I already wrote about some of our lessons learned so in this second part of my season review, I wanted to look more at stats and see if I could identify some trends that might be interesting for next year. We will start by looking at the number of goals scored and clean sheets kept, before looking at team data and concluding by looking at the top 50 players in FPL this year.
Overall Trends
Second Highest Goals Scored
Once again, last year looks like a statistical outlier for goals scored. The 1246 goals scored in the 23/24 season is the most in any premier league season ever. Yes, even the seasons with more than 20 teams in the league – although only just.
This year the goals scored dropped down to 1115 which is the second most number of goals since the 20 team premier league was established. As you can see from the chart below, there is a general trend towards an increasing number of goals. However, the trend does not always hold true.
Goals Scored in a 20 Team/38 Game Premier League Season
What Does This Mean For FPL? A lot of this will be caveated by price. If Saliba was 4.5 and Salah was 15.0 then the conclusion might be different. But, assuming the pricing structure remains broadly the same, this means that we should continue to focus on attacking assets as better value.
Clean Sheets Slightly Recover Since Last Year
We also saw a corresponding number of clean sheets.
| 20/21 | 21/22 | 22/23 | 23/24 | 24/25 | |
| Clean Sheets | 224 | 212 | 207 | 157 | 178 |
| Goals Scored | 1024 | 1071 | 1084 | 1246 | 1115 |
I don’t have stats going quite so far back on this one and I can’t be bothered to do any more digging as I am sure it will show pretty much the opposite to the goals scored chart above. The key point is that clean sheets are still harder to come by than they were a few years ago but not quite as bad as last year. Again, this backs up the idea that you should be focusing your efforts up top.
Promoted Teams Still Suck… So do Spurs and United?
For the second time in a row, the promoted teams all got relegated straight back down to the Championship. It is the only time that has happened two seasons in a row but it probably reflects a growing gulf in class between the PL and the championship.
Unless FPL makes changes to the price and make the promoted teams super cheap, I can’t see us going anywhere near them (other than maybe as bench fodder).
The more interesting ones are probably Spurs and Man United. United had their worst ever Premier League finish and they are just about to piss £65m up the wall on a player that isn’t better than what they have. I’m not holding out hope that they will have any players who are options next year.
As for Spurs, eight teams have been relegated from the Premier League in 38-game seasons with 38 or more points. They are incredibly lucky to not get relegated and will have Champions League to contend with next year. When the European football kicks in they will probably be a hard avoid like this year.
Physical Intensity of the League and Why Spurs Are Even More Fucked
This closely links to the next topic – physical intensity.
According to the Athletic: “Comparing 2024-25 with six seasons ago, overall running distance is up just over six per cent, players are sprinting 19 per cent more often and 22 per cent further. This is fundamental to implement the pressing schemes that have become typical in the league.”
The league remains incredibly physically intense and that means rotation. We see every year that teams in the Champions League spots don’t need to rotate for the first six or so weeks. That makes someone like Luis Diaz a good option at the start of the season but they are rarely good long-term holds.
Spurs are particularly interesting in this regard because they are so thin and lack any sort of depth. Maddison will basically not be an option after gameweek 6 as they will have to treat him with kid gloves to keep him fit.
Just Kick It Long! Goalkeeper Assists
Two more things jump out at me from that Athletic piece. Firstly, goalkeeper assists are up.
There were nine goalkeeper assists in 2024/25 – the most in any Premier League season. Mark Flekken for Brentford, Jordan Pickford for Everton, Bernd Leno for Fulham, Bart Verbruggen for Brighton and Hove Albion, and Ederson for Manchester City all chipped in with goal contributions. Ederson racked up four of them, while Flekken managed two.
I don’t imagine this will make any difference to how we play the game. I got 172 points from the goalkeeper position over the season (according to FPL Optimized) and I didn’t own any of these guys.
But! I do think that Ederson is probably the number one goalkeeper to get in FPL Draft next year. Four assists is insane.
Corners Less Important
The second thing I noticed was that corners are less important. Picking set piece takers is a tried and tested method of success but it is perhaps a little weaker these days for corner takers.
The league saw a combined total of just 135 goals from corners – the lowest in four years. Both the total expected goals from corners and the efficiency, measured by corners per goal, also hit four-year lows. That’s a drop of 36 goals compared to last season, with teams now scoring once every 29 corners on average – five more than the previous campaign.
