Review of first quarter (gw 1-9)

Hello fantasy managers,

First quarter of season 21-22 has finished. Lets look at some of the facts from gw 1 to 9.

(xG=expected goals, xGA= expected goals against, xA= expected assists.)

• Man City is the team with best defence in the league. They kept 6 clean sheets and conceded xGA of 0.65 per game only. Nearest team of Man City in terms of xGA per game is Brentford (0.92).
• Liverpool is the team with best attack in the league in this quarter. They accumulated xG of 2.73 and scored 27 goals.
• Man City has the second best attack with xG of 2.38. Chelsea scored 23 goals in that period with xG of 1.84. Chelsea team has overperformed their xG in this period by 7 goals.
• Everton and Wolves underperformed their xG by significant margin thanks to indifferent form of Raul Jimenez and absence of DCL and Richarlison.
• West Ham scored 16 goals with cumulative xG of 16.26. This means they are performing fairly.
• Man Utd is on a quadrant of their own, defensively below average and offensively above average. Manchester United conceded 15 goals, only Norwich, Newcastle, Watford and Leeds conceded more.
• Norwich, Newcastle and Watford have the worst defence in the league. FPL managers should target these fixtures for high attacking returns.
• Brighton and Crystal Palace are good in defence but poor in attack.
• Leeds has only scored 8 goals this season with xG of 1.12 per match compared to last seasons xG of 1.63. They missed their top scorer Bamford in last 4 matches whereas injury also reduced the minutes of Raphinha and Harrison.
• Chelsea conceded total xGA of 10.02 but conceded only 3 goals. They survived high xGA against Liverpool and Brentford. However Chelsea defenders are still good fpl prospect as they offer both CS and attacking returns.

The yellow dashed lines in the figure represent league average

Key Players:

• Salah is in such a form that he is currently considered the best player in the world alongside Karim Benzema and Lewandowski. The Egyptian has notched ten goals and provided six assists in his opening nine matches racking up an incredible 107 FPL points in the process. Salah has outscored his nearest rivals Vardy and Antonio by 50 pts and on course to obliterate the record for most FPL points in a season (303) set by himself in 17/18. Salah ranks first for shots (40), shots on target (23), and big chances received (12). Salah has played 3 matches against last season’s top 4 side and returned double digit points each time. We can easily conclude that fixture difficulty is not a concern for the Egyptian.
• TAA has provided 51 points that is most among the defenders and 5^th overall despite missing 2 match due to injury. He is first among all players for xA (3.47) and recorded 3 assists. Liverpool is creating a lot of chances on right side and TAA is associated with most of them.
• Vardy has scored 57 points with 7 goals (xG= 4.07). He has overperformed his xG by 73%. However overperformance is not a new thing for Vardy. He has overperformed his xG in 4 of his last 6 seasons in Premier league. Vardy is currenly most in form forward in a league where Cristiano Ronaldo, Romelu Lukaku and Harry Kane play.
• Antonio has 6 goals and 3 assists to his name. Although his return has dipped in last 4 matches, he is still having good underlying numbers at a reasonable price.
• Cancelo provided 6 CS and 2 assists, most importantly he has played every minute in PL this season. Finally a player immune to Pep rotation?? Even if he doesn’t start every match he is still a great option to consider long term. Managers need to have strong bench to overcome if Pep roulette strikes.
• Son has scored 4 goals this season. Although Spurs is not in great form lately Son can be considered as an option going forward. Son has overperformed his xG in last 5 seasons and doesn’t need many big chances to score. As premium forwards are not performing well, this is the time to invest that money on midfielders. Son has a great fixture run too upto gameweek 25.
• Chelsea defenders are must in every team. Doubling up on their defenders are good move too. Rudiger, Chilwell, James, Azpi all are options to consider. Remember Tuchel also likes to rotate like Pep, so having a good bench is the key for doubling or tripling up on Chelsea.

Captain Pick:  Salah is currently owned by around 69% of managers. It is wise to keep the armband for Salah for short mid-term and look for differentials on other positions. Managers should be content with small green arrows in that period. Going against Salah is a huge risk in the current form of Liverpool and Salah. They are expected to score 3 goals as per xG and Salah will have a great share on those.

Some differentials for short and mid term:

• Midfield: KDB, Foden, Havertz, Saka, Mbeumo, Cornet, Maddison
• Forward: Jesus, Jimenez, Hwang, Broja, Iheanacho

Budget options: Budget options are necessary for balanced team.

• GK: Foster (4.0 m)
• Def: Livramento (4.4m), Henry (4.5 m), White (4.4m)
• Mid: Mbeumo (5.6m), Smith Rowe (5.5m)
• Fwd: Broja (5.0m), King (5.6m), Hwang (5.7m).

Data taken from: Understat.

By Ferdous Azad Sovon

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