FPL finished checking Gameweek 8 this evening. Every figure below is what this site showed at the Gameweek 8 deadline, set against what happened.
Our team builder beat nearly nine in ten of the top 10k
Our free tool, the Implied Fantasy team builder, picks the best £100m squad from the odds. At the Gameweek 8 deadline its squad was expected to score 61. Its starting eleven scored 55, and Charalampos Kostoulas came off the bench for João Pedro to make it 57: twelve more than the average manager, 31 more than the eleven most-owned players with the same captain, and more than 88% of a 1,000-manager sample from the top 10k, with automatic substitutes counted for everyone. That sample averaged 46.
Arsenal's 2-0 win over Everton did much of the work: Ezri Konsa scored and kept a clean sheet for 14 points, and David Raya took 7. Marcus Tavernier added 10 in Bournemouth's 3-0 win at Manchester United, at 17.5% owned. The picks that let it down were João Pedro, who did not play, Riccardo Calafiori, who went off after 22 minutes and is now flagged with a hip injury, and Matheus Cunha, who went off at half-time. Bernd Leno scored 8 on the bench.
Captain
The market's captain was Erling Haaland again: 53% to score at Aston Villa and 6.9 expected points, 13.9 with the armband. He scored and took two bonus points: 8 points, 16 as captain. The next three on the captain ranking all failed: Cole Palmer scored -1, Bruno Fernandes did not play and Morgan Rogers scored 1. Haaland was also FPL's most-captained player, so the pick kept you level with most managers rather than ahead of them.
The market's eleven against the most-owned eleven
Take the eleven players with the highest expected points in a legal formation, with no budget and no captain: they scored 37, with Gabriel on 17. The eleven most-owned players in the same shape scored 18: five of them scored nothing or less, including João Pedro and Bruno Fernandes, who did not play. The Gameweek 8 team of the week shows both elevens.
Clean sheets
Three of the six clubs the market rated most likely to keep a clean sheet did: Arsenal, and Leeds and Sunderland, who drew 0-0 with each other. Eight clubs kept one in all, and two of them were rated under 20%: Bournemouth won 3-0 at Manchester United, and Spurs won 2-0 at Chelsea. The clean sheets page has this week's chances.
- Arsenal47%✓ 2-0 v Everton
- Brentford35%✗ conceded 1 at Hull
- Leeds31%✓ 0-0 at Sunderland
- Man City31%✗ conceded 2 at Villa
- Chelsea29%✗ conceded 2 to Spurs
- Sunderland27%✓ 0-0 v Leeds
- Bournemouth19%✓ 3-0 at Man Utd
- Spurs13%✓ 2-0 at Chelsea
- Aston Villa12%✗ conceded 1 to Man City
What the numbers missed
Defenders did the scoring. Gabriel's 17 came from 4.9 expected points: a goal, a clean sheet, three bonus points and two more for 14 defensive actions. James Hill scored 11 at 1.2% owned, with 22 defensive actions in Bournemouth's clean sheet, and Amar Dedić scored 11 for Newcastle from 1.6 expected points. The defensive contributions page shows who is most likely to earn those two points this week.
In attack, Nicolas Jackson scored twice against Manchester City for 13 points from a 27% chance to score, and Mathys Tel scored 11 from 2.0 expected points at 0.3% owned. Two of the five players with the highest expected points, João Pedro and Bruno Fernandes, did not play at all. Across the 303 players who appeared, our expected points were 2.1 points from the real score on average, the same as in Gameweek 7. The track record keeps every gameweek's numbers.
Haaland tops the captain ranking again, at home to Brighton, with Palmer and Cherki behind him. This week's tips go up on Tuesday afternoon after the player markets refresh, and are updated on Friday after the press conferences. The deadline is earlier than usual: Saturday at 11:00.
Gameweek 9 tips and overview →