December Review and January Preview

A happy New Year to everyone and welcome to my regular look back at the month’s key Fantasy Premier League (FPL) players, which in December saw some impressive returns from various players. Like last month’s article, I will also take a look ahead to those with the best fixtures in January, while for Members I’ve also supplied my variation on the goals and assists imminent tables to help predict some options for the forthcoming games.

December Review

Goalkeepers

For the second month running Stoke’s Jack Butland (29) remains the highest-scoring goalkeeper with three clean sheets and 19 saves. He is also the highest-scoring goalkeeper overall and has seen a 0.4 increase to 5.2 since last month. That’s a huge price hike for a goalkeeper.

In a close second place, comes Wayne Hennessey (28) at 4.0. The Crystal Palace stopper also recorded three clean sheets with 16 saves, putting him a point behind Butland for the month. In third was West Ham’s Adrian (26) at 5.0 with the same number of saves and clean sheets as Hennessey albeit conceding more goals. At 4.8, Heurelho Gomes (23) of Watford places fourth with three clean sheets also. Of those that kept two clean sheets, Bournemouth’s Artur Boruc (23) scored nicely due to saves and bonus points at a cheaper price of 4.5.

Elsewhere, Kasper Schmeichel (22) and Lukasz Fabianski (22) scored well, with the more premium keepers failing to live up to their price tags in Hugo Lloris (22), Petr Cech (19), David de Gea (18) and Simon Mignolet (17).

Defence

This month, there was a three-way tie for the highest-scoring defender.

Scott Dann, Ashley Williams and Adam Smith came away with 29 points, averaging just under 6.0 points per game (PPG) for December. In second place with 28 points were two goal-scoring full-backs in Aaron Cresswell and Charlie Daniels, the latter who has secured spot kicks recently for Bournemouth.

In third was Glen Johnson and Branislav Ivanovic, tied with Watford duo Allan Nyom and Nathan Aké on 26 points, though the latter saw a straight red card at the end of the month and is currently in the midst of a three-match ban. Elsewhere in the Stoke backline, Philipp Wollscheid (21), Erik Pieters (20) and Ryan Shawcross (20) scored tidily with Geoff Cameron (19) at 4.3 coming into the midfield recently for the Potters.

West Ham duo James Tomkins and Angelo Ogbonna scored 21 points apiece with Bournemouth pair Steve Cook (21) and Simon Francis (18) returning similarly.

Other Crystal Palace defenders rewarded their owners’ patience with three clean sheets this month with Joel Ward (25), Pape Souaré (23) and Damien Delaney (20) making some nice returns. Tottenham saw some rotation to their full-backs throughout the month, with Toby Alderweireld (20) and Eric Dier (22) scoring in the low twenties, in addition to Kyle Walker (22) who missed out on Spurs’ last game against Watford.

Some of the lower-scoring defenders include Watford’s Craig Cathcart (19) and Miguel Britos (18) along with West Brom’s Craig Dawson’s 20 points (despite only one clean sheet). Swansea’s Neil Taylor, Southampton’s Jose Fonte and Christian Fuchs all returned 19 points, with Liverpool’s Mamadou Sakho delivering 18 points from December despite only playing three games.

Midfield

A player that surprisingly did not feature in last month’s article was Riyad Mahrez (53) who scored only 13 points in November. This month however, the Leicester winger wholeheartedly deserves his spot at the top of the scoreboard after three double-digit hauls for the month.

In second, Stoke’s Marko Arnautovic (41) comes in after a series of impressive performances with teammate Xherdan Shaqiri also scoring a tidy 28 points. Next up comes Arsenal midfield duo Mesut Ozil (39) and Aaron Ramsey (31) who have proved to be valuable assets over the last month for the Gunners.

Elsewhere in London, many drafted in Tottenham’s youngster Dele Alli (30) as a fifth midfielder but turned out to be more than just a filler, whereas Chelsea’s Willian (22) and West Ham’s Michail Antonio (25) proved to be useful assets.

For Manchester City, what has been a lacklustre month even with the return of Sergio Aguero saw midfielders Yaya Touré (28) and Kevin De Bruyne (21) fall short of expectations perhaps. The same can be said of Everton midfielder Ross Barkley (20), whilst teammate Tom Cleverley (22) outscored him.

Attack

Watford’s Odion Ighalo (41) was the highest-scoring forward of the month, with teammate Troy Deeney remaining in third place with 30 points. Everton’s Romelu Lukaku (36) takes second place after a nice run of goals, albeit poor finishing at times. Stoke’s Bójan and Tottenham’s Harry Kane both ended up on 29 points for the month, with the former a very cheap route into the Potters’ attack line.