Team Data
Attacking Team Data
Looking at teams attacking data for last year we see:
- Liverpool way out ahead
- Chelsea, City, Newcastle and Bournemouth in the second tranche
- Arsenal, Palace, Brentford, Spurs, Brighton and Villa in the third tranche
- Man United, Fulham, West Ham, Forest, Wolves and Everton in fourth tranche
- And the relegated teams bottom.
| Team | G | xG | Δ |
| LIV | 86 | 83.46 | 2.54 |
| CHE | 64 | 69.18 | -5.18 |
| MCI | 72 | 69.16 | 2.84 |
| NEW | 68 | 65.36 | 2.64 |
| BOU | 58 | 64.94 | -6.94 |
| ARS | 69 | 61.58 | 7.42 |
| CRY | 51 | 61.33 | -10.33 |
| BRE | 66 | 60.17 | 5.83 |
| TOT | 64 | 59.65 | 4.35 |
| BHA | 66 | 59.21 | 6.79 |
| AVL | 58 | 57.31 | 0.69 |
| MUN | 44 | 53.48 | -9.48 |
| FUL | 54 | 49.46 | 4.54 |
| WHU | 46 | 48.08 | -2.08 |
| NFO | 58 | 46.57 | 11.43 |
| WOL | 54 | 44.37 | 9.63 |
| EVE | 42 | 42.38 | -0.38 |
| IPS | 36 | 34.73 | 1.27 |
| SOU | 26 | 33.22 | -7.22 |
| LEI | 33 | 32.76 | 0.24 |
| 1115 | 1096.4 | 18.6 |
A couple of things jump out to me here. Firstly, I really, really don’t want to play defenders against Liverpool. I would aim for my defenders to play against 4th and 5th tranche attacks next year. Thats 9 teams so almost half the league. But I still expect us to play three at the back given how poor defences are overall.
Secondly, Bournemouth, Brentford and Brighton are the top attacks that don’t have European football. I think they will be stalwarts of our teams next year (assuming no big transfer like Mbeumo).
Defensive Team Data
Looking at defensive team data we see another five tranches emerge:
- Arsenal and Liverpool have the best defence
- Newcastle, Everton, Chelsea, Fulham, Man City, Bournemouth, Forest, Palace and Villa are all in that second tranche
- Brighton, Man United, Brentford, Wolves and West Ham are in the third tranche
- Spurs sit alone in the fourth tranche
- The promoted/relegated teams are in the fifth tranche.
| Team | GC | xGC | Δ |
| ARS | 34 | 35.07 | -1.07 |
| LIV | 41 | 38.7 | 2.3 |
| NEW | 47 | 46.33 | 0.67 |
| EVE | 44 | 46.91 | -2.91 |
| CHE | 43 | 47.97 | -4.97 |
| FUL | 54 | 48.16 | 5.84 |
| MCI | 44 | 48.48 | -4.48 |
| BOU | 46 | 49.31 | -3.31 |
| NFO | 46 | 49.56 | -3.56 |
| CRY | 51 | 50.33 | 0.67 |
| AVL | 51 | 50.76 | 0.24 |
| BHA | 59 | 55.1 | 3.9 |
| MUN | 54 | 55.14 | -1.14 |
| BRE | 57 | 56.12 | 0.88 |
| WOL | 69 | 58.66 | 10.34 |
| WHU | 62 | 60.6 | 1.4 |
| TOT | 65 | 64.39 | 0.61 |
| LEI | 80 | 73.27 | 6.73 |
| IPS | 82 | 74.37 | 7.63 |
| SOU | 86 | 87.18 | -1.18 |
| 1115 | 1096.41 | 18.59 |
Again there are 9 teams you want to play against next year. This time they are in the bottom three tranches.
Everton, Fulham and Palace are probably going to be the 4.5 defenders we want to buy. Bournemouth I will probably be more cautious on because of the fact that Huijsen and Kerkez are likely to have gone by then.
Combined and Compared 23/24 and 24/25 Data
This next table is the difference between this year and last year. If a team has a minus for goals or xG you can see that they scored fewer goals this year than last – for example, Chelsea scored 13 fewer goals than last year. If they have a minus for goals conceded or xGC then they conceded fewer goals than last year – for example, Chelsea conceded 20 fewer goals this year.
