Talisman Theory – 2021/22 Report | Who Got The Assist(WGTA)

It’s that time of year again.

Every summer, I write about Talisman Theory – the idea that you should make a beeline to the key man in every team (of course, the Talisman) over other options.

And yes, you might think: “Well OBVIOUSLY TOM(@WGTA_FPL), how’s that insightful?”

And I’d answer– you’ve got a point. I’m not going to be asserting that that simplistic truism is worth your time here.

Instead, I’m going to be doing something slightly different.

That’s because, unlike perennially wearisome FPL debates (“should we favour form or fixtures?”), Talisman Theory is different because it is provable in data.

Over the last few years, I’ve picked up my (figurative) pen and written about this – and I’m glad to do so again for a 4^th edition.

This time, after discontinuing the WGTA website due to lack of use, Surya at allaboutfpl has kindly offered to host this one – thanks to him for doing so. Sadly, this means the past publications are no longer online, but I’ll refer to them in detail where appropriate.

And finally, a quick note for new readers (and a reminder for returnees): this isn’t your usual weekly fluff/click/churn piece. This is written for FPL hobbyists who are as into this ridiculous corner of life as much as I am: in other words, it’s absolutely fine if this isn’t for you!

This report is meaty; it’s data-focused; it’s a 4-figure word count – so grab a coffee (or something else) and settle in…

Quick note: I use the term “Talismen” throughout. I know it’s not grammatically correct, but as a neologism it fits into the spirit of the FPL world just fine in my opinion – think of “differential” and “gameweek” as examples.

The Data

As always, my elves scraped the FPL API for last season’s data and bent, shaped, and reformed it in the lab to help form the data set which underpins this piece.

Talisman analysis breaks down into 3 steps:

Collate overall and team FPL points scored
Find out who scored the most FPL points within each team (“Lesser Talisman”)
Remove non-individual points like appearance and clean sheets to generate a “Talisman Points” metric, which enables us to see who the Talisman to own was per side (“Greater Talisman”)

Just because I’m a total nerd who loves to dig into the data as much as I can, I’ll also throw in a pair of extra analyses to cover off any further areas of interest.

You may know these as Exit Velocity and Sloppy Seconds.

Analysis 1: Overall and Team FPL Points scored

In some ways, this section is more of a review of the overall profile of last season compared to the ones that preceded it. It’s both interesting in of itself (at least I think so) and acts as a springboard into the main Talisman Theory piece.

1a – Overall Points

Overall FPL points scored in 2021/22 stayed around the same level as 2020/21. While both campaigns were pockmarked by covid*, we’ve seen a very similar tally overall FPL points scored – 34 fewer points were scored in 21/22 compared to 20/21. However, roughly 400 more points were scored in the covid campaigns versus the preceding couple of seasons before them:

*obviously Project Restart had a bearing on 2019/20

Let’s examine for a minute where these points came from to identify the ‘points profile’ of FPL 2021/22.

Firstly, the “200 Club” – players who each season hit that feted 200-point mark:

This grew very slightly this year, marginally recovering from a rather dramatic decline between 2019/20 – 2020/21 when their numbers halved.

Five men made it past the velvety ropes into the VIP section this time around. This select few includes three old-timers – Mo Salah (he’s done it every year since he joined the PL), Son Heung Min (second time in a row) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (his second appearance in three years) – and two newcomers to the club in Jarrod Bowen and Joao Cancelo.

I’ll come back to talk about of these individuals in detail later on, but for now it’s worth noting that FPL still isn’t quite the same as the two seasons between 2018-20, when we were spoiled with a plethora of characters who were returning week after week in the “200 Club”.

Furthermore, what’s striking is the distribution of these points in comparison with other seasons: if we look over points scored at both the 200-point and 100-point marks, we’ve seen a significant decline in players hitting these thresholds:

I started looking at the “100 Club” in the 2020/21 report in response to how the number of points scored by those in the “200 Club” had moved down a tier into the lower category.

In 2021/22, although the “200 Club” did recover somewhat (albeit not to anywhere near 2018-20 levels), that dispersal of points has been exacerbated further as the “100 Club” has suddenly found itself cut down to size.

So, what went on last season?

We can see that 15% fewer points were scored over the 100-point threshold, despite the overall number of FPL points scored in 2021/22 remaining at a similar level. It’s not been this low since 2018/19.
We also see that, in terms of raw count, there were fewer players that scored over 100 points in 2021/22 – again, we’re in the same territory as 2018/19.

If we widen our data lens further, we find out more about how that happened. This is done through repeating the above exercise to include the less-heralded “50 Club”, which is comprised of players who scored between 50-99 points during each season:

What we see here is that there’s been a significant uptick in players scoring in the 50-99 point region, a product of the downturn in 100+ scorers. We see those both in terms of total count (the highest since 2017/18) and the % difference (13%) between 2021/22 and 2020/21.

We therefore saw that more players weren’t hitting the triple-figure threshold in terms of FPL points. Instead, they were bunched into the 50-99 category, meaning both:

A greater distribution of players scoring FPL points – and consequently more being situationally FPL relevant – than we’ve seen in the past 3 years
A lesser number of players at the upper echelons of FPL point-scoring, meaning a smaller pool of players to choose between if we want to pick players who will provide us long-term value if we are to invest in them beyond a couple of Gameweeks

Is this a blip, or the start of a trend?

Obviously, I don’t know.