Recently, Arsenal frontman Olivier Giroud (25) and Leicester striker Jamie Vardy (24) have not being delivering the hauls that owners expect, with Aston Villa’s Jordan Ayew (22) at 5.5 delivering surprising returns.

Returns Imminent

My ‘Goals Imminent’ table takes a look at players that have been unlucky in their goal returns lately, and tries to indicate which players are getting into threatening positions for next Gameweek. Some may be under the radar, and others may be more obvious but what this table shows is how often a player is getting shots away inside the opposition box but failing to score for various reasons.

Likewise for more creative players, I have put together an ‘Assists Imminent’ table in order to gauge which players are ‘due’ in terms of assists. It is important to mention that both tables should be viewed together as simply ‘Returns Imminent’ considering a player that is getting very far forward may choose to square the ball for an assist instead of taking the shot himself. Also for those in the ‘Assists Imminent’ table it is important to look at creative players with a high number of penalty area touches or shots inside the box that might score.

Chips

The following estimate is taken from a sample of 20,000 conducted by FPL Discovery. As we can see, as we reach the halfway point of the season, many of us that still have our chips intact should remain hopeful. Within the top 10,000, many are there, not only because of picking the right players, but because of using their chips. In the latter half of the season when double Gameweeks are announced many of us might see a significant rank jump if all goes according to plan.

Top 10,000

Triple Captain    43.8%

Bench Boost    53.9%

All Out Attack    51.0%

Number of chips played in the top 10,000 on average

0 – 22%

1 – 29.8%

2 – 25.6%

3 – 22.6%

4 – 0.0%

Overall

Triple Captain    30.4%

Bench Boost    24.0%

All Out Attack    24.6%

January Preview

It’s a tough January in terms of fixtures with none of the bigger clubs having an easy New Year, especially when we take into consideration other cup competitions going on between Premier League matches. Even those with a somewhat better run of fixtures look hit and miss when we examine the various factors. So for this reason, I have had a look at the season ticker and selected what I feel are the best three teams to consider for January’s remaining fixtures (Gameweeks 21 – 23).

Manchester United: new, liv, SOT

I have included Manchester United as I think the fixtures are a lot more generous than they appear upon first inspection. Newcastle and Liverpool haven’t been prolific in attack recently, so Man United may see a couple of clean sheets throughout January. With the return of Matteo Darmian at 5.4 they look to be a lot stronger at the back as shown by the Chelsea 0-0 draw, however rotation continues to haunt him as he was dropped for the home game against Swansea just a few days later.

It remains to be seen how well their attack will improve though and whether they can build on the victory against Swansea in Gameweek 20. That game showed that youngster Anthony Martial, who scored and has seen his price drop to 7.6, could be a viable target once again. Wayne Rooney, who also scored in that game, is another to show signs of improvement.

Best picks: De Gea (5.6), Smalling (6.8)

Leicester: tot, avl, STO

Apart from the obvious threat of Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy, there is very little case for other options to have in the FPL squad of 15. Perhaps Marc Albrighton could act as a cheap fifth mid but there are many other options that provide better returns for around the same price.

Defensive returns look far and few between, with Leicester having one of the highest goals conceded (25) stats from the top thirteen clubs. Though it must be mentioned that recently they have tightened up considerably, conceding only five goals in their last eight fixtures (new, MUN, swa, CHE, eve, liv, MCI, BOU), two of which were against Everton.

From their defensive options, Robert Huth provides a good attacking threat from set pieces, with the tall centre-back being targeted several times recently from free-kicks. Otherwise, for 4.7, Christian Fuchs has shared some set pieces for Leicester and seems to have been doing well in terms of FPL’s bonus point system in low-scoring games.

Best picks: Huth (4.3), Fuchs (4.7), Mahrez (7.1), Vardy (7.6)

Bournemouth: WHM, NOR, sun

Though not the best of fixtures, the Cherries have tightened up somewhat recently and earned wins against some of the bigger teams (albeit not Arsenal) as a result. Last month saw a new penalty-taker emerge for the club in full-back Charlie Daniels. At 4.5, he remains a well-rounded asset for the coming fixtures, both defensively and offensively. A cheaper, though less secure, route would be Adam Smith at 4.0 for the short term at least. Junior Stanislas and Josh King remain value for money options under the 5.0 mark, with the latter pushing to remain in a forward out-of-position role should he shake off a niggling hamstring injury.

Best picks: Boruc (4.5), Daniels (4.5), Stanislas (4.2), King (4.6)