Is 343 the best FPL formation moving forward?

Introduction

The start of the Fantasy Premier League 2020/21 season could not be any more surprising for the majority of FPL managers.. We thought the blank Gameweek 1, the global pandemic, and the late transfer window deadline would be the only problem – sorry managers, FPL always provide you with more challenges! In this article I examine the things we can learn from the first two Gameweeks, evaluate the current situation, and see how can we react in terms of FPL, focusing on the ideal formation and budget distribution. It is important to keep in mind beforehand that the analysis is based on a small sample size of the first 2 Gameweeks.

Early Trends

1. The high number of goals and penalties

In the first two Gameweeks, we have seen 67 goals from just 18 games. On average, it is 33.5 goals per Gameweek, which is a lot compared to previous campaigns. Since 2016/17, the highest-scoring Premier League season has an average of 28.21 goals per Gameweek. The extra goals could be put down to also seeing more penalties than ever. This could be down to the handball rule changes as well as VAR. Since 2016/17, there have been 106, 80, 103, and 91 penalties recorded. This season, we already have 13 penalties from 18 matches – extrapolating it to 380 games, we will have 274 penalties! While football is obviously much more random than the concept of extrapolation, we could expect more penalties to come this season – I myself estimate there could be at least 100 more penalties given at this rate. There could be more appeal to selecting penalty takers in our FPL squads, at a minimum the first two Gameweeks should make us strongly consider it.

2. Team performances

Due to the shorter pre-season, it is harder for us to second-guess each team performance pre-Gameweek 1. Lots of us predicated our estimation based on the post-lockdown period and 2-3 non-full team friendlies, which of course involved a lot of uncertainties. The apparent examples of the misestimation are Southampton and Crystal Palace, to say the least. After lockdown, Southampton were solid, they had the 4th highest xG and conceded the 5th lowest amount of goals throughout the league. They also had one friendly against Swansea in which they won comfortably scoring seven goals. Ings, Adams, even Redmond and Bertrand all looked sharp and promising. You can see the trust FPL managers had in them by looking at their ownership. Most of the players mentioned had more than 10% ownership, with Ings topping it at more than 25%. Two Gameweeks passed against Crystal Palace and Tottenham, and they have 0 points, conceded 6 goals in the process, and scored only 1 open play goal. In contrast, Crystal Palace were very poor during the project restart period. They had the 2nd lowest xG and conceded 18 goals – only the relegated Norwich and Watford conceded more. The decimated first-choice defenders did not help, they started the season without Van Aanholt, Cahill, Sakho, Tomkins, and even Milivojevic and even newly signed right-back Nathan Ferguson was injured. Surprisingly, they are currently sitting 5th in the league, winning both their games against Southampton and Manchester United, scoring four goals. To a certain extent, the same stories can be applied to other teams such as Everton, Manchester United, West Ham United, and Sheffield United.

Fewer Clean Sheets?

More goals imply there could be fewer clean sheets, and from what we’ve seen so far this season, there have been only nine clean sheets in the opening two Gameweeks. No team has kept two cleans sheets in the opening two Gameweeks. While attacking returns from defenders are appealing, the clean sheets are their bread and butter. To a certain extent, does the small number of clean sheets make you think we should be investing in attack? And if so, which attacking assets should we look for?

Attacking assets ‘points per mission’ – Where should we Invest?

In previous seasons, the options to select premium midfielders instead of premium forwards were pretty apparent: the ‘power 5 midfield’ strategy was very popular at the end of the 2019/20 campaign. The one additional clean sheet point and extra point for each goal scored were too hard to ignore. Initially, the power 5 midfield strategy once again looked appealing – we are blessed with even more options this season with Aubameyang now being listed as a midfielder, not to mention the established names of Salah, de Bruyne, Sterling, Mane, and Bruno Fernandes. However, as it has been mentioned above, it looked like that clean sheet is going harder to find this season, making the one clean sheet point more scarce. Additionally, from the 14 players scoring more than one goal this season, eight are classified as strikers in FPL, while only six are midfielders. Assist-wise, three FPL forwards have more than one assist already – accumulating nine assists among them – compared to two midfielders having five assists in total.

After the first two Gameweeks, the top three forwards provide generally better investment (expressed in point per million (ppm) metric) than the midfielders – thanks to the kind prices. Calvert-Lewin, Kane, and Bamford, the top three scoring forwards have the ppm of 3.47, 2.19, and 3.68 respectively, while Son, Zaha, and Salah, the top three scoring midfielders have (only) 2.89, 3.24, and 1.90 ppm values. The data also shows the value of non-premium players: Kane and Salah, despite their 5 and 3 attacking returns in just two games, have smaller ppm values than the more budget-friendly assets. Personally, the numbers show the feasibility of investing more in forwards now, at least compared to the last season where the midfielders are just outscoring the forwards in most metrics.

