In this blog, Fantasy Premier League (FPL) Gameweek 11's numbers are analysed to determine the best players and teams to target going forward.

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xFPL review

N. Jackson tops the Custom Stats xFPL table for Gameweek 11 with a score of 14.0, the 22-year-old was top for shots in the box (SiB) (six), shots on target (SoT) (five) and 'big chances' (BC) (four). Andreas and Alexander-Arnold were the weekend's most creative players with six attempted assists apiece, the latter came out superior for xFPL score (3.9 vs 6.1) as he created two BC. Doku registered a monster 22-point-haul in FPL but notched an xFPL score of just 8.8. Four of his five attempted assists were converted, of which only one was a BC. Neither of his two SiB were classified as BC either which explains his low xFPL score. Darwin's owners can consider themselves unlucky, the Uruguayan international took a whopping nine shots, three of which were BC and really should have found the back of the net.

What is xFPL?

xFPL is calculated primarily using expected goals (xG), assists (xA), which combine as Fantasy Premier League (FPL) involvements (xG + xA = xI), as well as expected clean sheets (xCS). These numbers are a result of underlying statistics (i.e. shot type and location will give a probability of scoring = xG). xFPL is the combination of these statistics and factors in appearance and bonus points to give an overall expected FPL point score.

Early Transfer Activity Analysed

As the above image from our Transfer Analytics feature shows, with injuries and suspensions to popular picks across the league several FPL managers are making their transfers early with Doku and Nketiah seeing over 400,000 transfers-in combined. The five most sold players Haaland, Burn, Ødegaard, Neto and Estupinan are all either doubtful or ruled out for Gameweek 12 at the time of writing with the Norwegian international seeing nearly 200,000 sales already. Nketiah is seeing a large chunk of the activity amongst forwards, accounting for over 40%. The transfers in midfield are quite scattered, no player appears to be getting more than 10% of the traffic. In defence, Mitchell is very popular with the Palace fullback featuring in six of the top 10 defender transfer combinations. Burn, Udogie, Cash, Romero and Tsimikas are the ones making way.

Saka vs Maddison

Maddison is currently a doubt for Gameweek 12 with an injury he suffered against Chelsea and several FPL managers are weighing up the move to Saka with Arsenal hosting the Clarets at the Emirates next weekend. As the above image from our Fix Heatmaps feature shows, Maddison and Saka have scored similarly over the last six Gameweeks with the Arsenal man winning by just two FPL points.

Looking at the underlying numbers, Maddison has taken more shots (12 vs eight) but has a lower 'Expected Goals' (xG) tally (1.15 vs 1.86) which indicates Saka's shots are of better quality. In terms of creativity, Maddison is significantly superior with 17 attempted assists to Saka's nine and much higher 'Expected Assists' (xA) as well (2.25 vs 1.35). There is not much to split the two, Maddison's injury may not be serious and could see the midfielder still feature at the weekend so that move seems prudent only if he is indeed ruled out.

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