Here’s our FPL underlying stats GW8 article where we present expected goals/assist information as well as shot/key pass stats up to and including GW7. We look at stats for individual players by position and a team defence ranking
FPL underlying stats GW8 – expected goals/assists and shot/key pass stats to GW7
This article was written on Monday before the Bournemouth v C Palace game.
See also the review of GW7 in isolation
Background
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.
Shot and key pass stats are from the excellent free site whoscored.com
Everything is done on the basis of per 90 minutes played rather than per game. That’s so you can see how effective a player is on the pitch.
Methods and Caveats for player rankings
This is just one part of ranking players it’s not the be all and end all. I do 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 ranked them by projected 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 200 minutes.
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 Ramsey have a history of under performing. I have not tried to adjust for this. That’s more for the player rankings articles.
I have tried to pick relevant players. It’s impossible to rank everyone.
This article is very time consuming and laborious and easy to make mistakes so apologies if there is any. Please point out any in the comments section.
Player Stat abbreviations
Value £m: The FPL price at the time of the article. In this case Monday 1st October.
NP xG90: the non penalty expected goals per 90 minutes played
xA90: the expected assists per 90 minutes played
Shts P90: The amount of shots taken per 90 minutes played
KP P90: the amount of key passes played per 90 minutes played
Here’s the link to the google spreadsheet
Defenders
Again the players are ordered by projected FPL points that from the NPxG and xA stats to date. Only attacking stats not clean sheets.
Midfielders
Again the players are ordered by projected FPL points that would have resulted from the NPxG and xA stats to date
Forwards
Again the players are ordered by projected FPL points that would have resulted from the NPxG and xA stats to date.
Team defence
The teams are ordered by xG conceded overall and then the ranks are shown for home and away
The NPxG/xA team
This is a team I’ve made up by the following process:
Defenders/GKs come 1 each from the 7 best defensive teams
Midfielders and forwards are the best value for money players taking into account the place in the current team starting lineup.
See also the review of GW7 in isolation
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