But I picked this out last year as one to watch and, if anything, this trend has deepened this time around. Could it be that this wide distribution of points becomes the norm?

This could happen primarily due to an upcoming rule change next year, with the introduction of five substitutions allowed per game in the Premier League from 2022/23. It’s worth considering that the last time this rule was enacted (back in Project Restart) that clubs were sat with the same depth as before with the transfer window shut. Now, clubs will begin to make additions to their squads in the transfer market with this capability in mind which may change our perceptions surrounding how minutes are allocated to certain players in certain positions.

Linked to this, we’re seeing shift in many clubs in terms of their approach to squad depth. Alongside the likes of Arsenal and Spurs, who for years have fielded fairly predictable lineups in terms of FPL relevancy, many clubs have been very busy in the transfer window at the time of writing.

Both of these factors mean we could see clubs begin to rotate personnel more than before, leading to diminished expected minutes across the board in FPL.

I’d reckon that these twin factors would be a further drain on players’ ability to score over that (admittedly, arbitrary) 100-point threshold, as it inhibits the most important metric of all – minutes.

This all means that we need to be more open to being more ruthless with our players in 2022/23 if we believe that fewer players will be able to make the 100-point mark.

This is especially true in the context of us now having what’s tantamount to an additional Wildcard to deploy during the World Cup, which obviously impacts chip strategy.

The need to manage expectations around long term FPL player performance seems to be the key takeout from this analysis.

This is something I’ll come back to next season, but I’d not be surprised if we saw these results replicated to some extent in the 2022/23 season data.

(nb I’m aware I’ve only scratched the surface of this and could do more e.g. a ‘State Of The Nation’ report looking more into positions, price points and non-scorers vs scorers – but in the interest of not making that into a whole new report (which has crossed my mind and I’d maybe do in an ideal world if I had more time) the above will have to do!)

1b – Team Points

Every year, we look at FPL points vs their real finishing position in the table:

Some points of interest:

Last year, only Man City ended up on over 2000 points. This year, we saw a sea change in that, with three teams reaching that threshold in them, Liverpool, and Chelsea.
- Man City managed to hit over 2000 points for the 5^th year in a row
- But it’s Liverpool at the top which draws the eye – the 2306 FPL points scored by the Redmen is the highest total since I’ve been doing Talisman Theory. Five Liverpool players made it into the top 10 in terms of overall points scored in 2021/22 (Salah in 1^st; TAA in 3^rd; Andrew Robertson, VVD, and the departed Sadio Mane 8-10th respectively), which is a testament to how important owning Liverpool players was in that season: having a triple-up was the standard for most of the campaign. It’s worth contrasting this with 2020/21’s annus horibilis for Liverpool, when they just about secured 3rd spot after a late-season rally and, in terms of FPL points, scraped 4th – they scored a whopping 483 more FPL points in 2021/22 than in 2020/21
Incredibly, the 242-point gap between Man City and Chelsea in 2nd and 3rd is the biggest gap I’ve observed in Talisman Theory between two clubs, superseding last year’s 240-point gap between 1st and 2nd who were… Man City and Chelsea
- Chelsea’s final position is of interest because they lacked any key Talisman figure in 2021/22, where we’d expected the (now departed) Romelu Lukaku to step up. In fact, the Blues performed relatively meagrely in terms of individual outputs but, as a collective, still got themselves over the 2000-point marker. In this way, they’re the epitome of the growth of the “50 Club” I reference above – there were precious few standouts (beyond Mason Mount and Reece James, whom I’ll cover later) within a sea of players scoring at least 50 FPL points: 19 Chelsea players made it to this threshold
Spurs’ dynamic duo (Harry Kane and Heung-min Son) again combined to fire them up the rankings – they’ve finished 4th in terms of FPL points for two years in a row now, and in 2021/2 they scored 114 points more than 2020/21
Arsenal recovered from a couple of relatively weak scoring seasons to finish 5th this year (both in FPL and in real life) after a couple of years ranking 8th and 10th respectively. Decent FPL point performances from the likes of Bukayo Saka, Gabriel, and Aaron Ramsdale was the key reason for this
Crystal Palace finished in 7th position, which is a testament to their two key men Wilf Zaha (who scored his highest ever goal tally in the Premier League last season with 14) and Conor Gallagher, who was the 3rd best ‘Sloppy Second’ in terms of the proportion of Greater Talisman Points scored for his team – more on that later
Leicester spent another year in the wilderness as their injury-ravaged and Europa Conference League dominated season saw them finish around the same spot as last year (9th last time, 8th this), with more than 100 fewer points to boot. It’s been quite a fall from grace, which is probably mostly attributable to the declining availability and therefore output of past Talisman Theory favorite Jamie Vardy as the march of time finally catches up with the Foxes’ hitman
Probably the biggest discrepancy between FPL points and rank is to be seen at Man United, who contrived to score a massive 281 fewer points in 2021/2 than 2020/21. With Bruno Fernandes off the boil and the defence offering brittle (if I’m being generous) protection to David De Gea, 2021/22 was very much one to forget for Red Devils fans in all aspects
Although we saw marginally more teams score over 1500 points in 2021/22 (12 to 2020/21’s 11), the total sum of the bottom eight clubs fell far below the last reports’ bottom eight tally. This displays what happened to FPL points last season: they were concentrated toward the top end of the league, which left those nearer the bottom struggling in this regard

Having collated this data, we move on to the next step:

Analysis 2: Lesser Talisman

Here we take a simplistic look at which player scored the most points from each team, which I call the “Lesser Talisman”.

