De Bruyne (53) and Foden (51) are the third and fifth highest scoring Fantasy Premier League (FPL) assets this season and in this blog their numbers are compared using the Fix Heatmaps feature.

Only two points separate the two midfielders and both have played a similar number of minutes as well. It is worth noting that Foden has started every game for Man. City this season which is rare given how much Guardiola tends to rotate his front three.

The Touch Map image above illustrates the different roles the two players occupy. De Bruyne plays more central with the occasional drifting to the right but does not really get many touches in the opposition penalty area. Foden has been deployed both on the left and right wing this season and has a lot of penalty area touches which indicate that he should have more goal threat than the Belgian international.

The 'Average Defensive Radar' for both players is quite similar but the differences in play style are well illustrated in the 'Average Attacking Radar'. De Bruyne is streets ahead for the creative metrics while Foden beats him marginally for the goal threat numbers.

Foden has scored five goals to De Bruyne's one and is ahead of the Belgian international for 'Expected Goals' (xG) as well (1.89 vs 2.76). De Bruyne has taken more shots (22 vs 16) but just seven of these have been in the box compared to 14 for Foden. In terms of assist potential, De Bruyne leads the league for assists (eight), 'Expected Assists' (xA) (4.61), attempted assists (26) and 'big chances' created (nine).

If money is not a consideration, De Bruyne appears to be the better FPL asset with more routes to points. However, the price difference between the two players is over 4m which can be the difference between a Toney and a Kane. Foden's ownership is also considerably lower, as the below image from our FPL Statistics feature shows, he is owned by under 5% of the Top 1000. De Bruyne does not look to be worth such a significant premium over Foden and the 22-year-old looks an excellent pick.