Six players have changed position for the 2024/25 Fantasy Premier League (FPL) season.
As well as explaining why they’ve been reclassified, we’ll work out what these Fantasy assets would have scored in their ‘new’ positions.
From goal threat to expected stats, you can find official Opta data on the players listed below and much more besides in our Premium Members Area.
FPL POSITION CHANGES: HOW FPL CLASSIFY PLAYERS
As a rough guide, FPL tend to classify players using the following criteria:
| Defenders | Centre-backs, full-backs, wing-backs (eg in a 3-4-3/3-5-2) |
| Midfielders | Central/defensive midfielders, number tens, wingers/wide-midfielders, players on either flank of a front three |
| Forwards | Lone strikers, both strikers who play in a two-man attack, the central striker in a three-man frontline |
FPL POSITION CHANGES: IN SUMMARY
| Player | Team | 2024/25 position | 2023/24 position |
| Kai Havertz | Arsenal | FWD | MID |
| Ian Maatsen | Aston Villa | DEF | MID |
| Antoine Semenyo | Bournemouth | MID | FWD |
| Christopher Nkunku | Chelsea | MID | FWD |
| Timo Werner | Spurs | MID | FWD |
| Richarlison | Spurs | FWD | MID |
KAI HAVERTZ
- FPL position in 2024/25: Forward
- FPL position in 2023/24: Midfielder
Kai Havertz (£8.0m) was changed from a forward to a midfielder a year ago. Now, following his debut season with Arsenal, the reclassification is reversed.
The first two-thirds of 2023/24 were mostly spent in a central midfield role. Usually, we’d expect to see more game-time in the ‘new’ Fantasy position before a change is made.
But recency bias wins out. A start as a central striker against Newcastle United in Gameweek 26 yielded a goal and an assist. The Germany never looked back, delivering 15 attacking returns in his last 13 starts. Most of those came as the Gunners’ line-leading forward.
| Actual points in 2023/24 | Points if he’d been a forward | |
| Havertz | 180 | 160 |
Havertz would have immediately lost 29 points had he been a forward: 13 from goalscoring and 16 from clean sheets.
He would at least have clawed back nine of them through the Bonus Points System (BPS). Forwards get a score of 24 on the BPS for every goal scored, as opposed to 18 for midfielders, hence the boost.
That would have placed him sixth among forwards for points:
How many more goals he would have grabbed had he played the whole season up front is another question, of course.
IAN MAATSEN
- FPL position in 2024/25: Defender
- FPL position in 2023/24: Midfielder
One name we neglected to include in our speculative article before the positional changes was Ian Maatsen (£5.0m).
Quite simply, this was because he wasn’t on the Fantasy radar last season.
The Dutchman made just one league start and 11 substitute appearances at Chelsea, failing to get any sort of Fantasy return.
Therefore, his end total of 11 points would have been unaffected if his reclassification had come a year ago.
Maatsen had been mostly used as a winger by Mauricio Pochettino in what little game-time he was afforded.
But his loan move to Borussia Dortmund in January signalled a return to a more familiar left-back role, albeit an attacking one. Two goals and two assists arrived in his 15 Bundesliga starts.
He’s expected to reprise that position at new club Aston Villa.
ANTOINE SEMENYO
- FPL position in 2024/25: Midfielder
- FPL position in 2023/24: Forward
One of the most obvious positional swaps saw Antoine Semenyo (£5.5m) become a midfielder.
He didn’t start a single match up front, playing all of the season on the wing – chiefly on the right.
| Actual points in 2023/24 | Points if he’d been a midfielder | |
| Semenyo | 107 | 118 |
Had he been a midfielder, he’d have gained an extra eight points for his goals. Another eight points would have been banked for clean sheets.
The Ghana international would have lost five of his 14 bonus points, however.
A total of 118 points, at 3.6 per game, fares well compared to the other £5.5m-and-under midfielders we now have at our disposal: Semenyo would have been in the top five for each of those figures.
CHRISTOPHER NKUNKU
- FPL position in 2024/25: Midfielder
- FPL position in 2023/24: Forward
Making the same positional swap as Semenyo is Christopher Nkunku (£6.5m).
Like Maatsen, Nkunku barely featured for Chelsea last season. Unlike the Dutchman, his omission from the side was due to fitness.
Nkunku managed just two starts and nine substitute appearances, with knee and hamstring injuries decimating his campaign.
He still scored on three occasions, netting off the bench in each case.
The Frenchman wasn’t an orthodox striker when he arrived at Chelsea. He isn’t now. Able to play across the frontline, he exists in that positional grey area that made him slightly tricky to classify.
We did see a little bit more of him in an attacking midfield role than we did as a bona fide striker. The former RB Leipzig man was often brought on to support Nicolas Jackson (£7.5m) rather than replace him. Saying that, we now have a new Chelsea manager at the helm.
A total of 83 goal involvements in 119 Bundesliga appearances had put him on the map. The move to rebadge him as a midfielder, and a price drop, rekindles interest in him. With six friendlies over the next three weeks, we should soon get a good idea of how Enzo Maresca plans to integrate him into the Chelsea set-up.
We’re talking in negligible Fantasy numbers but, for the completionists, Nkunku would have gained three extra points for his goals and lost a bonus point had he been a midfielder last season.
TIMO WERNER + RICHARLISON
- FPL position in 2024/25: Forward (Richarlison)/Midfielder (Werner)
- FPL position in 2023/24: Midfielder (Richarlison)/Forward (Werner)
An easy exchange, this one.
The vast majority of Richarlison’s (£7.0m) appearances for the Lilywhites came as a central striker in 2023/24.
Timo Werner (£6.5m), who has returned to north London on loan for another campaign, almost exclusively played on the left wing.
| Actual points in 2023/24 | Points if he’d been a forward | |
| Richarlison | 122 | 110 |
Richarlison would have lost 18 points for his goals and clean sheets had he already been a forward, although would have gained an extra six bonus points.
The Brazilian had a curious 2023/24, with nine of his 11 goals coming in an eight-game stretch in the middle of the campaign.
Injury then effectively ended his season just as he was in his stride, with only one start arriving after Gameweek 25. By the sounds of it, those fitness issues still aren’t yet behind him.
Werner, who only found the net twice, would have finished on 48 points instead of 46 had he been a midfielder.
2 months, 14 hours agohttps://x.com/paddypower/status/1814575597386887345?s=48&t=yrJ9nwDCjtm8fOE019a6fw
😆 😆 😆 Paddy's having a go at us. Hoping to gain some retribution in the Open this weekend with Lowry, Rose and Conners backed e/w and they are paying out to 12 places.