FPL Gameweek 9 inner workings: Using the Toolbox to identify Wildcard picks
The international break is a popular time to play the Wildcard chip in Fantasy Premier League.
Two weeks without club football gives players of the game plenty of time to do their research as they look to build the perfect side and set themselves up well for the medium term.
We take a look at how the Twenty3 Toolbox can help identify go-to players or teams in FPL and produce visually engaging graphics to bring the numbers to life.
Identifying premium attackers
The Toolbox’s ‘Rank’ function makes it easy to pick out the Premier League’s most productive attackers.
Sorting the league’s players by expected goals contribution (essentially xG plus xA) is a simple way to highlight those who have offered a significant threat.
The findings are in keeping with what you might expect – the top four players for this metric, in descending order, are: Mohamed Salah (8.57), Erling Haaland (7.22), Ollie Watkins (6.6) and Bukayo Saka (6.09).
A quick glance at the top performers for post-shot xG – a mere click away in an adjacent column – reveals that the quartet are not flattering to deceive, as all feature in the top five, joined by Alexander Isak.
All four are widely owned, upper-mid to premium-priced midfielders or forwards and a selection of those players would likely form the cornerstone upon which most Wildcard sides are built.
This exercise can also, on occasion, lead to the unearthing of a budget gem. In this case, £5.5m-priced Everton midfielder Abdoulaye Doucouré ranks fifth for expected goals contribution (5.3) and seventh for post-shot xG (4.22).
The same process could easily be applied to several other relevant metrics, such as actual goals contribution, xG or touches in the opposition box to further evidence the strength of those picks.
Identifying premium defenders
Similarly, when searching for the defenders that boast the greatest attacking threat, a refining modifier can be added to streamline the search in just a few clicks.
Doing so and once again sorting by expected goals contribution would throw up a top three of Kieran Trippier (3.52), Matty Cash (3.03) and Pervis Estupiñán (3.02).
All three obviously carry appeal as Wildcard options, though Estupiñán is sidelined with an injury and the timescale of his return would affect FPL managers’ decision-making.
The same modifier can be applied in order to focus more specifically on players from any position.
Teams to target for attackers
Obviously, an FPL team cannot be constructed solely of premium players.
A good way to narrow the search for more attractively-priced options is to look at the best-performing teams at both ends of the pitch and pick out their assets accordingly.
The ‘Rank’ section of the Toolbox is set up to analyse teams as well as players, and sorting the Premier League’s sides by xG reveals Brighton and Hove Albion’s considerable attacking threat – leading the division for that metric with 17.88.
Arsenal, Aston Villa and Liverpool follow closely behind, strengthening the claims of their premium picks.
The Seagulls, however, boast a number of mid-priced midfielders and forwards – and returning to the ‘Players’ tab allows us to look for the best of their crop by refining by team and sorting once again by expected goals contribution.
Kaoru Mitoma (5.26) leads the way, with João Pedro (4.0), Solly March (3.75), Estupiñán (3.02) and Evan Ferguson (2.96) completing the top five.
Mitoma is the most expensive player on that list at £6.6m – significantly cheaper than the quartet of premium attackers (with £8.2m forward Watkins the cheapest of those) highlighted earlier.
Teams to target for defenders
The process can be repeated in the search for defenders by returning to the ‘Teams’ tab and sorting by xG conceded.
Manchester City unsurprisingly boast the lowest figure of 5.81, while Newcastle United are second with 6.59 and Arsenal come third with 7.22.
The infamous ‘Pep roulette’ and a tricky run of upcoming fixtures make City assets less appealing, but solid and reasonably priced defenders can be sourced from both the latter two sides.
Beyond the expensive Trippier, both Dan Burn and the soon-to-return Sven Botman come in at £4.7m for the Magpies, while Arsenal’s regular back four of Ben White (£5.6m), William Saliba (£5.2m), Gabriel (£4.7m) and Oleksandr Zinchenko (£4.9m) offers a range of price tags and attacking threat.
Identifying enablers
Invariably, FPL managers looking to cram their Wildcard squads full of the best premium and mid-priced talent will be forced to employ a few enablers in order to make the team affordable.
Regular minutes and a low cost are the primary considerations when identifying these assets – and the Toolbox can narrow the search here as well.
By applying positional modifiers and then sorting players by minutes, a list of reliable assets can be drawn up.
Adjusting the timeframe to, say, the last month (another two clicks), further refines the choices, making it possible to see who has featured regularly over the last three gameweeks.
Doing so enables the user to eliminate outliers whose minutes largely came in the first part of the season – though Luton Town and Burnley’s rearranged fixture skews the findings slightly.
For example, 18 shot-stoppers played 270 minutes or more in that timeframe – but only three of them cost less than £4.5m: Alphonse Areola, Matt Turner and Jordan Pickford.
Up front, meanwhile, eight centre-forwards met that threshold, though Sheffield United’s Cameron Archer (£4.5m) is the only player under £5.5m on the list.
These modifiers can be mixed and matched in a variety of ways to create quality, well-researched FPL content with relative ease.
All visualisations in this article were produced with the Twenty3 Toolbox. For more information, please get in touch below.