these from defenders and as defenders will generally only return a clean sheet cant get you the bursts of points forwards can until they score.
I generally going to stick with a bit of a balance but still retain an emphasis on midfield and forwards and rotate some parts of my defence but with a solid core.