I refer to this as “Lesser Talisman” because it’s a basic look at the data – I’d not be satisfied with any conclusions drawn from this step as it’s essentially just total team FPL points vs total individual FPL points scored.

Here’s 2020/21’s Lesser Talisman ranking:

Key points:

Son is the Lesser Talisman king, closely followed by Teemu Pukki and Jarrod Bowen. Hold that thought for now
Despite a poor year for strikers overall, we still saw six make it as their team’s Lesser Talismen – one more than in 2020/21. In many cases, this is attributable to the idea that underpins Talisman Theory: in teams that don’t score many points, make a beeline for the one guy who is likeliest to do something. To varying degrees, this is true of all strikers who made it this time around (Pukki, Emmanuel Dennis, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ivan Toney, Richarlison, and Allan St. Maximin). I’ll explore that more later
Salah is 8^th in terms of the Lesser Talisman metric, which underlines how many points Liverpool scored. This is because Lesser Talisman is a proportion of total points scored, meaning his game-topping 265 FPL points translates into just 11.5% of the total points scored by his team
In the same vein as the point above about Chelsea distributing points throughout the team (as seen with Mount coming in at second bottom), ASM’s paltry 7.7% contribution being enough to secure him Lesser Talisman status shows how widely dispersed the points were when it came to Newcastle. It’s probably no surprise that a team in transition, which lost its greatest attacking asset to injury (last year’s Talisman Callum Wilson), ended up having a spread of points throughout – a point we’ll come back to in Exit Velocity

Now, as I say every year, I find this analysis vanilla in the extreme: this is demonstrable in the chokepoint of players between 10-12%, which is too bunched up to tell us anything useful.

If we’re doing objective research well, we should ask: how can we improve this analysis?

The key to answering this question is remembering the insight we’re looking to generate from this.

Much like Leonidas yelling “THIS IS SPARTA”, This Is Talisman Theory.

The focus is on identifying Talismen using the most effective method possible.

As Lesser Talisman doesn’t quite get to that, we need to sharpen our data set.

I’ll do this via the next step, which is where we remove “team-based points” through generating a metric that I call “Talisman Points”, so we can home in on individual metrics like goals scored, assists, and bonus points to create our “Greater Talisman” metric.

For this purpose, “team-based points” – meaning things like appearance points and clean sheet points (including negative points incurred for multiple concedes) – are removed from the data.

Why?

On removing appearance: Of course, minutes played is hugely important in terms of picking players – arguably the most important, in fact. I am not arguing this isn’t true. But, in this specific use case, these points are not as useful. For the purposes of this analysis, understanding individuals’ unique contributions is what’s important
- For example, if a player plays 38/38 games for 90 mins an individual scores 76 points by default as a baseline, which skews the data. In 2021/22, unsurprisingly, we saw only a few players like Hugo Lloris play every available minute as covid pockmarked the season – in the past, the likes of Conor Coady and Jack Cork furnished this example well
On removing clean sheets: Yep, it’s a double whammy for minute-heavy defenders and goalkeepers. But, again, the reason for doing the Talisman Theory analysis is not to uncover the players who contribute to collective point scoring, but instead to identify players who make the difference for their teams in terms of scoring goals or those who got the assist [he said it.gif]
On keeping bonus: Like it or lump it, bonus is a big part of FPL. Elements such as defenders keeping clean sheets clearly contribute to bonus points being scored, so maybe it could be argued that these could be excised too. But the fact is that these points are just the kind of individual points we’re looking for – players earn them through their individual contributions on the pitch, so they stay

Right, now we’re all agreed, let’s elevate this “Lesser” analysis into something better…

Analysis 3: Greater Talisman

This year, I’m going to omit the relegated teams so we can focus squarely on who’s left – I acknowledge the researcher bias behind framing the data this way yet think this is the optimal way to go about it.

How to read: each team is listed, alongside their greater Talisman. Individual points and %s are expressed, and the table is ranked by the %. Relegated teams are omitted.

There we go. More variety and a better distribution which allows us to make some more meaningful remarks.

Let’s start with the key one: Son Heung Min was the Talisman King this season, taking the mantle from teammate Harry Kane (who won it last year).

This probably shouldn’t come as a surprise, but I think the fact that he is so far in the lead compared to Raphinha in second (in terms of % scored) should underline what a fantastic season it was for him.

Obviously, I ignored my own advice in last season’s report when I wrote about how good Son was and why he was one who should be heavily considered as a “cut-price premium”. If I’d followed that, rather than plumping for Kane in the latter stages of the season (as we’ll see in Exit Velocity), my outcome in terms of last season’s final OR would’ve been entirely different.

But that aside, it’s plain as day how brilliantly the South Korean performed this season; 170 Talisman Points is the third-highest total I’ve recorded since I started writing Talisman Theory, with only Mo Salah’s 217 back in 2017/18 (the 303 season) and team mate Kane’s 173 last year being higher.

It’s no surprise that many are thinking about how to fit him into the team for Gameweek 1 despite his lofty 12.0 price tag – unlike the PFA, who committed a travesty by omitting him from their 2021/22 TOTY. Unbelievable, Geoff.