The relegated teams are combined together. Burnley are part of Rel xG2 which may be interesting when they come back up.
| Team | G | xG | GC | xGC |
| LIV | 0 | -5.91 | 0 | -7.47 |
| CHE | -13 | -6.09 | -20 | -10.99 |
| MCI | -24 | -12.78 | 10 | 12.62 |
| NEW | -17 | -11.72 | -15 | -15.64 |
| BOU | 4 | 8.25 | -21 | -9.53 |
| ARS | -22 | -15.84 | 5 | 6.65 |
| CRY | -6 | 12.18 | -7 | -2.45 |
| BRE | 10 | 0.33 | -8 | -0.58 |
| TOT | -10 | -9.3 | 4 | -0.16 |
| BHA | 11 | 1.19 | -3 | -1.34 |
| AVL | -18 | -7.41 | -10 | -9.97 |
| MUN | -13 | -3.45 | -4 | -14.94 |
| FUL | -1 | -2.1 | -7 | -16.09 |
| WHU | -14 | -4.84 | -12 | -11.55 |
| NFO | 9 | -3.78 | -21 | -4.37 |
| WOL | 4 | -3.21 | 4 | -10.26 |
| EVE | 2 | -12.52 | -7 | -9.16 |
| Rel xG1 | -16 | -8.63 | -3 | -5.4 |
| Rel xG2 (BUR) | -15 | -7.67 | 8 | 15.26 |
| Rel xG3 | -2 | -6.34 | -24 | -4.21 |
| Total | -131 | -99.64 | -131 | -99.58 |
| Average | -6.55 | -4.982 | -6.55 | -4.979 |
The thing that should be obvious is that most teams are remarkably steady in their output over two seasons. Someone like Spurs is so interesting because they finished 5th one year and 17th the next but goals scored and goals conceded are almost the same.
I will most likely be using this combined data below to set up our fixture ticker. I will probably try and weight it so this years data is more important but here it is.
| Team | G | xG | Δ | GC | xGC | Δ |
| Total | 2361 | 2292.4 | 68.6 | 2361 | 2292.4 | 68.6 |
| LIV | 172 | 172.8 | -0.8 | 82 | 84.9 | -2.9 |
| MCI | 168 | 151.1 | 16.9 | 78 | 84.3 | -6.3 |
| ARS | 160 | 139.0 | 21.0 | 63 | 63.5 | -0.5 |
| NEW | 153 | 142.4 | 10.6 | 109 | 108.3 | 0.7 |
| CHE | 141 | 144.5 | -3.5 | 106 | 106.9 | -0.9 |
| TOT | 138 | 128.6 | 9.4 | 126 | 128.9 | -2.9 |
| AVL | 134 | 122.0 | 12.0 | 112 | 111.5 | 0.5 |
| BRE | 122 | 120.0 | 2.0 | 122 | 112.8 | 9.2 |
| BHA | 121 | 117.2 | 3.8 | 121 | 111.5 | 9.5 |
| BOU | 112 | 121.6 | -9.6 | 113 | 108.2 | 4.9 |
| FUL | 109 | 101.0 | 8.0 | 115 | 112.4 | 2.6 |
| CRY | 108 | 110.5 | -2.5 | 109 | 103.1 | 5.9 |
| NFO | 107 | 96.9 | 10.1 | 113 | 103.5 | 9.5 |
| WHU | 106 | 101.0 | 5.0 | 136 | 132.8 | 3.3 |
| WOL | 104 | 92.0 | 12.1 | 134 | 127.6 | 6.4 |
| MUN | 101 | 110.4 | -9.4 | 112 | 125.2 | -13.2 |
| Rel xG1 | 88 | 78.1 | 9.9 | 167 | 154.1 | 12.9 |
| EVE | 82 | 97.3 | -15.3 | 95 | 103.0 | -8.0 |
| Rel xG3 | 68 | 71.9 | -3.9 | 184 | 150.8 | 33.3 |
| Rel xG2 (BUR) | 67 | 74.1 | -7.1 | 164 | 159.1 | 4.9 |
The 50 Best Players in FPL This Year
| # | Name | Pos. | Team | Cost | Points | Goals | Assists | xA | xG | xGI |
| 1 | Salah | MID | LIV | 13.6 | 344 | 29 | 0 | 9.06 | 25.37 | 34.43 |
| 2 | Mbeumo | MID | BRE | 8.3 | 236 | 20 | 2 | 9.26 | 12.26 | 21.52 |
| 3 | Palmer | MID | CHE | 10.5 | 214 | 15 | 2 | 9.14 | 17.27 | 26.41 |