Examining the data even deeper, it is also interesting to see that the FPL point spread is distributed among the asset categories. If we classified the premium, mid-price, and budget midfielders’ prices to be 9.5M to 12M, 6.5M to 9M, and 4.5M to 6M, respectively, we are going to find two premium, four mid-price, and four budget assets in the top 10 midfielders. In the forward positions, assuming the identical classification, we have two premium, six mid-price, and two budget assets in the top 10 forwards. What excites me is the number of the promising mid-price strikers: the likes of Calvert-Lewin, Maupay, Lacazette, Richarlison, Jimenez, and Ings are all providing better investment compared to Kane, Vardy, and Werner.

Mid-Price Forwards Points – are they sustainable?

Unfortunately, while we can have five midfielders, we are limited to only three forwards in our FPL team. Therefore, in this section I examine the forward’s underlying stats during the first two Gameweeks using the price classification above.

Within the budget category, there are only four assets looked to be nailed in the first XI: Ayew, Adams, Mitrovic, and Bamford. Nketiah and Connolly are too much of a rotation risk, and Watkins has only played one game. From the four players mentioned, only 1 had a non-penalty expected goal value of more than 1: Che Adams (npxG = 1.14). Whether he is unlucky or his finishing is just not good enough remains to be seen. The remaining assets’ underlying stats are more worrying, or feel unsustainable. Mitrovic, Bamford, and Ayew had non-penalty expected goals of 0.53, 0.14, and 0.26 respectively, despite them already scoring four goals combined. Within the budget category, I would say there is more value in midfield, with Costa, Klich, Townsend, Hendrick, Trossard, and Praet who have outscored all the forward options in the same category but Bamford. Based on the eye-test, Podence is also definitely a shout as well.

A different story exists, though, in the mid-price category. There are at least three forwards having higher npxG compared to Kane, Vardy, and Werner’s npxG combined (0.87 + 0.35 + 0.07 = 1.29): Calvert-Lewin (2.68), Antonio (1.66), and Richarlison (1.45). Callum Wilson’s numbers are also pretty close (npxG of 1.25). These numbers are even higher compared to the top midfielders’ npxG: Salah (0.57), Son (1.58), and Mane (1.03). The non-penalty xG stats are also supported by the shot number that looks sustainable: Calvert-Lewin, Antonio, and Richarlison have taken 8, 9, and 12 shots each, while Kane + Werner + Vardy trio combined had only 11 non-penalty shots among them. The premium trios five shots on target can also be matched by Calvert-Lewin’s number alone, while their three big chances are equaled by Calvert-Lewin and Antonio, with Richarlison and Callum Wilson trailing by only one less big chance. Moreover, the mid-price forwards underlying stats also show promising numbers compared to the mid-price midfielders. There is only one mid-price midfielder having more than eight shots (the same as Calvert-Lewin) in the first two Gameweeks, which is Harvey Barnes (10). With the money saved by downgrading your premium forwards to a more mid-priced option, it may boost your overall point potential.

Optimizing the formation (template) and budget structure

Going into more detail to analyse the team’s budget structure, we dive deeper into the potential formation deployed. Obviously we cannot field eight attackers in FPL without the forgotten all-out-attack chips, and with the value upfront, we are looking towards the possibility and the potential of the 3-4-3 formation.

Assuming the safety offered by the premium assets, the promising numbers of the mid-priced forwards, and the occasional explosiveness of the budget options upfront, the allocation of £23m for your three forwards seems fair. With the £23m allocation, we could combine three mid-prices forwards (Jimenez, Richarlison, Antonio), use one premium and two mid-prices (Werner, Calvert-Lewin, Wilson), or even gamble on the cheaper assets (Adams, Mitrovic). The remaining £77m budget can be distributed wisely: it opens the possibility in including the £12m and £11.5m assets altogether with Trent Alexander-Arnold at the back. While the £12m, £11.5m, and £7.5m assets will absorb your £77m budget to £46m, the constructed team has already consisted of three potential strikers, the premium defender, and the premium midfielders pairing combo. The 5th defender and midfielder will only take £8.5m of your budget, and the two goalkeepers combined could be allocated the budget of £9m: that means you have £28.5m left to spend on three defenders (where one could be cheap), and two midfielders. I would say that £28.5m can be spent nicely, where we can fit Reece James, Saiss, Digne, and even Robertson to that with the option in the midfield of Son, Zaha, Barnes, Podence, Klich, etc.

Conclusion

While the sample size might be too small, the first two Gameweeks show us we could see a trend of more goals this season and fewer clean sheets. Should this trend continue, the prospect of having three forwards in our FPL team is promising. We can see the performance of the mid-price forwards who are capable of outscoring the premium forwards as well as the mid-price midfielders, especially in the ppm metric. While having the budget forwards involves more gambling and uncertainties, the underlying stats of the likes of Calvert-Lewin, Wilson, and Antonio shows the indication of better sustainability; unless something major happens. Shaping our team into a 3-4-3 formation might suit the early occurring trend: go ‘mid priced’ upfront, go ‘big’ on premium defenders and midfielders, and spread the remaining budget wisely. Good luck for everyone and remember to make your own decision: consider all the FPL-related information as the input instead of the output of your decision-making process.