Further notes:

The forwards’ declining fortunes is really underlined in this year’s table: last year, twelve of them made it into the top seventeen; this year, it’s halved to six (and even then, one, ASM, really shouldn’t be forward and another, Raul Jimenez, shares this with a goalkeeper(!)). Mid-priced midfielders take the bulk of the Greater Talisman spots, as a surfeit of these options this year counterbalanced a deficit in strikers we were interested in throughout the campaign
Raphinha and James Ward-Prowse finished 2nd and 3rd respectively – mainly because their teams scored relatively few Talisman Points. Their utility throughout the season by FPL managers diverged in an interesting fashion. The Brazilian (now at Barcelona) was a player bought by managers in their droves when Leeds had a good run of games, such as prior to a run of WAT sou WOL nor between Gameweeks 7 and 10 last season which 400k+ managers acquired him for. Equally, his price point, and Leeds’ diminishing fortunes, later saw him become more expendable as other options became desirable. In contrast, JWP was mostly unnoticed through the course of the campaign as fixtures and his team’s results rarely aligned to garner interest. Nonetheless, the Southampton captain scored 10 goals last season – 8 of them from free-kicks and penalties (4/4 split), as well as providing 5 assists. I doubt he’d be one you’d “set and forget” at 6.5m as no active manager manages their FPL team that way, but he’d be a solid candidate for a zombie team or for a limited transfers format due to his 4.4 point per game average and dependability in terms of expected minutes
Salah and Bowen are the other “200 Club” members who make this list alongside Son. More on Bowen in a second, but it’s worth noting the Egyptian’s continuing brilliance here – he not only top-scored FPL for the 3rd time in the last five seasons, but he also (as mentioned above) made it five out of five for the 200 club as well as bettering his Greater Talisman points output from last campaign by 34, all while scoring the most Talisman Points of anyone. Yes, there was a big gap in the middle of the season due to AFCON, which resulted in a tranche of time when he probably wasn’t essential toward the back end of the season (see Exit Velocity), but his enduring quality can feel simply taken for granted at this point. Through yet another newly promoted club being his Gameweek 1 2022/23 opposition (Fulham, away), few would bet against him with the armband on the opening day – even at his 13.0 price point

Brilliant Bowen

One of 2021/22’s undoubted surprise packages was West Ham’s Talisman Jarrod Bowen.

The ex-Hull man wasn’t exactly an unknown quantity at the start of the 2021/22, having scored 141 FPL points (via 8 goals and 6 assists) in 2020/21 but initially he was overshadowed by quick starts from teammates Michail Antonio and Said Benrahma. Nonetheless as the season progressed Bowen hit his stride, as a sparkling run of output saw him gate-crash the 200 Club with 12 goals and 17 assists (12 assists and 5 FPL assists in reality). This was a slight overperformance according to fbref (his non pen xGI was 16.8) but, to the eye, it was plain to see how much he kicked on during the campaign.

The last time a player that cost around Bowen’s initial 6.5 at the start of the season did something like this was Riyad Mahrez’s stellar 2015/16 at Leicester, when he recorded a huge 240 points (17g 11a) as the Foxes claimed an unlikely Premier League title. The Algerian’s Gameweek 1 price back then was just 5.5.

In terms of Talisman Theory, West Ham barely registered in the report last time – Antonio was the Greater Talisman with 71 Talisman Points, 3^rd from the bottom of the rankings with 12.6% of West Ham’s Talisman Points scored. Bowen achieving 117 Talisman Points, and 21.2% of West Ham’s overall tally, is quite something from that standpoint.

Another good way to illustrate Bowen’s achievement is to look at Greater Talisman by points, rather than %:

One can’t indulge in hindsight bias and say this was expected; it really wasn’t.

It was one hell of a season, which led to his first England cap and links with elite clubs. Bowen’s 2021/22 performance puts him in the same neighborhood in terms of Talisman Points as the likes of Kevin De Bruyne, Kane, and Ronaldo, which shows what a great year he had.

This time last year, I called out Patrick Bamford’s similar surprising impact for Leeds and mused how he could either be a one-season wonder or the real deal. Sadly, injuries meant poor Paddy wasn’t to repeat his feats of 2021/22.

Could Bowen do it differently?

This season’s 8.5m price tag could cost him out of our plans from the outset, with West Ham handed an indifferent start to the campaign. Nonetheless, he’s got to be one we keep firmly on our watchlists as the season unfolds.

I’ll cover Ivan Toney in more detail in Sloppy Seconds, but it looks encouraging that he’s the 2^nd highest-ranking striker behind Ronaldo
Saka, Zaha, and James Maddison comprise the middle-of-the-pack Talismen whom I’d expect to be interchangeable parts again next season for many a manager. These players are examples of the mid-price midfielders that offer great options as affordable Talismen to get in when the fixtures align on one hand but, on the other hand, as respective Talismen for their clubs, they may also represent long term value holds throughout the upcoming campaign given their records of dependable expected minutes
KdB and Mount represent their respective sides in the Talisman ratings and, as with last season, land near the bottom of the Talisman metric. Of course, this doesn’t infer they are bad FPL picks by any stretch – it simply shows that, for Man City and Chelsea, points were distributed more evenly around the team because there wasn’t one individual who was making the difference
- Of course, where Man City are concerned, it may be that Erling Haaland changes this narrative for next season
- Chelsea haven’t really had a Talisman since Eden Hazard departed – last year, they were bottom of the Talisman rankings, with Mount and Timo Werner sharing the Greater Talisman posting with just 11.7% of the Blues’ Talisman Points. Could Raheem Sterling – a bit of a sleeper in terms of Talisman Theory- transferring to the Blues change this narrative?
Jose Sa tying Jimenez for the Wolves Talisman underlines what a frankly meh season it was all round for the Black Country club. Sa came in =4^th for saves made this year but, crucially, made those saves in games where Wolves also kept clean sheets meaning that he was able to plunder bonus points too. That, coupled with a low scoring rate for Wolves, saw a rare sight of a non-relegated goalkeeper who didn’t rely on pen saves (as Aaron Ramsdale did in 2020/21 for Sheffield United) make the Greater Talisman list

So, there you have it.

