Gameweek 9 Debrief: winners, blanks, and what the underlying numbers say

The round in numbers

These are the figures FPL publishes about the gameweek itself rather than about any one player, and they set the bar every squad is measured against.

Chips played

Free Hit was the round's most-played chip. A chip played in the same week as everybody else converts a good week into an average one relative to the field, which is the argument for holding until your own squad is ready rather than until the template says go.

Who actually scored

The scoreline against the underlying data

Expected goals measure the chances a player got into. Goals measure what he did with them. Over one round the gap between the two is mostly noise, but it is the right place to look for the returns that have not landed yet.

Beat their chances

Created more than they took

McGinn generated 0.79 expected goals and scored 0. That is the kind of return that tends to arrive late rather than never — provided the chances keep coming.

The defensive audit

7 teams kept a clean sheet in Gameweek 9: ARS, BOU, BRE, BHA, CHE, EVE, TOT. Clean sheets are worth four points to a defender and a goalkeeper, which makes the defensive picture worth as much attention as the attacking one.

Goalkeepers

A goalkeeper behind a leaky defence is not automatically a bad pick: save points accumulate in exactly the weeks a clean sheet does not arrive, which is why the busiest keeper in the division is often better value than the one behind the best defence.

Defenders

Attacking output by team

COV scored the most goals of the round with 3. Team-level attacking output is the cleanest signal available after a single round: it takes eleven players to create a goal and one to finish it, and the finisher changes far more often than the creating does.

The bonus point picture

Bonus is decided by the Bonus Points System, which rewards goals and assists heavily but also pays for tackles, recoveries, clean sheets and passing accuracy. Over a season it is worth roughly a point a game to the players who consistently rank in it, and it is the most overlooked component of a captaincy decision.

Acheampong took the maximum with 3 from a BPS score of 47. Defenders and holding midfielders who accumulate BPS through defensive actions are the ones worth identifying early, because that route to bonus is far more repeatable than the one that runs through scoring goals.

The premium watch

A premium at £10m or more is not competing with the other forwards. He is competing with the two mid-price players you could field instead, and with the 79% of the field who already own the most popular of them.

Palmer led the bracket with 8. Saka returned 0, and at £9.5m that is the single largest hole a squad can have in a week. Not owning the most-selected premium is an active bet against 79% of the field — a legitimate one, but it should be deliberate.

Enablers and budget gems

The cheapest player who actually starts is worth more than a better player who does not. An enabler's job is to cost £4.5m and play ninety minutes; everything past that is profit that funds the rest of the squad.

Van Hecke at £5.0m returned 15 points from 90 minutes, on 11.2% ownership. Enablers at that price are how squads afford two premiums without hollowing out the bench.

The differentials who paid

Points from a player most of the field does not own are worth more than the same points from one they do. These returned at least six while owned by under 8% of managers, which is where rank is actually won.

McBurnie at 1.7% ownership returned 12. The managers who owned him gained ground on almost the entire field in a single afternoon — that is the whole case for carrying one or two genuine differentials rather than a squad indistinguishable from the template.

Looking ahead to Gameweek 10

EVE have the kindest assignment of the round on difficulty alone. That is a starting point for captaincy rather than an answer — difficulty ratings know nothing about who is injured.