FPL International Break Review (GWs 1-4)

After 4 weeks of Fantasy Premier League (FPL), the dreaded international break temporarily halts the excitement and anticipation that has gripped FPL enthusiasts but that allows us a unique opportunity to review and reflect on the insights gained so far.

! – DISCLAIMER ALERT – !

Of course, we are only four weeks into the season. So, we only have four data points. This means, we need to take everything we have learned with a pinch of salt and consider the reasoning behind it all but still, some information is better than nothing.

Team of the Season… so far

310 points! Wow. And it’s very affordable. What does this tell us? Well, Spurs are good aren’t they. 4 players making the team of the season is great. They’re attacking and fun to watch.

But this team of the season doesn’t tell us everything we want to know. Let’s look a little deeper…

Defence and Defensive Rankings

If you have been reading our pieces you know we have been lamenting defences all season. A cheap back line seems to be the way to go and that is borne out by the stats. Only two teams below have an xGC of lower than 4 (i.e. one per game).  Clean sheets are hard to come by this year.

*Luton and Burnley have played one less game than everyone else.

According to xGC, Man City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Brentford and Palace are the five best defences in the league. We can believe this except for Chelsea… Anyone who has watched them play would question whether this is true. They’ve had a relatively easy start to the season which is probably skewing these stats.

In contrast, Newcastle have had an incredibly difficult start to the season with their fixtures. I’d probably put them in the top 5 defences in the league instead. So, we should be looking at players from these teams to make up our defence, particularly where those players offer attacking threat.

The five worst defences are Fulham, Luton, Sheffield United, Burnley and Bournemouth. Note that we have used mins/xGC for this because Luton and Burnley have played one less game than the rest of the league.

We can use this information to target these defences with our transfers.

Attack and Attacking Rankings

As defences perform poorly, attacks perform well. Shocking isn’t it?

*Luton and Burnley have played one less game than everyone else.

The five best attacks in the league, according to expected goals, are Brentford, Brighton, Man City, Chelsea and Arsenal. Brentford, Brighton and Chelsea have had favourable fixtures which probably skews the data a bit but its hard to deny they have been good.

Regardless, in general, these are the guys we want in our attacks.

The five worst attacks in the league, according to minutes per expected goals are Forest, Fulham, Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United. Makes sense right? Avoid their attacks.

The trouble is, whilst general defensive rankings are useful in picking goalkeepers and defenders, general attacking rankings aren’t that useful in picking players that get attacking returns. As you know, these are individual efforts that get rewarded. So, lets look even deeper.

The Best Attacking Assets – xGI

The next table ranks the best attacking of the first four gameweeks by expected goal involvement.

There are a lot of players to go through here so review at your own leisure. But remember, this is a SMALL sample size to judge a player on. You can already see that there is only 1 xG between 50^th an 18^th so you need to take this with a pinch of salt.

Still, I’m going to pick a few interesting things out.

Positions of Interest

Only three defenders make the list. Cash, Chilwell and Estupiñán. Even then, Estu just barely makes the list – he’s overperformed his stats so maybe we all got a little lucky with him. I think he is easy to bench against tough opposition. That’s probably true of Cash too because both of them have poor defences (see defensive rankings). Chilwell is the only one that seems fixture proof and that’s why he needs to be in your team.

We fully expected this list to be dominated by midfielders (there are 30 of them). But, we are surprised to see 17 forwards on here. Of course, some of these aren’t worth considering as they don’t start (Nunez, Wilson, Maupay, Nketiah soon). But that still leaves 13 forwards worth considering in your draft leagues.

Individual Players

Looking at individual players, we can see the usual names we might expect. Haaland, Bruno, Saka, Salah – we all expected them to be in the top 10. Rashford and Son are notably absent (though Rash only just) which suggests that maybe we are spending too much by having them.

Whilst Saka is up there, Martinelli is noticeably absent and Odegaard is down there in the 34^th despite the fact he has taken the most shots of any Arsenal player. As we said at the start of the season, he just shoots too much from outside the box.

Mbeumo is a god. He’s actually underperforming his xGI right now which is insane because he is so cheap and currently the highest scoring mid in the game. I don’t own him (went Mitoma at the start of the season) and these stats scare the shit out of me. Mitoma and Eze are his mates in the 6.3-7.0 price bracket and whilst they’re good, they aren’t Mbeumo.

Similarly, Maddison is just too good to ignore. 6^th best attacking asset in the game for only 7.8. That is a great deal.

I’m disappointed but not totally surprised to see Sterling at 22. It’s Jackson who looks like the better pick at the moment, even if he’s struggling to actually score… Some players historically overperform xG, some historically underperform – fingers crossed Jackson isn’t in the latter category.

Formation Talk

As we saw in the team of the season, it looks like 3-5-2 is the best formation this year so far. With Jesus returning, that might change. But, right now, if you went 3-5-2 then I think you should be very happy with yourself.

The midfielders are just outperforming the strikers. And most of the mids are cheap enough that you don’t have any money worries.

Bonus Point Magnets

It’s not super clear to anyone new to the game how bonus points are calculated and, to be frank, its not something I know off the top of my head either.