Son is the Talisman King, and midfielders exploited the decline in forward fortunes to become new bosses of the Talisman club.

Surely that’s your lot, right? No more analysis?

Well, no.

As you’ve probably gathered by now, I’m quite a nerd so I don’t want to leave any stone unturned as far as I can (and within a reasonable word limit – sorry, Surya).

Let’s move on to… Sloppy Seconds!

Extra Analysis: Sloppy Seconds (aka Which Teams Are The Most Talismanic?)

We’ve all been there. (No, don’t kid yourself, you play Fantasy Football and are into it enough to be reading this for this long. You have definitely been there.)

The second-place pick. The runner-up. The guy/gal/other that he/she/they didn’t want, or the guy/gal/other that he/she/they settled for as the first choice was unavailable.

Applying this idea to Talisman Theory, what I do here is look at the distance between the Talisman and the second-place scorer of Talisman Points per team to try to help us elicit further insight.

In this case, this approach helps us unearth which teams are most Talismanic.

Here’s the data:

How to read: The table shows Team Talisman Points, Talisman, Sloppy Second, and Distance between the Talisman and Sloppy Second both as an integer and as a %. By reading across, you can make comparisons per team. My highlights are in red.

We’ve already identified that a few teams such as Crystal Palace were decidedly non-Talismanic. This further step consolidates this finding, as well as throwing up a few noteworthy outcomes when we cut the data in this fashion:

Salah is very good. FC Bayern’s Mane wasn’t as good as Salah. It was ludicrous that they were priced similarly. They’re the biggest difference both in terms of points scored (83) and % of any Talisman and Sloppy Second (9.7%)
The second biggest gap between Talisman and Sloppy Second in terms of % is seen at…. Spurs (9.6% – just 0.1% smaller than at Liverpool)! This is a surprise, as normally Son and Kane track closely – last edition, the gap between Kane as Talisman and Son at Sloppy Second was 29 points, or just a 4.5% difference. Son was the Sloppiest Second to boot, something Kane replicates this time around. However, in the numbers, the reverse is more than double the last report: Son’s incredible season is underlined by the distance he put between himself and the England captain. With 17 goals and 11 assists (+ 2 FPL assists in there), Kane himself didn’t actually underperform this year either (according to the fbref, 26 “real” goal involvements was bang on the money for his xGI). Instead, what we saw was Son’s continuing ability to overperform his xG through his inarguably elite finishing ability: for the second season in a row, Son managed over 6.5xG more than his expected data would suggest. A shared golden boot without pens says it all, really
- The differences between Talisman and Sloppy Second here were the smallest “winning” differences I’ve seen in the last three seasons I’ve been doing this analysis; this year’s “winning interval” of 9.7% contrasts sharply with prior reports: Callum Wilson scored 11.7% more than his Sloppy Second (ASM) in 2020/21; in 2019/20 Danny Ings was a huge 20% clear of 2^nd place; and in 2018/19 Hazard was 16.8% clear
- This again underlines the observations I made when looking at the increased distribution of points across the game earlier on; the dilution of points at the upper echelons means that, while undoubtedly still being powerful picks in FPL, Talismen have had slightly less impact than in previous years
Brentford emerge as the third most Talismanic side (8.1% difference between Talisman and Sloppy Second). You might reckon this means Ivan Toney is therefore worth looking at… or is he?

The trouble with Toney

Beyond Ronaldo, whose appearance as Man Utd’s Talisman probably is by default given how poorly they performed this season, the second-highest scoring forward in terms of Talisman Points is Brentford’s Ivan Toney. He scored a respectable 19.3% of the Bees’ overall tally.

Despite flattering to deceive at the start of 2021/22, Toney turned it around and ended the season on a respectable 139 points with 12 goals and 5 assists.

One word on Toney, though… well, two: Christian Eriksen.

You see, Toney tended to score the points in clumpy explosions. His main hauls were across the final 10 Gameweeks: a hat trick vs Norwich and a brace vs Burnley in back-to-back Gameweeks (28/9) joined a 12-point haul vs West Ham in Gameweek 32 to push his score upward:

In the last 10 weeks, across various metrics, Toney was on the uptick on a per 90 level: NPxG, FPL points per game, mins per goal, mins per attempt.

This was mirrored in terms of Brentford’s per-game numbers across the final 10, with improvements in practically all areas in the final third.

What changed?

Well, Eriksen played his first 90 minutes against Norwich in Gameweek 28, and pretty much played every minute subsequently (apart from the GW30 fixture versus Leicester).

It could be cause and effect: a lot of the uplift we saw in the numbers for both Toney and Brentford should be attributable to a playmaker of Eriksen’s quality entering the side and subsequent team shape shifts to accommodate that – obviously there’s a correlation/causation warning, but I think the point still stands.

