The 2024/25 Fantasy Premier League (FPL) season promises to be one of the most diverse in recent years, thanks to a wealth of standout player options. With premium price tags on last season’s top performers, FPL managers will need to make strategic sacrifices when finalising their Gameweek 1 squads.
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A good place to start is to see which players were the top-performers last season and see if we can fit them all into a FPL squad. To add a little nuance, we will look at which players performed best in terms of underlying data. Rather than looking at points scored, we will use our preferred metric, Expected FPL Points (xFPL).
xFPL is calculated using Expected Goals (xG) and Expected Assists (xA), which combine as Fantasy Premier League (FPL) Involvements (xG + xA = xI). It also incorporates Expected Clean Sheets (xCS), appearance and bonus points. This metric translates these underlying statistics (i.e. shot type/location giving a probability of scoring = xG) into an overall expected FPL point score (xFPL).
We can compare this data to a player’s actual FPL points to determine whether a player should have done better than they did, given the opportunities they have had (under-performance), or when a player has done better than would be expected given the quality of the chances they have had (over-performance).
| Player | Position | Team | Cost (£m) | xFPL Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pickford | GK | EVE | 5 | 140.28 |
| White | DEF | ARS | 6.5 | 179.4 |
| Saliba | DEF | ARS | 6 | 170.73 |
| Pedro Porro | DEF | TOT | 5.5 | 160.47 |
| M.Salah | MID | LIV | 12.5 | 235.12 |
| Saka | MID | ARS | 10 | 223.51 |
| Palmer | MID | CHE | 10.5 | 219.32 |
| Son | MID | TOT | 10 | 201.31 |
| B.Fernandes | MID | MUN | 8.5 | 194.46 |
| Haaland | FWD | MCI | 15 | 218.79 |
| Watkins | FWD | AVL | 9 | 197.57 |
Note: Pedro Porro (£5.5m)has taken the place of Arsenal’s Gabriel (£6.0m)who earned 161.17 xFPL points. Gabriel has been removed from the squad as he invalidates the ‘3 players max per team’ rule.
The xFPL team shown in the Future Planner tool.
Of course not! This team will cost a total of £98.5m. Assuming you had a bench consisting of the cheapest available options (£17.0m) the squad would total £115.5m, a budget deficit of £15.5m. This is indicative of how well FPL has priced the players this season.
While accepting that this squad isn’t affordable, it is useful to have them all presented like this so we can work which players performed the best last season and use this as a starting point to trim the squad down.
The above is the closest you can get to the xFPL squad from last season within a £100m budget using the Assistant Manager tool. You can build teams based on projected points, last season's FPL points, player ownership percentages, and more.
In a previous article, we looked at the Top 20 Best Value Players. Of our top-performing players, there are five who made in into the Top 10 of our best value table. They are:
William Saliba (£6.0m) and Son Heung-min (£10.0m) made the Top 20 and, interestingly, Erling Haaland (£15.0m), Mohamed Salah (£12.5m), and Pedro Porro (£5.5m) did not make the list at all.
With three Arsenal players making up the Top 3 defensive spots, it is worth taking a look at Arsenal’s defensive prowess last season. Using the Opta Stats Sandbox tool, we can quickly see that this was no coincidence.
Arsenal conceded fewer goals (29) than any team last season. Their Expected Goals Conceded (xGC) was 32.83, which shows a slight over-performance but is reasonably close to being in line. They also had, by far, the most clean sheets (18) which is almost exactly in line with their Expected Clean Sheets (xCS) of 18.10. They conceded fewer shots in the box (195) than any other team and were ranked second best for Total Shots Conceded (323).
In short, Arsenal’s defence is good. We know that from the outcome, but this is also supported by the underlying statistics, illustrating this was not a fluke. Ben White (£6.5m) registered 9 goal involvements, making him one of best attacking defenders last season and justifying his price hike.
It is perhaps no surprise to see the likes of Salah, Saka, and Palmer all featured in the xFPL XI, but there are two options we are potentially overlooking next season.
The formidable five's stats from the 2023/24 season are displayed above in the Fix Comparison Matrix tool, highlighting just how impressive Palmer's season was.
First up Son, who bagged an impressive 27 goal involvements for Spurs last season and actually placed ahead of Salah for FPL points earned (213 to Salah’s 211). Currently owned by less than 10% of FPL managers, Son could be a great differential, especially when you consider Tottenham’s first two fixtures, against newly promoted Leicester and Everton.
Another player to consider is Bruno Fernandes (£8.5m) who is the cheapest of the attacking players in the xFPL XI. At 14.2% owned, the Portuguese playmaker has been identified as one of the most underperforming players last season in terms of expected data.
While Bruno’s goal count (10) was roughly in line with his xG (10.85) it is safe to say that his underperformance largely came from his teammates' inability to convert the opportunities he created. No player attempted more assists (114) or created as many big chances (23) than Bruno.
His xA (13.37) was higher than any other player, yet he was only awarded with 9 FPL assists. Compare that to Ollie Watkins (£9.0m) – who earned 18 assists from an xA of 7.25 – and you can see that Bruno was unlucky not to get more.
On the surface, Watkins seems excellent value having earned more points than Haaland, who is £6m more expensive. Many FPL managers are asking the question, could the English forward cover the Norwegian machine, allowing precious budget to be spent elsewhere?
It is a good question, but a look at the underlying numbers highlights the performance gap between the two players. Firstly, part of the gap between the points totals is down to game time, Watkins played 665 more minutes than Haaland and had 37 starts to Haaland’s 31.
A look at the Opta Player Heatmaps tool reveals that Haaland beats Watkins on pretty much every metric involving goal threat; throughout last season he was twice as likely to score a goal than Watkins.
A fair counter-argument would be that Watkins earned twice as many assists, and this alone could justify the £6m saving. But be weary, as mentioned above and in our over/under performers article, Watkins massively over-performed against his creative numbers last season, and this is something FPL managers should not expect to see a second time.
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