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Greetings all, and welcome to our absolutely, quite unnecessarily ginormous explanation of our 26/27 fixture ticker ratings!
Having only just been birthed last season, our beloved fixture ticker has now undergone dramatic plastic surgery. What a start to life.
You can check out the brand new version, in all its glory, right here.
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An obvious question – which we already addressed last season – is why on earth the world would need another fixture ticker.
To summarise the last article, which I (Joe) still stand behind:
That transparency point is one of our key ‘differentiators’, as they say in the marketing world, and is the point of this whole article.
We don’t just present you with a random bunch of numbers, as in the official FPL FDR, and tell you to like them.
We tell you exactly how we calculate our fixture difficulty ratings, with the whole long, somewhat complicated algorithm right there in the ticker.
Said algorithm is based squarely on team ratings – which, again, we make completely transparent.
And, in turn – as I finally arrive at my long-winded point – that’s the actual point of this whole article!
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We give each team three ratings:
Attack and defence are self-explanatory, and both on a 1-5 scale (with 0.5s allowed).
The home modifier is basically a weighting mechanism, to A) recognise it’s harder to play away than at home, and B) to give additional weighting to having to play against the better teams.
We tested it a ton when originally setting up the ticker, and it also just helps to smooth out the fixture difficulty ratings, and have them make more sense.
Those ratings all get smushed together using our algorithm, for every single fixture, and we see how easy or hard that fixture is for the teams involved.
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Again, if you want a more in-depth breakdown of the methodology, you can get it right here.
A final note – these are obviously preseason ratings, concocted using a not-so-mystical combination of last season’s stats, preseason happenings, and us being sad so-and-sos who follow football far too closely.
We continue to update our ratings throughout the season, typically on a monthly basis – so that we take recent happenings into account, while not falling foul of small sample sizes.
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Right, enough preliminary ramblings.
Onwards, to the fun stuff!
Here are your initial FPL team ratings, for our 26/27 fixture ticker.
Yes, their actual attack was largely rubbish to watch last season. But as a team they got the ball in the net one way or another, and ended up as the 2nd-most potent team, with the 3rd-best xG.
No awful losses in the offseason (much as I love Trossard), and with hopes for better fitness from Saka, Odegaard, Havertz, and so on.
Obviously. They’ve been the best defence in the league for years, and were again last season. Their xGA was a preposterous 13-16 (depending on the source) better than the 2nd-best team, Man City. That is insane.
Losing Saliba to injury obviously hurts, but it’s not like either the backups or the rest of the players around whoever plays RCB are terrible.
We have to assume they’ll be the best defence again until we’re proven wrong.
They’re the league champions.
They scored the most goals last season, and had the best xG. If that doesn’t get you a 5/5, I don’t know what does.
They weren’t Arsenal, but they were still the 2nd-best team in the league for both goals conceded (11 fewer than 3rd place) and xGA. This could move up to a 5, if they keep a few cleans early in the season.
Who the hell knows what will happen under Maresca, but for now you’d pencil them in as one of the best teams, with one of the best squads.
Man U were 3rd in goals scored last season, and 4th in xG.
Replacing Casemiro’s injury time goals from corners every single week will be challenging, but Cunha+Mbeumo+Bruno has had a year to bed in, and Sesko got much better as the season went along.
Solid last season. Tied-6th for goals conceded, and 3rd for xGA.
Midfield should hopefully be a bit more solid following the summer, and a healthy Lisandro (stranger things have happened) would be a lovely boon.
They’ll likely pick up where they left off, which was one of the best teams in the league. Let’s see how it’s all looking once the European games begin…
Who the hell knows.
They somehow scrabbled up to 4th in goals scored last season, and 5th in xG, despite the absolute mess around Isak/Ekitike/Salah etc.
If Isak becomes Isak again, and if they get a big exciting signing in, this could get bumped to a 4.5 in our first update. Right now though, I’ll plump for a nice, safe 4.
Pretty poor last season (13th in the league, albeit with a top 5 xGA), and I don’t really see how it’s gotten any better. Konate and backup Robbie have gone, Jacquet is unproven and only 21, who knows if Frimpong can stay healthy.
Add a new manager coming in on top of all that, and this starts at a 3.5 with room to go either way (admittedly more likely upwards) when the season starts
Despite everything they still finished 5th last season, and will be in and around the top 4-6 again this year
Biggest xG underperformers in the league last season, managed to score a staggering 14 goals fewer than they were ‘supposed’ to. Impressive stuff! Somehow, they still tied for 5th in goals scored, despite it all.
