It’s been a while since I’ve done any original Fantasy Premier League (FPL) analysis, so I recently put out a question on Twitter asking for requests for subject matter. Two responses particularly caught my attention as they appear quite similar in nature.

At the heart of these queries – and their close relation “which formation is optimal?” – is an issue that plagues FPL managers, namely what team structure should be adopted? Most devoted FPL managers will be good tactical thinkers and analysts. They will be able to watch a game or look at recent game statistics and understand what moves they need to make to improve their team. However, the frustration comes from the restrictions inherent in the game, namely a limit on the number of the players in each position that can be selected and the budget. For example, if it becomes apparent that there are three premium forwards that are desirable then it may be that to accommodate them in the squad one must restructure the budget distribution, which can often involve multiple transfers. Most managers will aim to have a strategy in place that includes a team structure to operate within, but the lure of form players can be difficult to resist when making tactical decisions.

I’ve taken a look at the data from the last three full seasons on FPL (2014/15 – 2016/17) to see whether there is anything that can be learned by segmenting players into price tiers.

Methodology

The players within the game have been broken down into four Price Tiers: Budget, Lower-Standard, Upper-Standard, and Premium. The table below shows the minimum value assigned to each tier by position.



I have then looked at two key metrics for the analysis: points per million (Pp£) and points per minute played (PpMin).

For Pp£, the totals shown are an average value of the Pp£ scored by each player in every game, not at a season level. This means that if a £5.0m player scores 10 points in gameweek 1 (GW1) then his Pp£ is 2.0 (=10/5.0), and his overall total is the average scored over each of the 38 gameweeks where he played more than 0 minutes (note: players must have played more than 900 minutes in a season to qualify for this analysis). I have chosen this method rather than dividing the season total by the player price because of the variable nature of the prices throughout a season.

For PpMin, the same methodology is applied for consistency, however the calculation is total points scored in a GW divided by the number of minutes played.

Tables of the data used in this analysis are in the appendix of this blog.

Points per Million (Pp£)

The numbers for Pp£ when looked at in isolation are difficult to unravel and are best viewed in relation to one another. The chart below shows the Pp£ for Lower-Standard (LS), Upper-Standard (US) and Premium (P) players in relation to a benchmark, which in this case is the Budget (B) players. So, taking the budget goalkeepers 0.815 points per million as the benchmark (0%), the 0.601 Pp£ of premium goalkeepers is given a value of -26%, as that is how much lower the Pp£ is. It is worth reiterating at this stage that players must have played more than 900 minutes in a season to qualify for this analysis.

Figure 1

Before I go into the analysis of this data, I will show a similar view for points per minute and then combine the two metrics into the same view.

Points per Minute (PpMin)

Figure 2

Reminder: Budget (B), Lower-Standard (LS), Upper-Standard (US), Premium (P)

This data can be interpreted in many ways, and I invite the reader to study this to form their own conclusions, but what follows is my take on the numbers. It is worth reminding readers at this point that this data is viewed at an aggregated level, and there will of course be numerous examples of individual players that don’t conform to the analysis below.

Goalkeepers

The goalkeeper data shows a relatively consistent pattern: the more you spend, the more points you will score per minute on the pitch, but the less value you get per million spent. The exception within this pattern is that Premium goalkeepers (£6.0m+) will offer less points per minute than those in the Upper-Standard price tier (0.041 vs. 0.043 PpMin). This appears to suggest that they are not worth the price. This is, of course, a problem that has gone away in the 2017/18 season because the most expensive goalkeeper in the game is currently David De Gea at £5.8m as the starting prices for the top-end goalkeepers was £5.5m, lower than in previous seasons.

The question then becomes whether the Upper-Standard goalkeepers are worth the extra investment over, for example, a Budget goalkeeper. They can be expected to score 14% more points, and assuming that a full season is played by both, they will theoretically score on average an extra 17.6 points (129.9 for the average Budget keeper, 147.50 for the average Upper-Standard keeper), or +0.46 points per week.

Looking at it from another angle, the Pp£ of two Upper-Standard goalkeepers vs. two Budget goalkeepers indicates that the Upper-Standard goalkeepers will score an extra 0.83 points between them per week (7.34 for two £5.5m goalkeepers vs. 6.52 for two £4.0m goalkeepers – prices are examples and the results will fluctuate depending on the starting price of the goalkeeper within that price tier).

The other variable to consider (across all positions) is options and playing time. It’s great to talk about the value Pp£ of Budget goalkeepers but in reality there are very few of them who will start every game. The Standard tiers offer a greater range of options and transfer potential should a goalkeeper find themselves out of action for an extended period of time.

Summary: the more you spend, the more points you get but the lower the Pp£. The strategy one chooses to adopt is then is a matter of personal preference, and is the most obvious example across the four positions of the trade-off between value and productivity. Considering the Pp£ increase appears to be sharper than the PpM increase (see figure 3, later), I would prefer to go for budget goalkeepers.

