The Top Goalscorer market and the search for value amongst strikers

With the start of the new campaign just a few of weeks away, the Bookies’ Advantage returns to help you use the odds compiled by mathematical geniuses in bookmakers’ trading rooms to your benefit when it comes to Fantasy Football.

In this pre-season article, we analyse the Top Goalscorer market for the 2017/18 Premier League season in order to find value, in a slightly atypical manner, amongst FPL strikers.

Striker Avg.Odds Implied % Price % per £1m EG EG per £1m Harry Kane 3.84 26.01% 12.5 2.08% 27.83 2.23 Romelu Lukaku 5.10 19.61% 11.5 1.71% 20.98 1.82 Sergio Aguero 6.63 15.09% 11.5 1.31% 16.15 1.40 Gabriel Jesus 8.43 11.87% 10.5 1.13% 12.70 1.21 Alvaro Morata 9.09 11.00% 10.0 1.10% 11.77 1.18 Diego Costa 10.68 9.36% 10.0 0.94% 10.01 1.00 Alexandre Lacazette 11.08 9.03% 10.5 0.86% 9.66 0.92 Marcus Rashford 26.50 3.77% 7.5 0.50% 4.04 0.54 Daniel Sturridge 29.05 3.44% 8.0 0.43% 3.68 0.46 Javier Hernandez 29.10 3.44% 7.5 0.46% 3.68 0.49 Oliver Giroud 32.30 3.10% 8.5 0.36% 3.31 0.39 Michy Batshuayi 32.50 3.08% 8.5 0.36% 3.29 0.39 Kelechi Iheanacho 35.11 2.85% 7.0 0.41% 3.05 0.44 Jamie Vardy 35.45 2.82% 8.5 0.33% 3.02 0.36 Manolo Gabbiadini 36.95 2.71% 7.0 0.39% 2.90 0.41 Christian Benteke 37.85 2.64% 8.0 0.33% 2.83 0.35 Sergio Ramirez 37.94 2.64% 7.5 0.35% 2.82 0.38 Charlie Austin 39.79 2.51% 6.5 0.39% 2.69 0.41 Roberto Firminio 42.65 2.34% 8.5 0.28% 2.51 0.30 Jermaine Defoe 44.50 2.25% 8.0 0.28% 2.40 0.30 Joshua King 51.50 1.94% 7.5 0.26% 2.08 0.28 Danny Welbeck 53.67 1.86% 7.5 0.25% 1.99 0.27 Diviock Origi 55.17 1.81% 7.5 0.24% 1.94 0.26 Andy Carrol 59.89 1.67% 6.0 0.28% 1.79 0.30 Wayne Rooney 62.20 1.61% 7.5 0.21% 1.72 0.23 Tammy Abraham 63.64 1.57% 5.5 0.29% 1.68 0.31 Fernando Llorente 70.89 1.41% 7.5 0.19% 1.51 0.20 Callum Wilson 74.00 1.35% 6.0 0.23% 1.45 0.24 Dwight Gayle 87.15 1.15% 6.5 0.18% 1.23 0.19 Andre Gray 88.45 1.13% 6.5 0.17% 1.21 0.19 Salomon Rondon 100.50 1.00% 6.5 0.15% 1.06 0.16 Saido Berahino 100.69 0.99% 6.0 0.17% 1.06 0.18 Vincent Janssen 103.50 0.97% 7.5 0.13% 1.03 0.14 Islam Slimani 108.31 0.92% 7.0 0.13% 0.99 0.14 Troy Deeney 133.89 0.75% 6.5 0.11% 0.80 0.12 Glenn Murray 141.59 0.71% 6.0 0.12% 0.76 0.13 Benik Afobe 142.40 0.70% 6.0 0.12% 0.75 0.13 Jay Rodriguez 147.43 0.68% 6.0 0.11% 0.73 0.12 Dominic Solanke 150.06 0.67% 5.0 0.13% 0.71 0.14 Danny Ings 176.00 0.57% 5.5 0.10% 0.61 0.11 Steve Mounie 188.50 0.53% 6.0 0.09% 0.57 0.09 Sam Vokes 193.19 0.52% 6.0 0.09% 0.55 0.09 Peter Crouch 194.75 0.51% 5.0 0.10% 0.55 0.11 Nahki Wells 196.83 0.51% 5.0 0.10% 0.54 0.11 Hal Robson-Kanu 201.00 0.50% 5.0 0.10% 0.53 0.11 Ayoze Perez 201.00 0.50% 5.5 0.09% 0.53 0.10 Shinji Okazaki 201.00 0.50% 5.5 0.09% 0.53 0.10 Aleksandar Mitrovic 204.57 0.49% 5.0 0.10% 0.52 0.10 Shane Long 207.25 0.48% 6.0 0.08% 0.52 0.09 Stefano Okaka 211.00 0.47% 5.5 0.09% 0.51 0.09 Mame Biram Diouf 217.67 0.46% 5.5 0.08% 0.49 0.09 Laurent Depoitre 234.33 0.43% 5.5 0.08% 0.46 0.08 Tomer Hemed 259.33 0.39% 5.0 0.08% 0.41 0.08

Notes on the data

The “AVG ODDS” column displays the average of the odds across 20 top bookmakers for the striker in question to be the Premier League top goalscorer come the end of the season.

