What the stats tell us about Fantasy Bundesliga’s best players for 2021/22

With just days to go until the 2021/22 Fantasy Bundesliga season kicks off, our series of preview articles continues with a deep dive into the stats, looking at what can be learned from last season’s numbers.

We’ve enlisted the services of Fantasy Football Scout site user Stats Don’t Lie, who has been playing Fantasy Bundesliga for the past two years and who has achieved a top 2k finish in both of those seasons. 

Make sure to click on each image to expand the bar charts and graphs.

If you’re new to the game or just need a reminder of the rules, check out our ‘how to play’ guide here.

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In line with what you’d probably expect, the total points accrued by the teams in the Bundesliga line up pretty well with their final league position. In most positions, buying the bigger name players represents good value:

Of the top 20 players last season, eight were attackers, ten midfielders and two defenders. The top five points scorers were all listed as forwards and of the top 20 performers only two, Ritsu Doan and Saša Kalajdžić (12m), started with a price tag of below 10m. It, therefore, seems that our money is better spent in attacking areas.

Nevertheless, the one position where we can achieve great results by spending next to nothing to afford these impressive attackers is in goal:

Of the top 10 goalkeepers last season, four started with a price tag of 5m or below: Stefan Ortega (8m), Florian Müller (8m), Gregor Kobel (10m) and Andreas Luthe (6m). Only two of them started with a price of 10m or more, Péter Gulácsi (11m) and Manuel Neuer (12m).

This highlights the point made in a previous article about limiting the amount of cash you splash on your goalkeeper position, as you shouldn’t need to spend much in order to obtain a solid option. In this game, the most important thing for goalkeepers is their ability to make saves, with seven of the top ten goalkeepers also ranking amongst the top ten in terms of save points.

It will also come as no surprise to see that the top five teams in terms of points for goal attempts were the top five teams in the Bundesliga last season (in the same order, too). Simply put, you need to take shots to score goals, but there is another reason I wanted to highlight these teams. There has been a bit of a chain reaction of managerial shifts in the Bundesliga ahead of this season and all five of the top clubs head into this season with a new coach.

At RB Leipzig, Julian Nagelsmann’s defenders were top in terms of points for goal attempts. This was due to his deployment of a wing-back system, his overall offensive playing style and the endeavours of the very attacking left wing-back Angeliño (14m). The total of 136 points for goal attempts accrued by the Leipzig defenders was at least 32 more than that of any other team.

With Nagelsmann expected to continue with the same wing-back approach at Bayern Munich, the two players that feature in those roles look particularly primed for points. The other team looking to benefit from a switch to a back five formation is Borussia Monchengladbach, who have employed the services of former Eintracht manager Adi Hutter.

Eintracht Frankfurt were second for points from goal attempts by defenders (104), a tally made all the more impressive by the fact that talisman Filip Kostić (14m), who occupied the left wing-back slot, was listed as a midfielder and not a defender in the game. In pre-season, Hutter may have already given us a Fantasy gem as he has started American wing-back Joe Scally (2m) in each of Gladbach’s five pre-season friendlies.

The 15 defenders on the graph below were the top performers for goal attempts in their position. Ten of these players played as wing-backs or out-of-position last season, while the other five carried a significant aerial threat from set-pieces for their sides:

As you can see, Angeliño was by far the best in this regard and this is despite missing a number of games due to injury and falling out with the manager. Granted he was also on set-pieces, but if Nagelsmann sticks to a wing-back formation, we could expect similar results from someone like Alphonso Davies (13m).

A trio of Gladbach defenders also feature on the list, which is promising given Marco Rose’s move to Borussia Dortmund to become their new coach. The output of Dortmund defenders should remain at a similar level as a result and if anything may rise as their defenders are arguably better all-round than those of Gladbach.

In general, key performance indicators (KPI) are key to a player’s grand total, even more so than their output scores. To illustrate this, I divided all the points metrics in Fantasy Bundesliga into three categories:

• KPI – shots, passes to shots, duels won, saves
• Output – goals scored, assists, cleansheets, penalties saved
• Other – everything else

As you can see in the graph above, of the top ten points scorers no player gained less than 40% of their points from KPI scores. Someone that stands out is Dani Olmo (14m), who was a top ten scorer, while accruing just 20% of his total from outputs, indicating strong underlying stats but perhaps lacklustre finishing of his own or of his teammates.

With new manager Jesse Marsch playing a similarly attacking brand of football, perhaps an even bigger season is on the cards for Olmo, Christopher Nkunku (14m) and new signing André Silva (15m), who moved to RB Leipzig from Eintracht Frankfurt.

Now, I mentioned that the statistics show we should devote significant amounts of our budget towards getting big-hitters in the attacking and midfielder positions. However, this does not mean we should completely neglect defenders. The next three graphs show the top points scorers across each of the three KPIs mentioned earlier.

Though they don’t feature as heavily in the shots category, defenders are a dominant presence across the other two KPIs. The ‘duels won’ classification is exclusively dominated by defenders, something that surprised me with target-men like Wout Weghorst (14m) and Kalajdžić around.

It is also worth noting how many of these defenders that dominated duels were available at bargain prices, with five of them costing less than 5m and 13 coming in under the 10m mark.

What’s undoubtedly clear is that multiple routes to points for defenders through KPIs makes those indicators an important factor to follow when planning your transfers, especially due to the consistency with which defenders are able to get points for things like duels won.

Attacking midfielders and wingers are also understandably key, with their penchant to be at the heart of their team’s play being vital in helping them accrue points. Focusing on finding so-called ‘talismans’ here could prove a shrewd strategy:

Among the 20 best midfielders, 12 Bundesliga teams are represented and of those seven by a single player. Targeting these players that dominate the attacking play in their team is therefore very useful.

For example, despite the poor season Koln had, Ondrej Duda (9m) was able to collect a very respectable 222 points thanks to playing out of position as a striker and dominating the attacking play. Doan achieved even more impressive results as a talisman at Bielefeld and helped them avoid the drop. Kostić became the top-scoring midfielder as Eintracht Frankfurt’s talisman and Vincenzo Grifo (12m) finally delivered on his potential and had a terrific season almost leading Freiburg to a European place.

It’s worth investigating which players are the central cogs to their team’s play, as they often make reliable Starman options too by virtue of their heavy involvement in their team’s attacks.

I hope this data helps when building your team and feel free to reach out to me on Twitter (@Stats_D0nt_Lie) for any advice or additional insight. Throughout the season I will be doing regular pieces to keep you updated on the data as we obtain it, which I hope will benefit you and help you have a successful and enjoyable season, so stay tuned for those!

Finally, good luck with your Gameweek 1 teams and here’s to an exciting season ahead.

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