Defenders

The data for defenders shows a clear preference of the Upper-Standard defenders (£5.5m – £6.5m). Both Pp£ and PpMin increases from Budget to Lower-Standard, and again from Lower-Standard to Upper-Standard. Against the benchmark (0%) set by the Budget price tier, the Upper-Standard defenders score 13% higher for PpMin and 5% higher for Pp£, which outscores the Lower-Standard price tier (+3% and +2% respectively).

The pattern is broken when we get into the Premium price tier (+£6.5m). The PpMin for these players is higher than the budget defenders (+9%) but lower than the Upper-Standards, and regarding the Pp£ the value they offer is lower than that of the Budget defenders (Marcus Alonso and Toby Alderweireld offer notable exceptions in recent seasons).

Summary: the Upper-Standard price tier is where to most productivity and value is found.

Midfielders

The midfield position is by far the most obvious example of the old maxim ‘speculate to accumulate.’ There is a clear pattern that indicates Pp£ is relatively consistent across the price tiers; none stray beyond ±5% of the Budget player benchmark. The upshot of this of course is that the more you spend, the more PpM you will get, indicating that the Premium midfielders are where money needs to be invested.

There is arguably good value to be found in the Lower-Standard price tier (£5.0m – £7.0m) which offers the best value (0.53 Pp£, +4% vs. benchmark), however the PpMin is only +6% against the benchmark, which when compared to the Upper-Standard (+25%) and Premium (+34%) price tiers it falls well short.

Summary: value is relatively consistent across the midfield range, meaning that invest as much money into the midfield as possible to maximise the PpMin.

Forwards

The data appears to show that Budget forwards are where the money needs to be invested; they have the highest Pp£ and the highest PpMin, thus offering the greatest value and productivity. However, this data is misleading and is important to be understood in context.

For an example, let’s take the performance of Nikica Jelavic for Hull in a 3-1 away victory against Sunderland in 2014/15. Jelavic came off the bench in injury time, played for two minutes and scored a goal in that time. At the time his price was £5.8m and so he earned an impressive Pp£ of 0.86, but his 5 points in a couple of minutes generated a ludicrously high PpMin of 2.5. The Budget forward category is littered with examples of players with high contribution stats which have pulled up the average for this price tier. The reason is because these forward players are thrown on as ‘Plan B’ in the dying stages of the game often by teams in search of a goal. Sometimes this works and they have the desired impact. Therefore, this price tier for forwards is artificially high for FPL managers looking to fill their squads with players who are more guaranteed to get minutes on the board.

Much like the goalkeepers, the more you spend on forwards, the less value you are going to get from them; there is an ever declining Pp£ through the price tiers even after we discount the Budget forwards. However, unlike the goalkeepers, the PpMin does not increase as value decreases; in fact, it does the opposite with Upper-Standard forwards (£9.0m – £10.5m) scoring less than Lower-Standard forwards (£7.0m – £9.0m). The reverse trend is halted when we get up to the Premium forwards (£10.5m+) the PpM is almost on par with the budget forwards, which when we consider the anomalous nature of the impact players’ data makes for impressive reading. However, it must be noted again that the Pp£ for Premium forwards is very low.

Summary: this is a tricky category to assess, but in my opinion it seems that a squad can get away with one budget forward coming off the bench providing there is at least one premium striker in the starting line-up. The risk of course is that they may not get game time, so there is no guarantee that the day they are coming off the bench for their clubs is the day they are coming off the bench for your team. It seems the luck of the timing needs to be just right in order to maximise the impact of that.

Conclusions

There are no great surprises here, and figure 3 shows that overall there are no categories that really jump out as holding exceptional value. However, the trendline here looks curved, which means there is a sharper incline towards higher PpMin at the top without much sacrifice of Pp£; the categories here are the forwards and the expensive midfielders (remember though of the outlying nature of the budget forwards). At the right of the curve, we see an increase in Pp£ without much sacrifice of the PpMin – here we’re talking about the cheaper goalkeepers.

Figure 3

I would interpret the data collectively as follows:

Put as much money into the midfield as possible as the relationship between price and value appears to be direct, so the more you spend the more points you can hope to get

But do not ignore the premium forwards as they have the highest PpMin and are essential.

Budget forwards are extremely high risk / high reward; often used as impact players, they offer great value when on the pitch, but their participation is not assured.

The Upper-Standard defenders offer the best value and productivity; only in rare cases are the premium defenders worth it.

Goalkeepers should be the last position to be filled in your squad, and you should get as cheap as possible.

Below is a table of how I would look to construct a squad based on this data. Obviously though, the realities of the game, and the outliers within each category will have a greater determination on the make-up of a squad.



Appendix Tables