King v Dennis: Who is Watford’s best budget FPL forward?

A lot of Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers are in the hunt for a budget forward at the moment, especially after Ivan Toney (£6.7m) tested positive for COVID-19 and now looks likely to miss the games against Watford and Manchester United.

Claudio Ranieri was appointed as Watford manager on October 4 (prior to Gameweek 8) and since his appointment, Watford are impressively fourth on the expected goals (xG) table behind Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea. Given that they have two strikers currently priced under £6.0m, they emerge as the prime candidates for managers looking to shop in this price bracket.

This is also aided by the fact that they have very good fixtures: the Hornets sit on top of the Season Ticker from now until Gameweek 23.

The prime two candidates emerging from this Watford team as options are Emmanuel Dennis (£5.6m) and Josh King (£5.7m). The debate in terms of which Hornets striker to get is quite the talking point in the FPL community at the moment. With this article, I am to take a closer look at both options and will be drawing on data and graphics from the Premium Members Area to do so.

Since Ranieri took over the club, Dennis is outperforming King for actual FPL returns. Dennis has four goals and four assists under Ranieri in 510 minutes of game-time, while King has five goals and zero assists in 630 minutes.

King occupies the central striker spot and does a lot of work off the ball, which is something Ranieri admires. Since Gameweek 9, he has played every minute possible under his new manager. Dennis primarily occupies the right-wing spot and has an inside forward role similar to the one that a certain Mohamed Salah (£13.1m) plays for Liverpool. While we’re making a comparison to Liverpool, it is worth noting that King is no ‘false nine’. While he does a lot of work off the ball, in possession he very much occupies the central spaces around the six-yard box.

Above: Touch heatmaps of Joshua King (left) and Emmanuel Dennis (right)

Let us look compare their underlying goalscoring stats.

Above: Goal threat stats of Joshua King (left) and Emmanuel Dennis (right)

The underlying numbers tell us a clear story. King clearly has the better goal-scoring stats as he bests Dennis for xG, goal attempts, shots in the box and big chances. The one area where Dennis does better than King is shot accuracy and goal conversion.

To put things into perspective, Dennis has an expected goal involvement (xGI) delta of +5.68 since Gameweek 8, which does indicate a considerable amount of overperformance. The only player in the league with a greater overperformance in this period is Salah (+6.23). King, on the other hand, has a negative delta of -0.36, which indicates that his returns do seem somewhat sustainable. The Norwegian’s underlying numbers relative to other Premier League players are also very encouraging. Since Gameweek 8, this is King’s rank amongst all outfielders for the given statistics:

• xG: 3rd
• Shots: 5th
• Shots in the box: 4th
• Big chances: 1st
• xGI: 3rd

It is worth noting that these ranks for King are not amongst all forwards but rather amongst all outfielders, which is even more encouraging. King, in the last five seasons, has averaged between a delta +1 to -1, indicating that he should keep performing at the given rate. I couldn’t locate previous xG over/under-performance data to dictate how sustainable Dennis’s form looks but if anyone is showcasing Salah levels of overperformance, their returns do need to be taken with a pinch of salt. His output is not that of a ‘normal man’ and Ranieri seems to agree.

“I’m not surprised because he [Dennis] is a very good player. He scored twice at the Bernabeu! Anyone who scores two at the Bernabeu is not a normal man. He has speed, intelligence, he is generous, and I like how he plays. He has to improve because he is young, but I have a very good relationship with him, and all of my players.” – Ranieri on Dennis

It is worth noting that he costs under £6.0m and even if he might revert to the mean a little, he still can offer good value at his price. My problem with assessing Dennis is that there is no basis to judge how good a player he is. So to take matters further, I decided to watch the highlights for the last five Watford games back to back and these are a few of my observations:

• Dennis and King both are a part of the counter-attack. King is very much central when countering and continues to find space in the centre of the box while on the counter. This is the same with Dennis, as well, who likes to beat his man on the wing during a counter and take a shot.
• In possession, King’s role is to stick in and around the centre of the box and he does a good job of occupying one or two defenders, which sometimes leaves open space for Dennis. Watford do like to cross the ball from the wings a fair bit and King has come close to heading the ball in on a few occasions.
• My conclusion is that when Watford do have possession and it isn’t a counter-attack, King looks more threatening in attack. On the break, Dennis seems to have more space due to King making darting runs and occupying the centre-backs.

The xG shot map comparison below also looks very encouraging for King and makes me think his returns look more sustainable.

Above: xG shotmaps of Joshua King (left) and Emmanuel Dennis (right)

When it comes to creativity, both are pretty much on a par, creating 1.4 chances per game, but Dennis has supplied 0.6 big chances per match under Ranieri compared to King’s 0.1. Another fact to note here is that with Ismaila Sarr (£5.8m) injured, King took and converted Watford’s last spot-kick against Leicester City and I expect him to still be on penalty-taking duties going forward, which is another feather in his cap.

One caveat about King is that approximately 60% of his xG since Gameweek 8 was accumulated against Everton (2.1) and Manchester United (1.0), however.

It is now time to talk about the AFCON. As things stand, the Nigeria squad has not been officially announced, although Dennis is reportedly on a provisional 40-man list. Dennis recently told national media that if selected, he would honour the call-up. If he is selected and goes to play, he will definitely miss Gameweek 22 (Newcastle (a)) and 23 (Norwich (h) which are very good-looking games on paper for Watford. He would very likely miss even more Gameweeks depending on when he is expected to join the Nigeria squad and his national team’s progress in the tournament.

CONCLUSION

Given the underlying numbers, the penalty factors and the potential for Dennis to miss out on upcoming Gameweeks, I currently prefer King as the option between the two and he looks a very good enabler given Watford’s great run of fixtures.