They might only account for a fraction of a Fantasy Premier League manager’s score, but bonus points could be the difference between becoming a mini-league champion or not – so how can you use them to your advantage?
To make the most of the FPL’s Bonus Points System (BPS) one must first understand it.
The BPS is used to award bonus points to individual players at the end of a game – the player with the highest BPS score in each fixture receives three bonus points, the second highest score receives two, and the third highest receives one.
How is a BPS score calculated?
A number of in-game measurements are used to calculate a BPS score, including the most minute details of a player’s performance.
Playing between one and 60 minutes for example would see a player’s BPS score rise by three points, but other actions receive far more valuable rewards.
A forward scoring a goal for example will earn 24 points, while a midfielder gets 18 and a defender or goalkeeper 12.
Clean sheets also see 12 points added to the BPS score of goalkeepers and defenders, while every three recoveries a player makes earns a point too.
Pass completion, key passes, tackles and more can also earn points, while a player has points subtracted from their BPS score for actions such as missing a penalty or receiving a card from the referee.
Who should you buy?
For the best chance of grabbing some extra points at the end of each fixture then, you need players who score well within the BPS.
It will probably come as no surprise to see that no player has earned more bonus points than Jamie Vardy, the league’s top goalscorer and FPL point scorer.
Vardy earns an astonishing 38.1 BPS per appearance currently, which is far in excess of the average amount BPS score required to earn one bonus point.
As a result of such numbers (Vardy earned a BPS score of 89 in Leicester’s 9-0 win against Southampton) the striker has earned three bonus points in a game no fewer than seven times, his 25 bonus points making up 25 of his 142 FPL points so far this season.
Elsewhere, Danny Ings’ hot streak with the Saints has seen him notch a whopping 20 bonus points in his last 12 games, accounting for almost a quarter of his points in that time.
And while Vardy is Leicester’s hero up front, it is a Foxes defender who has been sweeping up the bonus points the striker doesn’t get.
Caglar Soyuncu somewhat surprisingly has the third highest BPS total across the season (394) behind only Vardy and Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne, consistently hitting above 20 BPS.
If your FPL side needs a bonus boost, these players could be the ones to provide it.
