New Premier League Players Analysis

Judging which new Premier League arrivals will make an impact can cause quite a headache for Fantasy managers. However, as in the last two years, I have put together a spreadsheet that should cure these migraines. In this introduction to my research I will detail some of the many enticing new prospects as well as outline my methodology, especially in terms of how they would have fared in their previous club or league if Fantasy Premier League (FPL) points had been applied.

Key Picks

Here is a snapshot of a handful of stand out players that will be new to English top flight football next season.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic – The Swede scored an incredible 38 goals in 30 league appearances for Paris Saint Germain. When factoring in his 13 assists this makes him almost essential if he can mirror that form in the Premier League with Manchester United

Michy Batshuayi – in 34 league appearances for Marseille last season he scored 17 times and assisted a further nine goals. An enticing prospect up front for Chelsea.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan – in 30 appearances for Borussia Dortmund he scored 11 and assisted a further 20 goals. With Ibrahimovic up front he could break assist records for Manchester United.

Michael Keane – this Burnley defender scored five goals and assisted three more in 44 appearances. With an average points per game of 4.5, if FPL points were applied to the Championship last season, he could even rival Burnley striker Andre Gray (who had a comparable PPG of 4.7) for FPL points.

Abel Hernandez – 20 goals for Hull last season makes this forward a standout pick if priced kindly.

Method

The spreadsheet works out how many points per appearance the new transfers would have averaged at their respective clubs last season if the Fantasy Premier League points system was applied to them. There is a sheet for new transfers (e.g. Zlatlan Ibrahimovic and Granit Xhaka) and one for the newly promoted clubs (Burnley, Middlesbrough and Hull).

The new transfers sheet is split into forwards, midfielders and defenders for easy viewing. Goalkeepers have been left out as there was not too much to compare between them. At the moment these positions are my best guesses and should the FPL system throw any curveballs I will alter them when the game is launched. It’s all pretty self-explanatory but I should point out how I used the clean sheets. In order to make the points per appearance prediction more accurate I have worked out the average number of clean sheets per match that every Premier League club managed last term and applied that to the new arrival. For instance, Eric Bailly does not have the number of clean sheets he kept at Villarreal but the number Manchester United did last season. United kept 18 clean sheets in their 38 matches which equates to 13 in the 25 appearances Bailly made at the Spanish side.

The newly promoted clubs are split into three and works in the same way at the new arrivals. However, the clean sheet statistics are for the promoted club’s championship campaign in 2015-16.

Finally, you will notice a column titled “Value”. This is a way of comparing players of a similar price and I will fill it in and explain it once the FPL system launches its prices.

I will try and post an updated version every week for you and if you do have any questions then please pop them in the comment section below.