| 4 | Isak | FWD | NEW | 9.4 | 211 | 23 | 0 | 3.6 | 20.42 | 24.02 |
| 5 | Wood | FWD | NFO | 7.2 | 200 | 20 | 0 | 1.52 | 13.35 | 14.87 |
| 6 | Bowen | MID | WHU | 7.9 | 193 | 13 | 3 | 6.47 | 8.64 | 15.11 |
| 7 | Watkins | FWD | AVL | 9.2 | 186 | 16 | 0 | 2.07 | 15.38 | 17.45 |
| 8 | Wissa | FWD | BRE | 6.9 | 185 | 19 | 1 | 1.83 | 18.59 | 20.42 |
| 9 | Díaz | MID | LIV | 7.5 | 183 | 13 | 2 | 4.46 | 12.02 | 16.48 |
| 10 | Haaland | FWD | MCI | 14.9 | 181 | 22 | 0 | 2.02 | 22.01 | 24.03 |
| 11 | Matheus Cunha | FWD | WOL | 7 | 178 | 15 | 1 | 5.28 | 8.63 | 13.91 |
| 12 | Bruno Fernandes | MID | MUN | 8.4 | 174 | 8 | 2 | 7.98 | 9.95 | 17.93 |
| 13 | Semenyo | MID | BOU | 5.7 | 165 | 11 | 2 | 4.35 | 9.98 | 14.33 |
| 14 | Rogers | MID | AVL | 5.8 | 161 | 8 | 1 | 5.24 | 6.58 | 11.82 |
| 15 | Murphy | MID | NEW | 5.2 | 159 | 8 | 1 | 6.15 | 5.72 | 11.87 |
| 16 | Pickford | GK | EVE | 5.2 | 158 | 0 | 0 | 0.22 | 0 | 0.22 |
| 17 | Kluivert | MID | BOU | 5.9 | 158 | 12 | 0 | 3.73 | 10.11 | 13.84 |
| 18 | Iwobi | MID | FUL | 5.4 | 156 | 9 | 0 | 6.98 | 4.29 | 11.27 |
| 19 | Gibbs-White | MID | NFO | 6.5 | 154 | 7 | 3 | 4.69 | 6.34 | 11.03 |
| 20 | Elanga | MID | NFO | 5.5 | 153 | 6 | 0 | 5.11 | 4.47 | 9.58 |
| 21 | Gvardiol | DEF | MCI | 6.5 | 153 | 5 | 0 | 2.91 | 4.59 | 7.5 |
| 22 | Trossard | MID | ARS | 6.7 | 152 | 8 | 1 | 4.11 | 7.21 | 11.32 |
| 23 | Sels | GK | NFO | 5.2 | 150 | 0 | 1 | 0.32 | 0 | 0.32 |
| 24 | Mateta | FWD | CRY | 7.5 | 150 | 14 | 0 | 2.27 | 13.64 | 15.91 |
| 25 | Ismaila Sarr | MID | CRY | 5.5 | 149 | 8 | 1 | 6.74 | 10.78 | 17.52 |
| 26 | Schade | MID | BRE | 5.3 | 149 | 11 | 2 | 1.76 | 8.2 | 9.96 |
| 27 | Alexander-Arnold | DEF | LIV | 7.2 | 148 | 3 | 1 | 7.37 | 1.88 | 9.25 |
| 28 | Eze | MID | CRY | 7 | 148 | 8 | 0 | 4.68 | 10.47 | 15.15 |
| 29 | Raúl Jiménez | FWD | FUL | 5.3 | 147 | 12 | 0 | 2.08 | 11.99 | 14.07 |
| 30 | Milenkovic | DEF | NFO | 5.2 | 145 | 5 | 0 | 0.54 | 4.02 | 4.56 |
| 31 | Strand Larsen | FWD | WOL | 5.2 | 145 | 14 | 0 | 1.04 | 10.27 | 11.31 |
| 32 | Mitoma | MID | BHA | 6.3 | 145 | 10 | 1 | 4.04 | 9.16 | 13.2 |
| 33 | Virgil | DEF | LIV | 6.7 | 143 | 3 | 0 | 0.98 | 2.24 | 3.22 |
| 34 | Szoboszlai | MID | LIV | 6.1 | 143 | 6 | 4 | 5.88 | 7.34 | 13.22 |
| 35 | Raya | GK | ARS | 5.6 | 142 | 0 | 0 | 0.07 | 0 | 0.07 |
| 36 | Muñoz | DEF | CRY | 5.2 | 142 | 4 | 1 | 3.47 | 4.93 | 8.4 |
| 37 | Flekken | GK | BRE | 4.5 | 138 | 0 | 0 | 0.15 | 0 | 0.15 |
| 38 | Brennan Johnson | MID | TOT | 6.2 | 137 | 11 | 3 | 2.05 | 10.4 | 12.45 |
| 39 | Henderson | GK | CRY | 4.6 | 135 | 0 | 0 | 0.06 | 0.01 | 0.07 |
| 40 | Bruno Guimarães | MID | NEW | 6.2 | 135 | 5 | 0 | 5.39 | 4.31 | 9.7 |
| 41 | Fernández | MID | CHE | 4.7 | 135 | 6 | 1 | 6.22 | 6.13 | 12.35 |
