Ownership in FPL is a hot topic that attracts divided opinion. Some people will tell you to just ignore ownership. “Just pick the players you think will score the highest points!” they say. Others will tell you its all about ownership in FPL.
Well, if you are a dedicated Fantasy Premier League (FPL) enthusiast looking to ascend the ranks and clinch the top spot in your league. Then, understanding and effectively utilising ownership in FPL can prove to be a game-changing strategy you’ve been seeking.
In this comprehensive guide, we will explore how ownership in FPL can be harnessed to elevate your team’s performance, maximise points, and ultimately improve your overall rank in the fiercely competitive world of Fantasy Premier League.
So, buckle up and get ready to gain a competitive edge by mastering the art of ownership in FPL!
What is Ownership in FPL?
The explanation of ownership in FPL taken from our very own FPL Glossary is simple:
The percentage of FPL managers who have a particular player in their fantasy team.
It is a metric used to gauge the popularity and prevalence of a player among the FPL community. The ownership percentage is based on the total number of FPL teams and indicates how widely a player is selected by managers.
Why do we Care About Ownership in FPL?
The key metric in FPL is points. You want the most points. Simple right?
Well, yes and no.
To win FPL or to get a high rank or even to win your mini league, you have to beat everyone else. And this is where ownership becomes a useful metric for decision-making.
We can use ownership to help us make several decisions and to build our squad. And we are going to go into detail on three of these reasons. But if you read no further then here is a brief explainer:
- Ownership can show us who the majority of FPL managers think are good assets – the wisdom of the crowds.
- Ownership can show us who the majority of FPL managers are overlooking and provide differential advantage.
- Ownership can help us manage and mitigate risk in our squads.
Wisdom of the Crowds and Ownership in FPL
The wisdom of the crowds is a good place to start. This is a concept that suggests that large groups of people collectively make more accurate and insightful decisions than individual experts or a small group of specialists.
This phenomenon is based on the idea that when a diverse group of individuals with different perspectives and knowledge pools their insights and opinions, the collective result tends to be more accurate and reliable than any single individual’s judgment.
You can read more about the wisdom of the crowds and our hopeful experiment this year here.
How the Wisdom of the Crowds can be used in FPL
So, what does this mean for our decisions in FPL?
When picking your team for gameweek 1, or considering a transfer – look at what the rest of the field is doing as well.
Lets look at some examples in gameweek 1 of the 23/24 season. At the time of writing, the four most owned midfielders in FPL are:
- Saka – 53.0%
- Rashford – 43.2%
- Mitoma – 37.6%
- Fernandes – 25.3%
The four highest scoring midfielders from last year were:
- Salah – 239 points
- Odegaard – 212 points
- Rashford – 205 points
- Saka – 202 points
So, what does this information tell me? Firstly, despite the fact that Saka scored fewer points than Odegaard, people want Saka more. They cost the same amount of money so it must be something else. I can then go and investigate why people think that Saka is a better bet.
I’m an FPL nerd, so I already know that people favour Saka because they think he is the main man at Arsenal. They also are concerned about repeatability of Odegaard’s previous season for two reasons: 1) he scored a few goals from outside the box and those are low xG chances; and, 2) the relationship between him and Kai Havertz is unclear.
Secondly, I know that I am not alone in thinking that Salah isn’t essential to start the season. He is still in a quarter of teams out there but 75% of managers currently agree with me that having him negatively affects the balance of your squad. That makes me feel a bit more confident in my judgement. If it were the other way around I should be re-considering.
Thirdly, Mitoma’s ownership is waaaay higher than even I realised. It makes me realise I should take a look at him again. I’m not saying I just bring him in straightaway but I will re-visit the decision to pick Mbeumo over him.
So, as you can see, I am not suggesting you pick a player just because everyone else has him. What I am saying though, is that you should think about why everyone else is picking them. Then justify to yourself why you will or will not have him in your squad.
Differential Advantage and Ownership in FPL
We hear a lot of chat about differentials but what is a differential? Let’s look at the FPL glossary again:
A differential is a player that is owned by a small percentage of FPL managers.
