The Best Value Players in FPL

This article aims to establish who the best value players in the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) over the coming season are likely to be. The numbers in this article are not meant to be treated as absolute and it utilises statistics from Fantasy Football Scout’s members area and also includes a few assumptions about how 2015/16 may pan out.

Before you go through this article, a bit of background reading may be handy, including two of my posts looking at points per game (PPG). The first makes the case for a Strong Defense while the second compares a “template” team with a 5-4-1 formation side. In addition, Patch posted an interesting article called The Case For Defence, while TM245 posted a great series about Value Over Replacement Player (VORP), looking at midfielders and forwards.

Method

My research is based on the same fundamentals as the articles about VORP, which looks at which players give the best bang for your buck. You can find a lot of content on this for other sports by searching for “value-based drafting”. 

My research also looks to create base data about each player, which I have gathered from the projections part of FFScout’s members area. I feel this gives a good idea about how players are likely to perform this season.

Another point to mention is that I have avoided total points and points per minute as measurements as these do not take into account injuries, games missed and players who are likely to be substituted. Injury-prone players who can’t last 90 minutes are not ones we want in our squads.

By focusing on games played and Fantasy Football Scout’s projections, I have sought to create a rough PPG (points per game) for all players and then look to compare that with baseline values for each position. To calculate these baselines I took the highest PPG player available in the cheapest price segment as detailed here:

Goalkeepers: Butland – STO – 4.5 – 3.49 PPG.
Defenders: Morgan – LEI – 4.5 – 2.71 PPG.
Midfielders: King – LEI – 4.5 – 2.76 PPG.
Forwards: Defoe – SUN – 5 – 3.63 PPG.

Using all this data I have sought to come up with a run down of the best value players for each position. If you would like more information about these calculations and the numbers involved, please leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to explain. In short, though, the higher the figure, the better value they offer.

Results

Goalkeepers

Stekelenburg – 4.41
Mignolet – 3.62
Courtois – 2.79
Hart – 2.75
de Gea – 2.67
Cech – 2.53
Lloris – 2.29

Defenders

Bertrand – 10.45
Clyne – 9.91
Rose – 9.55
Skrtel – 9.2
Jones – 8.88
Darmian – 8.8
Bellerin – 8.78
Alderweireld – 8.68
Cedric – 8.51
Azpilicueta – 8.45
Mertesacker – 8.29
Zabaleta – 7.87
Fonte – 7.29
Jagielka – 7.22
Koscielny – 6.91
Monreal – 6.87
Ivanovic – 6.8
Terry – 6.7
Demichelis – 6.51
Smalling – 6.2
Baines – 6.09

Midfielders

Jedinak – 13.76
Dorrans – 9.14
Blind – 8.69
Brunt – 7.62
Howson – 7.53
Young – 7.21
Ramires – 7.04
Ki Sung-yueng – 6.34
Johnson – 6.12
Henderson – 5.98
Adam – 5.71
Milner – 5.33
Routledge – 5.29
Herrera – 5.22
Walcott – 5.2
Mahrez – 5.03
Sterling – 4.97
Di Maria – 4.87
Depay – 4.87
Chadli – 4.85
Hoolahan – 4.82
Mane – 4.72
Sigurdsson – 4.72
Hazard – 4.71
Silva – 4.48
Schweinsteiger – 4.44
Eriksen – 4.39
Cazorla – 4.32
Ritchie – 4.22
Mata – 4.17
Sanchez – 4.16
Walters – 4.13
Deulofeu – 4.11
McCarthy – 3.97
Fellaini – 3.93
Fabregas – 3.85
Shelvey – 3.65
Redmond – 3.61
Bolasie – 3.6
Clasie – 3.52
Ozil – 3.52
Firmino – 3.51
Yaya Toure – 3.43
Oscar – 3.42
Puncheon – 3.36

Forwards

Cisse – 4.28
Kane – 3.61
Aguero – 3.33
Costa – 3.17
Murray – 2.98
Rooney – 2.94
Rodriguez – 2.75
Sturridge – 2.5
Carroll – 1.8
Giroud – 1.57
Benteke – 1.32
Sakho – 1.18
Lukaku – 1
Pelle – 0.89
Berahino – 0.51
Vardy – 0.08

Conclusions

Looking at the data, one can easily see that the most value is brought out of defenders and midfielders. Defenders, especially, offer great value, particularly mid-price options such as Tottenham’s Danny Rose and Liverpool’s Nathaniel Clyne. In midfield, a lot of cheap players such Swansea’s Ki Sung-yueng offer great value. Liverpool’s Jordan Henderson and James Milner also do well. However, when it comes to goalkeepers and forwards, value becomes much harder to find.

A key lesson to learn from this is to ensure you get the best value from your squad and spend your initial 100.0 budget wisely.  At the moment, this would tend to favour a 4-5-1 formation but do keep in mind that you still would want a few big hitters for captaincy options.

If anyone has any better data I could take a look at, I’d be happy to see what conclusions we can draw from it. It would also be great to have an informed discussion about this – and how we can utilize it to maximise our Fantasy returns.