Obviously, xG underperformance can be either bad luck or bad finishing. Last season it was probably a bit of both, but I’d lean more towards the latter.
Leave price and ages (ahem, Welbeck) out of the equation, and they’ve brought in two quality, starting-calibre Premier League forwards already (along with a bazillion other players, as usual).
Palmer and Estevao are fit again (for now), Alonso is probably an excellent hire, no European football, and most importantly of all they’ve binned off Garnacho (admittedly Mudryk has also returned, so it’s not all good news). I’d be confident in the attack, heading into the season.
In one of those lovely instances of eye test and stats coming together, Chelsea both looked a bit crap at the back last season and indeed were a bit crap at the back. 11th in both goals conceded and xGA feels completely right.
Chalobah and Cucurella have gone. Lacroix and Palestra have come in. The apparently untouchable Robert Sanchez is somehow still in goal, as of now.
Will any of it make any difference? Let’s assume mediocrity for now, and leave room to be pleasantly surprised.
Good manager, probably good transfers, and most importantly of all no Europe. They’ll have a good season.
10th for goals scored last season. 11th for xG. It doesn’t get any more middle of the pack, 3/5 than that.
Welbeck was old, but he was still their starting striker, and it remains to be seen how/if they replace him. I can’t see any signing short of a top-level forward (which they’re not going to do) that would shift me from a boring, boring 3/5 going into the season.
Despite watching and following the Prem last season like a hawk/loser, I must admit that Brighton’s defence being really good passed me by.
Turns out it was! They finished 3rd in goals conceded, and 4th in xGA. Who knew.
Obviously they’ve lost van Hecke, but as if by accounting magic got Vuskovic back from Spurs for almost the same hefty price, so he’ll presumably start. Van Hecke was one of the best CB’s in the league last year, and Vuskovic is only 19, so we have to assume that’s a downgrade, but when they were an excellent defence last year, even a little slippage keeps them as being really good.
It’s a somewhat optimistic 4/5 for now… with room to drop after a few weeks.
One way or another, whoever the manager is, they always find a way to finish in the upper-mid/mid table.
Tough one, but this feels about right. They scored the 8th-most goals last season, and were 7th in xG.
I worry a little about regression, but perhaps that’s unfounded, and I’m just being a negative nelly. Thiago did score 22 of their 55 goals last season, which is a lot, and 8 of those were pens. I’m not sure either of those are sustainable.
That said, 3.5/5 still puts them as a good, solid attack. They did also get Jaidon Anthony (one of the most entertaining players in the league on his day), and Sangare from Lens (who apparently is very good), so there’s room for them to move up to a 4 here.
This one’s much easier. They conceded just as many goals as Chelsea (a middling 52), and were firmly in the mid-table for xGA.
For the record, if Sangare is as good as everyone says he is, either Absolutely definition of a bang average defence.
I always fear a little for a team the next season, who defied expectations to such an extent the previous year. We’ll remain cautiously optimistic though, and say they’ll be… pretty good in 26/27!
I literally don’t have a clue, and neither does anybody else.
You thought Chelsea’s xG underperformance was bad? Ha!
Palace’s xG was 8th last season. They managed to underperform it by a massive 21 GOALS. In the end, they scored the 3rd-fewest goals in the league. 5 fewer than relegated West Ham, and 7 fewer than terrible, terrible Spurs.
You have to assume they regress to the mean, and the two numbers meet somewhere in the middle. They’ll hopefully get a lot more starts from Mateta and Sarr too.
Admittedly they may also lose Wharton, who’s one of the best passers in the league…
Regardless, I’m applying my ‘more art than science’ caveat for the first time, and giving them a cautiously optimistic 3.5.
Meh. They’re fine.
They finished 8th in goals conceded last season… but also outperformed their xGA by 9 goals.
They’ve obviously lost Lacroix, after already losing Guehi… but have also got Mingueza already (who’s supposed to be good), and will presumably get another CB.
It all shakes out to a conservative 3/5, with room to go either way once the (foot)ball gets rolling.
All over the place last season, new manager, losing several big players in quick succession… it’s incredibly hard to predict how they’ll do this year.
You could tell me they finish in a European place, or that they’re battling relegation, or that they finish in the old Roy Hodgson special of around 14th in the league.
I’ll once again go conservative, and just say they’re a pretty standard, middle-of-the-road team.
Another rating that basically picks itself. They were right in the middle of the pack for both goals and xG last season.
