Will there be fewer clean sheets over Christmas fixtures this season?

We could potentially see fewer clean sheets than usual over the upcoming Christmas period this season.

That’s because Premier League defences have generally been operating at a lower level in 2018/19.

Also, the recent Gameweek 15 action actually saw all 20 top-flight teams concede at least once, not a single one keeping a clean sheet, with rotation rife for several of them.

With changes in personnel commonplace in the later winter months, we decided to look back on the last three Premier League Christmases to see if defensive potential usually took a hit at this time of year.

We found that in the 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18 campaigns, the tight turnaround between matches and increased rotation didn’t always affect clean sheets.

However, with the 2018/19 campaign, there has already been a marked drop-off of shut-outs in the month of December compared to previous months.

As you can see from the table above, December has seen the lowest percentage of clean sheets than any month this season.

From a possible 80 across four Gameweeks, just 16 have been recorded, equivalent to 20%.

That is below the season average of 26.47% from a possible 340, and 5% lower than the next worst, November.

So far, October has been the best month for clean sheets, with 36.67% of a possible 60 being secured.

Interestingly, this was the month with the joint-fewest number of Gameweeks played in it. Thanks to international breaks either side of it, there were just three matches for each Premier League club, suggesting that the increased rest period (for some anyway) aided preparation, fitness and concentration levels to the point that clean sheets were more likely to be secured.

Obviously, there were also three Gameweeks in August and just 26.67% of the maximum number of clean sheets were secured. However, it could be argued that at that stage of the season opponents are harder to research for strong and weak points, making preparing for a clean sheet harder to achieve.

Either way, December has seen the fastest turnaround between Premier League matches, as well as Champions League, Europa League and League Cup commitments for some clubs, so it should be no surprise to see defences suffering as a result.

While this certainly suggests that factoring clean sheets into our Christmas transfer plans could be difficult this year, history tells us that the festive period is not always so lacking in shutouts.

In two of the last three seasons, December has actually been one of the better months for clean sheets, while the 2016/17 season saw Premier League teams make improvements in that month.

* Three matches of Gameweek 11 played in November.

In 2015/16, after clean sheets were recorded at a rate of 28% between August and November, this jumped up massively to 33% in the final month of 2015.

This total was also higher than the final percentage for the campaign as a whole.

* Gameweek 7 is considered entirely as a September Gameweek, despite three matches taking place in October, just for the ease of the research.

The same was true last year, although not to the same extent. 29.74% of a possible 760 clean sheets were recorded in the 2017/18 campaign, with December’s rate just above that at 30.71%.

Admittedly, that was still below the average up until that point. Between August and November, 33.02% of a possible 280 clean sheets were secured, somewhat more than the 30.71% from 140 in December.

That shouldn’t surprise us considering that Premier League teams had to play half the number of matches they had played between August and November in the space of just 31 days. The 2017/18 Christmas period truly was brutal for all involved.

It is possible that the clubs struggled to recover from such an intense winter period because, after a strong start of close to 40% of clean sheets secured in August and September, the rate for the season as a whole was just 29.74%.

* Gameweek 7 was considered an October Gameweek as one match was played on September 30, but all nine others were played in the month of October.

** One match of Gameweek 19 played on January 1.

Interestingly, the 2016/17 season saw December as a month of improvement for defensive returns compared to the earlier weeks of the campaign.

Between August and September of 2016, 23.02% of a possible 260 clean sheets were secured.

However, December saw 25.83% of a possible 120 shutouts achieved.

Despite that, it was still below the average for the season, which stood at 28.16% from a possible 760 come May 2017.

Conclusion

As you can see by comparing the current clean sheet success rate in the Premier League with previous season averages, there is has been deterioration.

Combining 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18 we saw that 28.82% of a possible 2,280 clean sheets were secured.

After 17 Gameweeks of 2018/19, just 26.47% have been achieved, and that’s before we embark on the Christmas fixtures at the end of December.

While it is not always a month devoid of clean sheets, in each of the last three campaigns it was either below the overall season average or lower than the rate recorded up until that point.

All things considered, it does seem that defensive returns could come at a premium over the next cluster of Gameweeks.

More importantly, it could be our premium defensive assets who end up suffering as a result.

The appeal of defenders priced between £5.5m and £7.0m is usually a combination of attacking and defensive potential, so when one of those is removed, the value begins to drop.

Already, Marcos Alonso (£7.0m) is losing his support while ownership of even Manchester City and Liverpool defenders is on the wane.

Fantasy managers are presented with helpful alternative strategies though, as the premium defender tactic seems to have reached its end.

We could see more managers, especially those with Wildcards to wield, make the switch to goalkeepers more suited to save points than clean sheets, such as Lukasz Fabianski (£4.6m), Joe Hart (£4.5m) and Mat Ryan (£4.5m). Coincidentally, all three of those actually have appealing fixtures between now and the new year.

We also have a multitude of budget defenders who offer attacking threat like Matt Doherty (£5.1m) and Lucas Digne (£4.8m) as well as incredibly cheap starters such as Aaron Wan-Bissaka (£4.3m) and Ryan Bennett (£4.2m). With those last two, losing a clean sheet puts significantly less pressure on their role in our teams.

Meanwhile, the money seems to be shifting further up the pitch once again, giving Fantasy managers plenty of places to allocate funds outside of defence.

In fact, they are virtually compelled to spend bigger in midfield and up front with players such as Eden Hazard (£11.0m), Raheem Sterling (£11.6m), Harry Kane (£12.6m) and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£11.5m) all demanding our attention.

So with clean sheets potentially less frequent over the next block of fixtures, it certainly makes sense to move our money from the players who will suffer as a result of this, to the players capitalising on it.

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