Analysis of Fantasy Premier League (FPL) statistics for the 2016/17 season

Author

Caolan Convery

Introduction

Fantasy Football is an online service that allows fans of the English Premier League to create their own personalized teams and compete against others, with their teams earning points based on the real life performances of their players. The following report contains a range of graphs and analytics to highlight some key statistics reported from the 2016/17 FPL Season.

FPL Value

At the beginning of each season each player is assigned a value (price) in relation to how valuable and important they are deemed to be for a team. When using FPL, users are given 100 million to create their squad, including their starting 11 and 4 substitutes. This gives users the freedom to spend their money on the players they want. The following chart displays the most expensive players at the beginning of the season.

Spread of Ages

This section looks at the distribution of players’ age in the Premier League.

Spread of ages across the Big 6 clubs

Nationality

The Premier League is one of the most attractive leagues to play in and watch, therefore attracts players from all over the globe. This section look at the amount of players who represent each region of the world.

  1. England - 156
  2. Europe - 207
  3. South America - 41
  4. Africa/Asia/USA - 56

FPL Points

The below table shows the top 5 players who earned the most points - both overall and showing the top U21 players.

Top Point Scorers
Name Age Points Name Age Points NA
Harry Kane 23 224 Dele Alli 21 225 1
Alexis Sanchez 28 264 Leroy Sane 21 105 1
Romelu Lukaku 24 221 Anthony Martial 21 95 1
Eden Hazard 26 224 Marcus Rashford 19 76 1
Dele Alli 21 225 Alex Iwobi 21 89 1

Spread of points earned by Big 6 clubs

Chelsea finished the season as champions, and it can be seen above where the majority of their players finished the season having scored 100 FPL points or more. There were 3 players for Tottenham who tallied 200+ points, which is reflected by them finishing runners up in the league.

Market Value Vs FPL Value

This section will look at the correlation between players’ real life transfer value and their FPL Value.

As shown above, there is generally a positive correlation between a players FPL Value and their transfer market value which is represented by the line of best fit. It is worth noting that there are a few outliers in this graph, showing that this correlation is not always true.

New Signings

This section will look at players who joined new clubs prior to the season - first ranking them on their transfer value and then on how many FPL points they earned in the season.

Most Expensive Signings
Name Club Transfer Value (m) NA
Paul Pogba Manchester+United 75 1
N%27Golo Kante Chelsea 50 1
Sadio Mane Liverpool 40 1
Leroy Sane Manchester+City 35 1
Henrikh Mkhitaryan Manchester+United 35 1
John Stones Manchester+City 35 1
Gabriel Jesus Manchester+City 30 1
Eric Bailly Manchester+United 30 1
Shkodran Mustafi Arsenal 30 1
Ilkay Gundogan Manchester+City 30 1
Points Earned By New Signings
Name Club FPL Points NA
Marcos Alonso Mendoza Chelsea 177 1
Sadio Mane Liverpool 156 1
Georginio Wijnaldum Liverpool 149 1
Fernando Llorente Swansea 146 1
Christian Benteke Crystal+Palace 136 1
Ashley Williams Everton 127 1
Nathan Redmond Southampton 126 1
Joe Allen Stoke+City 118 1
Andros Townsend Crystal+Palace 116 1
Paul Pogba Manchester+United 115 1
Matt Phillips West+Brom 115 1

Top Point Scorers in Each Position

Top Irish Players

The last section looks at the top 5 Irish players based on their FPL points at the end of the season

Top Irish Players
Name Club FPL Points NA
Seamus Coleman Everton 133 Ireland
Stephen Ward Burnley 91 Ireland
Harry Arter Bournemouth 84 Ireland
Jeff Hendrick Burnley 76 Ireland
Darren Randolph West+Ham 69 Ireland