The odds show the return for a £1 bet on the striker in question, including your £1 stake. For example, a £1 bet on Harry Kane to be top goalscorer, if successful, would return you £3.84 at the end of the season. Similarly, a £1 bet on Troy Deeney would net you £133.89 if the Hornets’ frontman were to outscore everybody else in the top flight.

The “IMPLIED %” column shows the probability assigned to the striker in question of winning the Golden Boot. The table is sorted by this value, ranking the strikers in order of most to least likely, according to the bookies. Tottenham hitman Harry Kane, who won the Golden Boot last season, tops the list with a 26.01% chance of finishing the campaign as the top scorer, whilst Brighton & Hove Albion’s Tomer Hemed is ranked least likely to win of the strikers in question with a 0.39% chance.

The “PRICE” column shows the player’s starting price in FPL. Javier Hernandez has been given a predicted price of £7.5m as, at the time of writing, his official FPL price has not yet been revealed.

The “% per £1m” shows, per £1m of your Fantasy budget spent on each player, what percentage of the top goalscorer market you are (expectedly) buying.

The “EG” (Expected Goals) column shows the number of goals you can expect from the striker in question, based on their ranking by the bookmakers, and also based on the average number of goals scored by the Premier League top scorer over the last 6 seasons (30, 26, 31, 26, 25, 29) being 27.83 goals per season. Harry Kane, ranked most likely by the bookies, is therefore attributed an EG value of 27.83 goals this campaign. Other players are then attributed EG by working out how likely they are to win the Golden Boot in comparison to Kane, using their implied percentages. Romelu Lukaku, for example, has a 75.39% chance of winning the Golden Boot in comparison to Kane (19.61%/26.01% = 75.39%), so we could take this to mean he will score, according to the bookies’ expectations, 75.39% of Kane’s 27.83 goals, or 20.98 goals. You will notice that the EG numbers drop dramatically as we move down the table, almost to unrealistic values (e.g. Jermaine Defoe 2.40 expected goals), which is why we mentioned that this method is atypical. However, this does allow us to make useful comparisons between players with the same, or similar, FPL prices.

“EG per £1m” then shows the expected goals for the striker in question per £1m of your FPL budget spent on them. This is another column useful for finding value across different players.

Finally, a few strikers have been omitted (Wilfried Bony, Loic Remy) as they are not yet part of the FPL database of strikers, whilst midfielders have also been omitted (heavy hitters like Alexis Sanchez and Eden Hazard do rank highly amongst the bookmakers in this market) because a) this article focuses solely on strikers, and b) we will be producing a separate article on midfielders.

Conclusions from the data

First of all, looking at the big hitting forwards, if you are going to select just one, Harry Kane is the clear choice, topping all categories after scoring 29 times last season, despite his price tag being the highest amongst strikers in the game. If you are going to pair an £11.5m striker with the England star, then Romelu Lukaku looks to offer more value than Sergio Aguero. If you are looking at the £10-10.5m bracket for one of your front three, Gabriel Jesus just edges out Chelsea new boy Alvaro Morata (1.21 EG per £1m vs 1.18), who both significantly better Arsenal’s Alexandre Lacazette (0.92), making him the worst value choice among the high-priced forwards.

Interestingly, in the mid-priced bracket (£7-8.5m), it seems the value is found at the lower end of the range. Marcus Rashford, at £7.5m, is to be the best value forward here according to the bookies, with an EG per £1m spent of 0.54, and he is followed closely by Javier Hernandez (0.49), on the assumption he is priced as expected at £7.5m. The duo look to offer more value than a number of higher-priced forwards including Roberto Firmino, Olivier Giroud, Mitchy Batshuayi, Daniel Sturridge, Jamie Vardy, Christian Benteke and Jermain Defoe.

Looking at the low-priced strikers, two clear choices emerge; Charlie Austin and Tammy Abraham, offering values of 0.41 and 0.31 EG per £1m respectively. Priced at £6.5m, Austin has a history of scoring goals in the top flight, having notched 18 for QPR back in the 14-15 season, whilst Abraham, who comes in cheaper at £5.5m, will be looking to prove himself in the Premier League on the back of scoring 23 times for Bristol City in The Championship last year.

The data is also useful when comparing striking options at the same club. For example, if you feel that Bournemouth are a side that will score a high number of goals this season and want to buy into their attack, the bookies estimate that Jermain Defoe (0.30 EG per £1m) offers better value than one of last season’s revelations, Josh King (0.28). Similarly, Tammy Abraham offers superior value than Fernando Llorente down in South Wales, and Kelechi Iheanacho, should he move to Leicester, will be preferable to Jamie Vardy. Daniel Sturridge, if he can command a starting role, is a better choice than Roberto Firmino, whilst Jose Salomon Rondon is preferred to new teammate Jay Rodriguez. Given the odds on offer, Charlie Austin and Manolo Gabbiadini are inseparable down at Southampton.