Are we Under-valuing Goalkeepers in FPL Draft?

In Fantasy Premier League (FPL) draft formats, drafting a goalkeeper is boring. They don’t score goals, they don’t score outrageous amounts of points in a week, all they do is keep a clean sheet and occasionally make some saves.

That’s the conventional wisdom.

But what if we are mis-valuing goalkeepers in FPL Draft? What if we are mistakenly applying concepts in the main game to goalkeepers in FPL Draft?

In this piece we will set out an argument for why you should draft some of the best keepers earlier than conventional wisdom would have you do it.

We want to start this piece by saying that we are super open to constructive criticism of this argument. We don’t think we hold all the answers and want to start a debate on the topic rather than say this is the definitive way to draft.

When Should we Draft a Goalkeeper in FPL Draft – the Traditional Explanation

Let’s start by considering the conventional wisdom of when to draft goalkeepers in FPL.

In FPL draft, the timing of when to draft a goalkeeper depends on various factors, including your draft strategy, player preferences, and the draft position you have in your league. But, here are the things we normally consider when drafting a goalkeeper in FPL draft:

1. Draft Priority: In FPL draft, goalkeepers are generally not as high of a priority as outfield players like forwards, midfielders, and defenders. Most managers tend to focus on drafting attacking players first, as they are more likely to accumulate points through goals, assists, and bonus points.
2. Draft Position: If you have an early draft position, it might be beneficial to draft your goalkeeper later in the draft. This allows you to secure key attacking players early on, and you can choose from the available goalkeepers in the later rounds.
3. Goalkeeper Rotation: Some managers prefer to rotate goalkeepers based on fixture difficulty. If you plan to adopt this strategy, you may want to draft two goalkeepers with complementary fixture schedules to maximise clean sheet potential.
4. Depth of the Draft Pool: Assess the depth of the draft pool for goalkeepers. If there are many strong options available, you may delay drafting a goalkeeper until later rounds, focusing on other positions first.

Ultimately, the decision of when to draft a goalkeeper should align with your overall draft strategy and team-building approach. But, we generally expect you to start picking a goalkeeper in about the 7^th round.

Drafting Goalkeepers Earlier – Challenging the Conventional Wisdom

This piece is borne out of a review of our FPL draft rankings, our second stab you can find here.

In the first piece, I did a rough first draft ranking based principally on last years FPL scores and a little bit of applied knowledge.

When I was doing this draft ranking I noticed something unusual. Goalkeepers appeared much higher than I had realised.

Why do Goalkeepers Matter in FPL Draft?

The goalkeeper is kind of important in FPL draft for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we have to play one. No matter how much we would probably be happy not to pick one, you have to field a valid formation. And, that includes a goalkeeper.

And secondly, it can be a set-and-forget position.

In theory, you can make the most of your goalkeepers by rotating or switching them in and out. We used to do this in the regular game – nowadays, the majority of us like to save the money and have a 4.0 second goalkeeper.

So, what if we set-and-forget in FPL Draft? If you pick one of the goalkeepers from the top five teams, you are pretty much going to set-and forget right? At a minimum, that’s 50% of teams in a ten team draft.

Besides your premiums, not much else is a set-and-forget in a ten team draft league. You will be looking to use your waivers to sign high upside players with good fixtures rather than goalkeepers.

So, if a goalkeeper is a set and forget position, I think we should probably consider that not much else in draft is. And I think this is of interest when thinking about this.

Drafting Goalkeepers in the 7^th round – a Worked Example

Consider this example, I’m taking you back to the start of last season. Except! You have perfect knowledge about who is going to score FPL points.

It is a ten team draft and here is how it goes:

That’s 11 goalkeepers who should have gone before the 7^th round.

Myth? “FPL Draft Goalkeepers Score Near Enough the Same Points so they’re not Valuable”

But James, what about the fact that all goalkeepers score near enough the same points (give or take 50 points)?

Well, this is also true for the majority of midfielders and defenders.

Let’s ignore the premiums for a minute and look at the above.

From the 16^th pick (Eze) to the 70^th pick Hojbjerg there are 44 midfielders and defenders. They all scored between 159 and 120 points – that’s a range of 39 points.

The 11 goalkeepers from the 13^th pick (Raya) to the 69^th pick (Ederson), scored between 166 and 121 points – that’s a range of 45 points which is pretty close.

What’s the difference? Scarcity.

There are only 11 keepers to pick from but there are 44 midfielders and defenders.

4 times fewer goalkeepers.