What’s the value in owning one of these guys? We have to go back to the idea that to win anything in FPL you need to beat everyone else.
One way to do that, is to pick players that nobody else has. Because, when they return, you get points and nobody else does – so you overtake them in rank/mini-league.
You can even use websites like FPL gameweek when the season has started to see relative ownership in your mini-league.
Cautioning Against Differential Ownership in FPL
Now, this is the one technique described in this piece that I put the least stock in.
The reason is, “differential” players are frequently shit. That’s why nobody owns them…
Coutinho is currently owned by 0.4% of players. This guy once got 171 points in an FPL season. Is he underated? No. He barely plays anymore. He only played 800 minutes off seven starts last year with one attacking return in the whole time.
Okay, obviously he isn’t actually shit. He’s much better at football than I am. But, what are the chances that he gets 10 attacking returns this season? Pretty slim.
So again, its important not to just look at ownership in isolation of all other facts and figures.
Let’s look at a more positive example. Take Wissa at Brentford. Current ownership – 3.9%. He’s currently my favourite forward pick under 7.0 in our Best FPL Forwards for Gameweek 1 piece.
Why is that? 7 Goals and 4 assists off 16 starts and 1600 minutes. Plus, Ivan Toney is banned until gameweek 22 so I am confident he starts. And, he’s looked good in pre-season already and has scored.
This, is a differential I like.
Again, I just want to emphasise that using ownership to pick a differential will only help you find those differentials. It doesn’t mean that they’re any good.
Risk Management and Ownership in FPL
Eugh… James… Risk Management… Seriously? Could you make FPL sound any more boring if you tried!?
Yeah, sorry everyone. Risk management is dull. I agree. But, I think its actually the most beneficial thing that ownership can help you with.
So what is risk management in FPL. This one is not in the glossary… Risk management is the process of assessing and mitigating risks to your rank/mini-league position.
How to assess and mitigate risks
Let’s start in the most obvious place. Haaland is currently owned by 86.3% of the game.
If I don’t own him, I own Salah and a 6.0 forward instead, and he scores a brace (8 points) plays for 60+ minutes (2 points) and gets all three bonus points (3 ponts…) then I am 13 points behind everyone else. Double that if everyone who owns him captains him.
If 10 million people play FPL this year then 8.63 million of them are now 13 points ahead of me or more if they captained him. This is a rank killer.
Of course, this is an oversimplification. I will have a player instead of Haaland but now we understand the risk of not having him and 8.63 million people having him.
So, how do we mitigate this risk. Two ways, ownership or coverage.
Ownership is simple. We simply buy Haaland – we know he is a great pick anyway so its fine to buy him. It’s not like we are talking about 8.63 million people buying and captaining Declan Rice here. If they did, I would do the opposite. This is the top scorer in the league last year.
Coverage and Ownership in FPL
Coverage is harder.
What is coverage? Coverage is about trying to cover the points a player gets by having someone else from that team in your starting eleven.
Haaland scored 36 goals in total last year with 9 assists. You could try and “cover” him with De Bruyne who got 18 assists and 7 goals last year. But you can already tell that this strategy would not have been successful last year.
Even if every single assist from de Bruyne was to Haaland (and they weren’t) then you would only be covering half of Haaland’s total goals. You’d also be getting less points for them.
Coverage can be more interesting in defence. Let’s say you like the Man United defence but you think Luke Shaw’s attacking output is overrated.
You could make a bet that Shaw won’t get attacking returns and instead you could take Martinez or Onana. You save 0.5 and you have covered Shaw’s defensive returns.
Again, I am not saying that this is how you should pick players. But it is certainly something you should consider. And, I for one, would not advise anyone to start the season without Haaland, partly because of that high ownership.
That’s it
So, there you have it! Now you know how to use ownership in FPL to your advantage. None of these techniques should dominate your thinking or over-ride your analysis about good picks and bad picks. But, they can be used to aid decision-making and help you to determine the best course of action.
In summary:
- Ownership can show us who the majority of FPL managers think are good assets – the wisdom of the crowds.
- Ownership can show us who the majority of FPL managers are overlooking and provide differential advantage.
- Ownership can help us manage and mitigate risk in our squads.
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