But, basically, there is a whole other points system called the Bonus Point System (BPS) and it is designed to give points to players who play well. For example, a successful open play cross gets you one point on the BPS system, a successful tackle gets two points, and saving a penalty 15 points. You can see the full breakdown here. After the game, the top 3 players on BPS get 3, 2, and 1 FPL point, respectively. The best players for these bonus FPL points are:

BPS Magnets

It’s not surprising to see most of these players on this list because the bonus point system also rewards those who make ordinary FPL returns. When you look at those who score the highest BPS it’s a slightly different story:

You can see Alvarez has the second highest overall BPS but he is so far behind Haaland that he will rarely get the three points.

Players like Saka are great buys because they are clearly their teams best on BPS. So, if they get an attacking return, they will likely get some bonus points too.

Does Value Matter in FPL This Season?

And speaking of which, we have spoken a bit about this already but maybe value is just irrelevant this year.

As I spoke about in our gameweek 4 preview, I’m currently executing the 12^th man strategy. This means the first guy on my bench isn’t the usual bench fodder or 4.5 rotating defender I would normally have on the team. Instead, last week I had Mitoma on the bench because I hated his fixture.

This works, in theory, because I just have so much money and players that I want are so cheap that value feels irrelevant. Of course, it bit me in the arse this weekend when Mitoma got an assist on a low xG shot taken by Ferguson. xGI wise, I made the right call to start Sterling over him (0.59 xGI v.s. 0.36) but it still hurts to have points on your bench.

The Salah Question

I think Salah is the key to whether value matters this season. He’s currently the 11^th highest scoring mid so you think he’s not worth the 12.5 you pay for him. But! He is incredibly consistent and has an attacking return every game. Last year, Harry Kane did the same and he was a key difference maker for me over the course of the season.

I was listening to a few pods who were talking about selling him now for someone like Son. I have to say, I’m not convinced that’s a great idea. A two premium or two-mium strategy is eminently doable this year, I only need two moves to get there and I think it looks great:

Salah doesn’t play one of our top five defences from above until gamewek 12 and that’s Brentford. The fixtures aren’t incredible as he only plays one of the worst five defences (Luton in 11) once but still. I think I’d hold to the two-mium if I had it.

My Team

The benefit of running an FPL website is that you write down your reasoning for everything. So you can see what I said and see if you think my reasoning below is fair.

I appreciate, its kind of boring to see my team and what I think I called right but I think its kind of helpful to see why I’m happy or unhappy with a decisions. Hint: it’s not all about the outcomes.

Good calls

Let’s start with my best shall we. I was VERY pro-Wissa at the start of the year. And he has delivered so much value for that 6.0 price tag.

I said at the start of the season that Chilwell was the only 5.5 defender I was considering. I am happy to have been right that the 5.5s were not really worth it. It wasn’t really a bad call to start the season with Gabriel, particularly as I didn’t see the leak, but I am delighted that I kept 1.0 in the bank and switched Gabriel to Chilwell after gameweek 1.

Estupinian was the first name on my team sheet when I picked my team. Zero regrets there.

Backing Maddison over Odegaard was another good call. I wanted to introduce a bit of upside risk into my team instead of being the blandest template. Maddo and Wissa were my guys to do this.

Bad calls

I was saying that I was confused how Liverpool kept keeping clean sheets at the end of last year. But, I came into this year thinking I must have been mistaken. I wasn’t. They’re dreadful at the back. Which makes Trent too expensive. And, a mistake.

He’s probably the most annoying mistake I made. The reason I bought him in was because of his 200 point season ceiling. But that only exists when there is a consistent possibility of clean sheets. Which there isn’t… Except for last weekend when I transferred him out.

Pickford was probably another error. It’s a bit early to call because we hold goalkeepers medium to long term but right now he feels like a mistake. Everton have not been the defensive shithouses I was hoping they would be. Then again, I probably would have gone for Johnstone instead if I wasn’t concerned about rotation with Guaita and then Palace signed Henderson. So, I’m not regretting this one too hard.

Calls that I don’t think were good or bad

I backed Mitoma over Mbeumo. It’s hard to deny that Mbeumo is a better asset four games in. But, the reasoning was that I didn’t want to go into the season tripled up on Brentford in case they weren’t as good as I hoped. And, Mitoma has still scored well in my team (18 points from 3 weeks).

Another Brentford one. I picked Pinnock over Henry. This was solely because Henry was flagged going into the first week. I didn’t want to carry any injury risk. I also probably wouldn’t have played Henry because of the other players at the back. But yeah, Henry is a better asset.

That’s it

In this brief FPL international break review, we’ve delved into the team of the season, defensive and attacking rankings, and identified standout players in terms of expected goal involvement. While the statistics offer us some guidance, it’s essential to remember that the FPL season is a marathon, not a sprint. Our journey has just begun, and the player landscape can shift dramatically over the coming weeks.

As FPL managers, we must strike a balance between reacting to emerging trends and staying patient with our selections. The early indications suggest that certain teams excel defensively while others shine in attack. Understanding these nuances can help us make informed decisions when crafting our FPL squads.

So, as we wait for the international break to pass and the Premier League action to resume, take a moment to reflect on your FPL strategy. Stay vigilant, keep an eye on the fixtures, and be ready to adapt as the season unfolds. Remember, it’s a long road ahead, and success in FPL often hinges on calculated decisions made over time rather than knee-jerk reactions to short-term fluctuations.