Now Eriksen has left the Bees for pastures new, Toney will be impacted now the Dane has departed – though there is a case that the burly frontman (as well as his club) was simply going through an adjustment period in his maiden season in the Premier League. He’s obviously not a premium price (7.0 in 2022/23), so in some ways you’ll get what you expect in terms of patchy performances. It’s probably no surprise his main returns came against relegated teams.

Brentford have a decent set of opening fixtures, but for me, with Toney, it’s a case of wait and see – there’s promising signs if we look at the overall data set, but it’s always important to point out how headline optimism should always be moderated through nuanced, objective analysis.

Bowen and Ward-Prowse were the others who were perhaps describable as true Talismen for their teams versus their Sloppy Seconds; anything nearing 8% as a difference looks the benchmark this season as the upper limit of distance, but that changes per season – we used to see double figures as the norm
This is the second year on the bounce that Leo Trossard claimed the Seagulls’ Talisman mantle. It’s intriguing that Danny Welbeck takes the Sloppy Second for the second season in a row, fuelled by a decent final 6 GWs where he recorded 3 goals and 3 assists. More on the Belgian shortly…
Veteran Ronaldo was pretty much Man Utd’s sole shining light in a dark season for the club, as they finished on a goal difference of 0 for the first time since, well, pretty much forever. This is a nice example of how the data work we do really highlights differences – despite finishing just 8 points ahead of Bruno in the vanilla FPL data, taking away things like minutes and clean sheets (Ronaldo played 656 fewer mins than his fellow Portuguese) makes the distinction between the two clearer, and highlights the striker’s superior output when it comes to attacking returns – 30 individual points (6.1% difference) separate the two in the Talisman Points metric through the Sloppy Seconds lens
Elsewhere, reflecting what I’ve highlighted previously, we saw a greater dilution of points throughout teams this year: many teams this time around were decidedly non-Talismanic
- The average distance between Talismen and their Sloppy Seconds was 3.8% for those with less than 7% distance. Exemplifying this, over at Aston Villa, Ollie Watkins finished just 0.7% ahead of Ings
- Seven teams recorded less than 5% distance between Talisman and Sloppy Second, a record for this analysis – this includes some repeat offenders such as Chelsea and Man City, but also perhaps surprising entrants such as Wolves (for whom Jimenez has been dominant in the past) and Leicester

So that’s Sloppy Seconds, which exhibits more evidence that we saw a dilution away from one focal point in many instances – although perennial favourites such as Salah endure.

Let’s look at one more thing before we wrap up, just to make sure we’ve covered everything.

Extra Analysis: Exit Velocity (aka Does Anyone’s End Of Season Performance Mean They’re One To Watch For The Season Ahead?)

This analysis displays how things developed between a certain snapshot (usually around March) and the end of the season to determine “Exit Velocity”.

The aim of this analysis is to show us who ended the season strongly and, therefore, who might be worth considering ahead of the upcoming campaign. I’ll do this by comparing a snapshot of how things looked in GW28 versus the final 10 Gameweeks to see who, if anyone, smashed it out of the park at the end of the season and could therefore be deemed have “carriable momentum” into 2022/23.

Obviously, there’s a bit of a logical stretch needed here – as I sit here writing this in mid-June, many things could change ahead of GW1. I’d like to state for the record (before Analytics-inclined individuals kick off) that I’m as sceptical of “form” as they are – any idea of “momentum” will also of course be checked by the fact that there’s a summer in-between seasons, and there will, of course, be transfers and injuries and other factors in preseason which may change things too where teams and players are concerned.

Nonetheless, here’s the 2021/22 breakdown (with relegated teams excluded):

How to read: left panel shows Talismen, their points scored and the % they scored between that period between GW1-28, right between GW29-38; name in black denotes new Talisman. My highlights in red

This is quite interesting compared to the last edition, where we saw much more upheaval in this analysis – that time, 15/17 teams gained new Talismen in the final 10 Gameweeks.

It may be a bit of a swing back to the norm that the picture is more mixed here – 9/17 new Talismen came in over the last 10 Gameweeks, in line with 10/17 back in 2019/20 – but what’s worth remembering is the volume of Double Gameweeks we saw over the final stretch of the 2021/22.

I mention that because I would’ve assumed, given the number of games, more individuals would be taking the Talisman mantle as there was a greater opportunity for some teams (especially the likes of Leicester and Chelsea who had many games to rearrange) to see a turnover. However, that didn’t really happen – which is surprising.

We do need to allow for the number of games that were lost in GWs 1-28 during this, so take the below with that caveat in mind.

Let’s pick out some key outcomes:

A slight majority of teams retained their Talisman all the way through the season
It’s particularly testament to Son and KdB’s performances at the back end of the season that they scored near enough all their points from GWs 1-28 again during the final 10; both actually increased their % outputs in terms of Talisman Points scored over this timeframe
In contrast, a tired, post-AFCON Salah’s dropoff over the final 10 weeks is plain as day – although he did perform OK, his 33 Talisman points across that time isn’t far ahead of the likes of Saka and Mount’s outcomes, and he’s bettered by that man Trossard. It certainly, in retrospect, was that rarest of times when we could have avoided the “FOMo” and gone without the Egyptian King
Saka, Toney, Mount, and Maddison were consistently their teams’ Talismen throughout the season – their scores in terms of % of overall didn’t vary drastically between the two timeframes, meaning their prevailing value as mid to long term picks is highlighted through the Exit Velocity lens
Ronaldo and Ward-Prowse really came into their own at the end of the campaign, producing over 40% (and in the former’s case, almost 50%) of their team’s attacking outputs
Bruno Guimaraes’ impact on an un-Talismanic Newcastle is plain to see, with his big end-of-season contribution – especially in the doubles – coming through here. He, Wilson, and ASM vied for the Talisman mantle for Newcastle overall. Unusually, he’s the only mid-season signing to feature in the second snapshot – in the past, we’ve seen players like Joe Willock, Jesse Lingard, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Bruno Fernandes dominate after changing clubs in the winter transfer window
- Interestingly, “Bruno G” himself punished those of us who had researched his role at Lyon and decided against including him for those doubles: in his short stint at Newcastle, he’s more doubled his xGI per 90 output from 0.20 per game average in France to 0.41 on Tyneside. At 6.0m, he could be one to consider if his new role is cemented – especially with an ostensibly kind pair of opening fixtures for the Magpies (NFO, bha) to open the season with

To help assess the Talisman turnovers let me also throw in this final bit of analysis, which shows the breakdown of when Talismen scored their points between the two timeframes:

How to read: Season Talismen and points total displayed in left most columns. Right hand column shows (through colour labels) when these Talismen scored the majority of their points. If a Talisman has taken the mantle in the final 10 Gameweeks, his % for those 10 Gamweeks are displayed. Note that this may not be 50%+ of his points

Further points:

We can see through this extra analysis how the role of a team’s Talisman when it comes to post-season examination is mostly set in stone around the GW28 mark; for the 17 clubs remaining in the Premier League, 12 of their Talisman had scored the majority of his points by this juncture
- Son is again worth pointing out – an even distribution of points across 28 Gameweeks vs 10 shows a really mad exit velocity that should be respected
- On the flip side, individuals like Salah and Raphinha seemingly did most of their hard work in the early part of the season in that they scored around three-quarters or more of their points by then. An ad absurdam example of this is Wolves’ Talisman Jimenez who had scored 100% of his Talisman Points by GW28
Five players accomplished the feat of taking the Talisman mantle at the back end of the season and keeping it, but fewer than in years past. This was attributable to an array of factors that were often unique to the club. For example, in Ronaldo’s case, he finally supplanted Bruno primarily thanks to hat tricks against Spurs and Norwich in Gameweeks 29 and 33, while his compatriot submerged into a pile of angry goo. In the case of Zaha overtaking Gallagher, it was both the Ivorian being used more as a forward alongside Gallagher’s role changing slightly that caused the switchover
In terms of when players scored their points, Maddison’s end-of-season blitz is writ large here. He managed 3g 3a (or 38 points) in the last 2 Gameweeks (double in 37). Leicester are due a resurgence in terms of FPL given their notable drop-off in the last few years – could JM be a catalyst for that? Especially as they slowly transition to life after Jamie Vardy….
Although Richarlison pulled Everton out of the mire almost single-handedly over the last 10 Gameweeks by contributing 47.2% of his attacking returns for the season in this period, arguably more noteworthy is the much-maligned Leo Trossard, who finally blew his load in the final 10 games…

Talking Trossard

OK let’s do it.

Every year, I pull a name out of the hat as “one to watch” which is slightly left field.

In this edition, it’s Brighton’s Belgian Maestro who has got my attention.

(I see you really long-term readers: Pascal Gross?)

Why? Well, the Exit Velocity data is pretty eye-catching.

He contributed a ridiculous 56% of his attacking returns in just 10 games – at the rate he was going, he was responsible for almost 1 in 3 of the Seagulls’ attacking returns.

It’s also worth noting that Trossard – this year’s Greater Talisman for Brighton for the second year on the trot, while also picking up Sloppy Second in 2019/20 – has bettered his performance season on season. His procession of tallies reads 49, 56, and 66.

While not exactly setting the world alight there, he’s nonetheless shown continued improvement for Graham Potter’s side and represents a good exemplar for Talisman Theory: for three seasons now, he’s continually been there or thereabouts for his team when it comes to the end of season tallies.

But what’s really interesting, looking into his data further, is the similarity between his data in 2021/22 and Jarrod Bowen’s back in 2020/21 on FBRef:

It’s fascinating how similar they both are.

Obviously, we’re sat dealing with a 2-point data set and I’m well aware of the correlation/causation paradox. There’s also the matter of variance; Trossard may have gotten lucky at the end of the season facing perceivably less motivated opposition. I know that.

But if Brighton do get it together and elevate themselves (there’s been a lot of Football Manager-style signings in the preseason: seasoned players will know it’s 50/50 if that’ll work in practice) could Trossard be the beneficiary of things improving and be the next big thing in FPL? He’s already their Talisman and (arguably) displays a promising stats profile.

Signings like Denis Undav, fresh from 34 goal involvements (25g, 9a) spearheading Union SG’s apparently unlikely run at the title, could help too.

I know it’s one which might be unpopular for now, so I can only back him with a noncommittal “we’ll see”. But if Leo T can sustain that level of Exit Velocity then he could be an interesting one to watch for 2022/23.

In sum, we’ve seen a real contrast to the last couple of years, where we observed a significant “changing of the guard” when it came to Talismen across the final 10 Gameweeks. To my mind, this feels symptomatic of a wider trend in FPL points distribution derived from the advent of the “50 Club”. Will this be sustained? Only time will tell.