They’ve lost Gordon (and less importantly Tonali), but brought in various hot prospects I’ve never heard of.
At the risk of being branded a coward, I’ll once more set this at a nice, inoffensive 3/5 to start off with, and let’s see how it all looks a month or so from now.
Mediocre in terms of goals conceded last season, with 55 technically putting them 6th-worst, albeit right in the thick of a pretty big pack. They were 10th in xGA, so – overall – they were just bang average.
They also had terrible injury luck (as they did in many positions). Thiaw started 33 games, no other defender started more than 25, and the midfield in front of them was similarly chopped and changed.
Prior results, plus the uncertainty of a new manager, have to put them at a 3/5, but I could see this bumping up in our first in-season update.
Should be a solid, mid-table team, despite all the changes.
They were fine last season. Upper mid-table in goals scored, lower mid-table in xG.
Rogers could leave a big hole, obviously, and the jury is very much out on whether Garnacho can fill it.
I think they’ll be a bit worse than last season, but probably still bundle their way to a middle-of-the-road attack.
Not very good at actually keeping cleans, as anyone who owned a Villa defender in FPL last season will know.
But, their overall numbers were fine. 5th best for goals conceded, albeit on a 7-goal overperformance compared to their upper-mid tier xGA. They’ve made big moves in the midfield, and if they hold on to Konsa, I assume they’ll – as usual – be pretty good, but not great.
I’m still not quite sure how they finished 4th last season, but they’ll at least be an upper-mid table team again this year, and likely pushing for Europe.
6th in goals scored last season, 6th in xG too, and somehow didn’t really slow down after losing their best attacker.
I will also sound a heavy note of caution that offsetting Semenyo’s loss was Kroupi being great, and he’s now injured for ages. More starts some combination of Rayan, Adli, and Kluivert – plus the big new striker Rodríguez – could offset this.
Then again, they did also lose their really, really good manager…
They get a 4/5 for their season-long performance last year, but are definitely on my watchlist for the first in-season update.
Good job they scored all those goals last season, because they were not a great defence. 14th for goals conceded, and 9th for xGA. They also once again just lost their best centre-back.
They surprised us all by not being worse at the back last year, after losing… all their defenders. I’d be a bit pessimistic about their chances this year though, between losing Senesi and Iraola.
As with the attack, there’s definitely room to move this once we’ve seen a few games.
Much as I loved watching Bournemouth last season, they feel like a potential regression candidate. They earn their mid-tier 0.35 home modifier for now, though.
Hmm. They weren’t very good going forward last year (15th for both goals and xG), and they just lost two of their starting attackers in Jimenez and Wilson.
Gonzalo Garcia arrives with plenty of hype from Real Madrid, and maybe they get more out of Kevin and Bobb (who would make a great comedy double act).
But I would be pretty darn pessimistic at this stage.
They were fine for goals conceded last year, finishing 9th, but outperformed their 16th-place xGA by almost 10 goals.
They also had Marco Silva in charge, who… wasn’t exactly an elite manager, but usually had them pretty organised.
This is another one where I’m starting it out at a solid 3, but could see it changing fairly early into the season (probably downwards).
Between the shakeup to the attack, losing a long-tenured manager, and nobody having a clue if Arbeloa is actually a good manager or not, I haven’t got huge hopes for Fulham this season.
Right now, they look like the definition of a lower-mid table team.
A classic, stodgy David Moyes attack.
Tied-15th for goals scored last season, and 13th for xG.
Both the strikers are just… fine. Ndiaye wasn’t even that good last season, and it still doesn’t feel like they can afford to lose him, as is rumoured.
2.5 might end up being too generous, the more moaning I do. But, it feels fine for now.
A classic, quite good – but not actually as good as you think – David Moyes defence.
7th in goals conceded last season, 13th in xGA, 11 clean sheets… it was all fine, serviceable, and pretty boring!
Good job we’ve got the DefCons messiah himself, Emperor Tarkowski, to spice things up.
It’s Moyes. It’s Everton. They’ll be lower-mid table, the fans won’t be very happy, rinse and repeat.
Surprisingly good last season. They weren’t ‘amazing’ overall – 11th for goalscoring, 10th for xG – but definitely better than expected.
The DCL Renaissance obviously led the charge there, and he’s looked good in preseason by all accounts. Plus they’ve poached the sometime Welsh Messi from Fulham.
I’d expect them to be fine again, all told.