Now, think about how we draft forwards.

We are hot as shit for forwards. We know there are very few of them so we take them as soon as we can. They are scarce.

In my above example, excluding the premiums again, the range from the 3^rd best striker, Toney, to the 7^th best striker, Jesus, is 57 points.

So, what does this tell us? Based solely on last year’s scores. We are undervaluing goalkeepers. They are rarer than midfielders and defenders. But they are still not as rare as great forwards

Drafting Goalkeepers Earlier in FPL Draft

I’m not saying that you should take Alisson in the second round as the above example suggests.

Why not? Because others in the draft won’t take him that early either. And that’s just as important here.

But you should be considering drafting a goalkeeper earlier than in the 7^th round. Looking at these top eleven goalkeepers, do any of them seem worthwhile taking earlier?

The Premiums

We have five seasons worth of data of Alisson at Liverpool. The lowest he scored was 122 points in 19/20 and the highest he scored was 176 points in 18/19 and 21/22. His average (mean) score over five seasons is 155.2 points.

Last year, only 22 players scored more than 155.2 points. The year before, only 21 players scored more than 155.2 points.

As for Ederson, 121 points last year is the worst he has ever scored. In four seasons of his six at City he scored 155 points or more. Over the six seasons he’s been at City he has scored average of 149.3 points per year.

De Gea has left the league, and sadly he’s not available for me to analyse all his seasons from the official FPL website. I can tell you he got 161 points last year and 132 points the year before for an average (mean) of 146.5 points.

The sample size is small but only 28 players scored more than 146.5 points last year and only 27 scored more than 146.5 points the year before.

If we assume that Onana will do as well as De Gea, which is a bit of a jump but not wholly unreasonable, that makes him a good pick.

We only have one season of data from Pope’s time at Newcastle. He scored 157 points, as you can see above. If we include his time at Burnley, we get a high score of 170 points, a low score of 130 points and an average (mean) score of 150.6 points over five seasons.

Last year, only 25 players scored more than 150.6 points. The year before, only 24 players scored more than 150.6 points.

The Cheapers

Leno did really well last year but I don’t trust the defence and don’t think he’s worth the punt to take early.

Martinez is potentially someone who is being undervalued in your FPL draft.

He has scored 135, 129 and 186 points in his three years at Villa. That’s an average of 150 points.

What makes him potentially undervalued is that if you just look at his 135 points last year you might miss that the team significantly improved after Emery got there in October.

Over six seasons, Pickford has averaged 129.5 points. I don’t think that’s anything especially impressive and given how bad Everton were last year I wouldn’t rush to get him.

He’s got good fixtures though if you fancy a nice fixture pick early on.

The question marks

At the time of writing, Raya is currently expected to leave Brentford. I wouldn’t draft him before the 7^th round. He’s a late pick, a second goalkeeper than maybe you handcuff with Flekken or take a punt on as your second goalkeeper in the very late rounds and hope he stays.

José Sá also might be leaving. Last year he scored 148 points and the year before he scored 146 points for an average (mean) of, you guessed it, 147 points.

It’s a small sample size but last year that puts him as equal 28^th best and the year before he would be equal 27^th best.

Another one with a question mark on him is Aaron Ramsdale. With Arsenal apparently interested in Raya right now, I’m not inclined to draft him.

Over his two seasons at Arsenal though, he has scored an average of 139 points.

Fabianksi is another one who looks to have his starting position under threat. I wouldn’t stretch to grab him – he wasn’t that great last year anyway.

Worthwhile Picks

Based on the above, Alisson, Ederson, Pope and Onana all seem worthwhile picks. They’re consistency of point scoring makes them good shouts we can put faith in.

Martinez is the only other one I think I would consider taking a bit early. He has high upside over the course of a season but it seems unlikely he matches these other guys.

When This Strategy Won’t Work and When it Might Be Even More Important

You’ll notice that I have been using a ten team draft league as the example throughout this piece.

You’ll also notice that I only think there are four, maybe five, goalkeepers that are worth taking earlier than usual.

So, in a six team league, its basically pointless to take a goalkeeper early. If you don’t get one of these five you should have your pick of the rest and can try to find players that rotate well.

Equally then, in a 16 team league, getting one of these top five picks could be a big difference over the course of a season.

That’s it

Okay, that’s our thoughts on why you should consider drafting a keeper earlier than you might expect. Basically, we think great keepers are scarce and valuable in big leagues and that is probably not true in smaller leagues.

We’re ready. Tell us what you think on Twitter or Reddit.