| 42 | Kerkez | DEF | BOU | 5.3 | 134 | 2 | 1 | 2.58 | 0.59 | 3.17 |
| 43 | Maddison | MID | TOT | 7.4 | 133 | 9 | 1 | 5.91 | 5.83 | 11.74 |
| 44 | Cucurella | DEF | CHE | 5.4 | 133 | 5 | 1 | 2.39 | 2.8 | 5.19 |
| 45 | Delap | FWD | IPS | 5.6 | 132 | 12 | 0 | 1.4 | 9.34 | 10.74 |
| 46 | Damsgaard | MID | BRE | 4.9 | 131 | 2 | 1 | 6.99 | 2.83 | 9.82 |
| 47 | Barnes | MID | NEW | 5.9 | 130 | 9 | 1 | 4.56 | 7.23 | 11.79 |
| 48 | Saliba | DEF | ARS | 6.4 | 130 | 2 | 0 | 1.29 | 2.28 | 3.57 |
| 49 | Murillo | DEF | NFO | 4.7 | 130 | 2 | 0 | 1.14 | 1.42 | 2.56 |
| 50 | Son | MID | TOT | 9.7 | 129 | 7 | 1 | 5.13 | 7.28 | 12.41 |
There are 26 midfielders, 10 forwards, 9 defenders and 5 goalkeepers in this list. That compares with 31 midfielders, 11 forwards, 4 defenders and 4 goalkeepers last year. I think the difference is probably because of the huge amount of goals last year.
Let’s start at the top. Salah is surely going to be priced at around 14. I assume that Haaland will be up there too. Palmer will probably take a small price drop but its frightening that, even in a shit season for him, he breaks 200 points this year.
Mbeumo, Wood and Cunha all massively overperformed their xG. I’m pretty sure Cunha will be irrelevant next year when he signs for Man United. However, Mbeumo will be highly owned and relevant, particularly if he stays at Brentford. If he leaves he likely loses penalties and we don’t want that. That would be compounded if they increase the price for him.
There are some surprises on here for me. Diaz, Trossard, Iwobi, Schade and Damsgaard are all midfielders I don’t associate with being good assets. The first two is a rotation thing which probably means they weren’t that good (although Trossard benefited from injuries for Arsenal). The next three are perhaps some of the cheaper assets we should be looking at for our 5th midfielder spot.
Also, considering we didn’t really like the 6.5 bracket there are a lot of mids in here for cheaper that were obviously decent options.
Finally, I am very excited to own Son at the start of the next year when I see that he is 7.5mn.
That’s It.
I’m in the process of writing another piece about the changes I would like to see in FPL but that will not be forthcoming very quickly. I am partially trying to avoid FPL and partially trying to fill the void it has left – its all very hard…
Anyway, if we don’t see you soon, have a good break everyone!
Hey buddy, gonna assume u r a scouser, I am.
Thank you for the above deep dive, WOW.
Really provides a snapshot in terms of what I am looking and for many others.
Really appreciate your time and effort in producing these stats and appreciate your insights. Will definitely use this when selecting my team for the next season.
Take care
YNWA
🌈 Nation (South Africa, Durban)