Their xGA was okay last season, but they still conceded the 5th-most goals in the league. They lost Struijk, but added someone called Muharemovic for quite a lot of money – who I’ll freely admit I’ve never heard of, but will presumably now start at CB.
As with the attack, there’s no obvious reason to see them being much different from last year.
Did well to comfortably stay up, obviously, but will almost certainly be lower-mid table again.
Hmm.
They had the 5th-worst xG last season, but finished 11th in actual goalscoring.
They were missing Wood for most of the season, who’d been good the previous two years, plus Awoniyi (though he’s always injured), and basically every other attacker apart from MGW (one of the best attackers in the league) was in and out.
They also had something like a dozen managers. I lost track. Anyway, now they’ve got an actual good manager… for as long as he actually stays there.
They also seem to have spent no money whatsoever as of now, despite having made a tidy sum from one Elliot Anderson.
Chuck it all together, and I still think – if we’re being sensible (which we always are) – we have to assume they won’t be that good going forward, for now… while reserving the right to change our minds sharpish within a few games.
To say Forest rode their luck last season is an understatement. They somehow outperformed their 4th-worst xGA to the tune of almost 14 goals, to finish a respectable joint-9th.
That doesn’t feel the most sustainable thing in the world.
Again, maybe it was just a bad year (well, it definitely was), and maybe Glasner sorts them out all over the pitch. Again though, we have to assume – for now – that they won’t be particularly good.
See: my many, confused ramblings and caveats in the ‘Attack’ and ‘Defence’ sections of this Forest review.
Easily one of the worst attacks in the league last season. 4th-worst for goals scored, and 3rd-worst for xG.
On paper, you should want no part of their attack in FPL… and yet, as ever, the players themselves must be taken on a case by case basis, and DefCons mean – in particular – that Le Fee and Xhaka are still good options (plus they both got a few attacking returns last season anyway).
James and I took a very long time to upgrade Sunderland’s defensive rating last year. The underlying stats kept telling us their defence was rubbish. They kept not conceding anyway. And it just carried on like that for the entire season!
They finished with the 6th-worst xGA in the league. They also outperformed that by 12 goals, to somehow finish with the 4th-best defence – in the entire league!
I’m prepared to be proved wrong, once again. But between that surely being unsustainable, and them surely having overachieved as a team last season, I have to take the pessimistic/realistic outlook on this one.
For the reasons listed just above, I am firmly skeptical.
If any team required my ‘more art than science’ cliche card, it’s obviously Spurs.
They were dreadful last season. They were also riddled with injuries, made ludicrous managerial decisions, and had a godawful mentality as a team.
De Zerbi hardly made them world beaters, but they did look better, and now they’ve gone out and spent an absurd amount of money, though it’s at least all on proven, Premier League players.
They were 8th and 4th-worst in goals and xG respectively last season, which should have them right at a 2/5. But with fewer injuries, a better manager, and frankly better players, you’d surely back them to be better this season.
Almost exactly what I said above.
Except, I’d be even more confident here, since they actually had the 6th-best xGA in the league last season, and somehow still managed to concede the 4th-most goals.
For the last time in this article – regression to the mean, I tell you!
This could very well be a 0.35 by the time we do our first update.
They also finished 17th the past two seasons in a row.
The home modifier, at least, falls into the ‘let’s wait until we actually see it’ category.
Oh come on now, ‘The Dross’ is a bit harsh. Who writes these headings, anyway?!
Regardless, as my co-conspirator James (rightly) points out, there’s no point in having a 1-5 scale if you’re not going to use the 1.
And if you are going to use the 1, you have to use it on the teams that are – statistically – the most likely to be the worst in the league.
Yes, Leeds and Sunderland were fine last season. But Burnley went straight back down, as had every team that had come up for multiple years beforehand.
We’ll bump them up if and when they prove us wrong, as we did with Leeds and Sunderland last year. For now though, we have to assume are the worst sides in the Prem, and therefore give them the worst ratings.
Well, there you have it – the very first set of team ratings for your freshly updated 26-27 FPL fixture ticker.
A big old article, but a fun one to write. I can’t speak for how fun it was to actually read, of course. At least I had fun – that’s the important thing, really.
If you enjoyed this lengthy piece – or even if you didn’t – feel free to pop over to our preseason preview hub page, where we’ve collected everything we’ve written so far.
Also follow us on Reddit, sign up to our newsletter, and all that good stuff… if you want to, obviously.
Thanks for reading, everybody, and happy tinkering with your drafts!
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