Evaluation

Caveats first:

There are lots of ways to analyse FPL data. You may disagree with the method or the findings, or indeed think a different approach is better. Perfectly reasonable – but, if so, you do the work and show how you can do it better (but please credit and don’t brazenly steal others’ work or ideas!)

Context is key. No Chelsea player especially stands out according to Talisman Theory. But I’m obviously not saying that Chelsea players aren’t worth considering. This leads me to…

Talisman Theory is part of – not the full – picture. This article and the analysis I’m presenting in it isn’t claiming to have solved FPL, nor be the most important bit of information you should use when picking your team. The fact it is evidence-based means it should be worthy of consideration, but please weigh this analysis alongside others you may have read, listened to, or made yourself before making decisions. It’s meant to be a weapon in your armoury, not the whole arsenal.

Onto the 2021/22 Evaluation – What Have We Seen?

The rise of the “50 Club”. 2021/22 carried on from 2020/21 with the redistribution of FPL points throughout the pyramid, but to an extreme degree. Last year, I observed that it was the “100 Club” that was the beneficiary of a drop-off in “200 Club” points scored. This year, things have dispersed even further into the “50 Club”. With the advent of five subs next season, the elite clubs becoming yet stronger and, in general, squads deepening across the spectrum, I’d not bet against this trend continuing in 2022/23.

Fewer players in the upper echelons of point-scoring. Players hitting the triple-figure threshold for FPL points this season was at a low proportionate to the points scored, meaning that there were fewer players who would constitute “season keepers” in our FPL teams in 2021/22. This further pushes the onus onto managers to decide on buying and selling individuals at opportune moments during the course of the season. We should bear in mind that we need to manage expectations when it comes to the longevity of players’ tenure in our FPL teams (should next season ape the last).

Son had an annus mirabilis. When Son entered the “200 Club” in 2020/21, I wondered if he could do even better. He did – and then some (looking at this analysis). His performance disrupted the usual “twin peak” outcome we see at Spurs, with a clear degree of difference in terms of Talisman Points scored between him and Kane. His Exit Velocity was also noteworthy, as he scored as many points (FPL and Talisman) in the final 10 Gameweeks as in the first 28. The question now becomes “can he keep this going?” Of course, FPL history is littered with individuals who have a couple of amazing seasons and then drop off to some extent. There are fewer who are perennially excellent in the Mo Salah mould. But with Son being who he is, and where he is in terms of team and manager, it may be the case that he does have the tools to keep this going. His 12.0m price tag doesn’t come as a surprise, but causes problems for managers in terms of Gameweek 1 setups with Haaland and Salah forming the early template for premium inclusion (‘threemium’, anyone?)

The midfield beat the strikers into submission. A scant collection of strikers in Greater Talisman was a real point of difference to last season, exacerbating what we saw in the game proper when, for long tranches of the season, we were all wishing we could play a 5-5-0 formation. I did remove the relegated clubs, wherein the likes of Pukki and Dennis were the Talismen and situationally of interest, but this was more due to those teams scoring unsurprisingly poorly versus them being noteworthy – I’d fully expect to see Aleksander Mitrovic as Fulham’s Talisman next time, for example. Where great, mid-priced midfield options (e.g. Bowen) ruled the roost this time, mid-priced strikers (other than Toney to some extent) flopped. Will we see strikers roar back to prominence next campaign? This relies on many factors such as the signing of Haaland at City; if Gabriel Jesus (just 8.0) starts off his Arsenal career with a bang; if the likes of Wilson are consistent in the mid price or even if the likes of the previously mentioned Undav in the lower reaches spring a shock. Speaking of which…

Keep an eye on Trossard. Stop the sniggering at the back! Yes, most of us have a bit of a chequered history with the Belgian, but let’s try to leave our subjectivity at the door. He ended the season very strongly and could be one to watch as a potential breakout if things start to come together for xAlbion (though, admittedly, they did score as much as their xG would suggest in 2021/22). Given the profile of the club and the signings they’re making, they could be a real wildcard side for next season and have it in them both in terms of personnel and a manager to be the potential surprise package for next year.

Some teams aren’t Talismanic – but obviously, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider them. As alluded to in the Chelsea callout, Talisman Theory isn’t going to tell you which of these players are worth buying in. Reece James would be a good example of a player who everyone is – justifiably – very interested in at the back but the fact is he’s probably not going to be a star of Talisman Theory given his reliance on clean sheets as well as attacking returns to make up his overall points totals. Chelsea are certainly an example of a team crying out for a Talisman to succeed Hazard though (enter Raz?) Additionally Aston Villa would be another example here, though maybe a full season for someone like Phil Coutinho could see them rally given their ostensibly kind opening to the season, after being a bit of a non-entity in this year’s report.

Conclusion

To end, it’s important to remember that the increasing points distribution in FPL may thrust the importance of finding Talismen into sharper focus than ever before.

Son takes the Greater Talisman crown and, given his Exit Velocity, should be high in our minds as a pickup for the start of 2022/23. Where else we will find Talismen is an open question. But if trends continue with the midfield, it may be that mid-price midfielders slash forwards (I’m looking at the clutch of midfielders such as Bowen, Saka and Maddison priced ~8.0m) that are at the top of our agendas.

As always, the key takeaway from this article remains that Talismen should be top of the list when deciding who to buy in at any point of the season but caveats need to be borne in mind about their enduring abilities to produce, especially in terms of a potential greater distribution of FPL points throughout the pyramid going forward.

Thanks for reading – I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it.

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