Gameweek 22 - Mid-Season Meta Review - Price Chaos, Fewer Goals, and Where to Spend Your Money

Breathe. Take a breath. You survived the silly season.

Whether you had a terrible time over xmas and new year, or whether you flew up the ranks; (or whether you did both like your two favourite FPL writers) you now have a bit of time to reflect on this season.

Let’s look through some key areas together, take some lessons from them and then smash the rest of the season. OR 1 here we come. 

In this piece we will look at the meta so that is price changes, goals scored, clean sheets sheeted and using that to trying to identify which position to spend your money on.

Let’s go!

Price Changes

The first thing that jumps out to me when considering this season is the huge number of price changes. 

I think the prevalence of first half chips and five free extra transfers for AFCON meant that people felt a bit more free with their moves.

I really hate early transfers. You just need to look at what happened with Munoz in gameweek 16 to see why. Over 100k transfers in and he was out getting surgery.

But, I cannot deny that this season it has often been a mistake not to move early for players. Mainly because they become unattainable as price rises take them away from us. My Fanteam doesn’t have this problem and I have much more time to make decisions there.

I am not sure whether that continues much longer. On the one hand, it is a learned behaviour now among FPL managers – they make early moves. 

On the other hand, we are now back to “normal.” Most of us have used a decent number of our five frees from AFCON already so there aren’t that many more transfers floating about.

I personally think (and hope) we will have a little less manic changes from now on.

Forwards Suck

Looking at positions and starting with the obvious…

Haaland and Thiago have been great this season. But, apart from them, the forwards feel a bit lacklustre.

There are eleven midfielders and ten defenders with 90 points or more. But up front its just these two and Bowen on 90.

With the recent Ekitike blank/injury, Joe and I (James) looked down the list of forwards in FPL and we couldn’t find a single one we liked so we just kept him. Yeah, we should have just got Thiago but hopefully Ek smashes Burnley next week to make us feel better.

Fewer Goals

At the time of writing there have been 587 goals after each team has played 21 games. If that current rate continues there will be 1062.2 goals in the season which is back to 20/21 season numbers.

In comparison, last year we had 1115 goals and 1246 goals the year before.

These stats tell us something we know to be instinctually true – there are just fewer goals this year.

Set Piece Goals Up; Open Play Goals Down

But, it’s not just that. There are also fewer open play goals versus set piece goals. 

Forwards are less relevant to set pieces. They often are no longer target men like you may have seen in the past and they tend not to take free kicks or corners.

So, your midfield set piece taker just whips balls in for your defender target men.

The Year of the Defence?

On top of this attacking threat defenders are getting defensive contribution points consistently.

But, the clean sheets are not flying in.

After 21 games there have been 102 clean sheets or 4.8 per gameweek. That means we are on track for 184 clean sheets which is only seven more than last year.

That’s why you can’t find many defenders you actually want.

Back to Mids Then?

Yeah. I think that’s the conclusion to be honest. In both defence and midfield there are 30 options with more than 73 points but the top of the midfield bracket is higher.

And you don’t even have to spend big there. The top three scorers at the moment are Semenyo, Rice and Bruno G and they are 7.6, 7.3 and 7.2 respectively. Of course, Semenyo is on his way to Man City so will no longer be an option 

I am still unconvinced on Bruno G by the way. But as we have been saying for weeks – he is the only nailed way into Newcastle’s attack.

I think it’s hard to deny that Declan Rice is the best midfield option in FPL right now – a sentence I did not expect to write this year. 

Will We Return to Normality?

We need to caveat all this a little bit. Too often people think when we say something we have nailed our colours to the mast and will not change our minds.

That’s not right and it’s a stupid way to do anything in life, not just play FPL. 

When presented with more information and new facts then we should change our minds – we should be constantly re-evaluating our predictions and making minor adjustments to them. Go and read superforecasters but basically the best people at predicting stuff make these micro-adjustments all the time. AND, it is easier to make predictions closer to the time (which just makes sense right? I saw a team play last week so I know if they are any good.

All that being said, I think this season will continue in much the same vein it has so far. Over the summer when teams have more time to analyse they will probably break this set piece hegemony; but, at the moment if you and I don’t have time to overthink our FPL teams then you can know they don’t have time either.

Regardless, I think it’s generally a safe bet to back mids – they have been the most reliable points scorers in FPL for the last few years. So, even if we do return to “normal” then they will probably be good options.

What About Defensive and Central Midfielders?

Back in November I finally wrapped my head around the idea that Declan Rice was a good pick. Mainly because he was good (not excellent) at many things so had many routes to points.

DMs and CMs in general seem to be still at the top of the FPL midfielders tables so I am gonna re-do this analysis in a quicker and dirtier way. Here is the table (this time with added set piece takers):

Which DMs/CMs Are Legitimate Picks?

Quick fire round:

• Rice – Yes. He is good, not great at many things (xG, xA, Set Pieces, Cleans, DefCons).
• Bruno G. – No. It’s ludicrous overperformance and he doesn’t get defcons and he isn’t on set pieces.
• Bruno F. – Yes. He’s great and you’re wrong if you don’t think so. Probably not going to be a CM/DM for much longer with Amorim out.
• Garner – Yes. Surprisingly a good pick. Okay at lots of stuff and GOOD on defcons. A bit like a diet Rice.
• Enzo – Maybe. I own him, I just bought him for the good fixtures and I am still unconvinced – just hoping this xG number is robust
• Gravenberch – No. Ludicrous overperformance and only okay at defcons.
• Xhaka – No. Defcon beast but I’d rather have Garner for the money,
• Casemiro – No. I said last time if he was nailed for 90 he would be a pick and that’s still true – watch for that.
• Anderson – Yes. Another one I own and recently purchased, I think he is in that Garner conversation with so many defcons, if only NFO could keep a bloody clean sheet.
• Stach – Yes.He’s so damn cheap that I think he’s an option as a fifth mid – not a guy I want to start every week because of overperformance, fantasy assists and a lack of cleans
• Palhinha – No.The most overperformance of of overperformance (just like last time)
• Reijnders – No. Doesn’t play 90 consistently enough.

That’s It.

That’s our first mid-season review piece wrapped. Fewer goals but defences not doing any better than last year? No wonder it feels so hard to find good picks.

Tomorrow I will deep dive into defenders looking at who the best picks are there and why.