While assists can be one way of tracking a creative player’s output, the Fantasy Premier League gives you a really useful tool to go one step further and spot trends others may miss.
The Creativity metric measures the quality of chances that a player creates for their team-mates, with around 100 points historically equating to an assist’s worth of opportunities.
By comparing a player’s Creativity score to their number of assists, we can find out whether the chances they created should have yielded more goals – a sign that there may be a better points haul to come if they keep up their current work.
Likewise, this comparison can also tell you if a player is getting lucky and seeing more goals than you would expect from the chances they’ve created.
The above chart shows you which midfielders have the biggest gap between the combined number and quality of chances they’ve created and the actual total converted.
Chelsea’s misses Mount-ing up
Top of the table is Chelsea’s Mason Mount, who appears to be creating chances aplenty without reward – according to our analysis he should have 5.3 more assists to his name than he has.
Chelsea’s striker woes have been well advertised this season, but with the side finding form under Thomas Tuchel and West Brom, Crystal Palace and Fulham in their next five games, could it be time to plump for the England midfield man?
At a pretty reasonable £7.0m, just 14.6% ownership and with considerable goalscoring threat of his own, you could do a lot worse. Just be mindful of Chelsea’s blank in GW32.
Also high on the list is Trent Alexander-Arnold. The defender will no doubt feel hard done by missing out on the latest England squad, especially when the stats suggest he has deserved more than double the assists he has managed this season.
At £7.1m he’s a steep investment but a potentially high-scoring differential, especially considering Liverpool’s very favourable run-in.
Meanwhile, if you’re looking for differentials, the list also features several low-cost names that appear to be due extra points. Chief among them is Fulham’s Ivan Cavaleiro (£5.3m), who the stats suggest should have had 4.5 assists but has instead had none.
His teammate, defender Antonee Robinson (£4.4m), also shows high on the list, with zero assists when the Creativity stats suggest his chances have warranted 3.8.
If strugglers Fulham are too much of a risk, Wolves midfield pair Joao Moutinho (£5.2m) and Adama Traore (£6.0m) could be worth a look, especially as the side has a favourable run of fixtures over the horizon.
