Gameweek 19 | No man's land.

The Stuff You Should Know

🚨 Gameweek 19’s deadline is Sunday 29th December, 13:00 GMT.

🤕 Spurs could be without all of their centre-back options in Gameweek 19.

🤦 Saka has had surgery, and could be out for “more than two months” - Arteta.

🧤 Fabianski and Flekken both forced off. Initial prognoses are vague, but both are a doubt for Gameweek 19.

🚨 It’s the last gameweek to use your first Wildcard.

Keep reading to discover what the hell the ICT Index is.

Alright?

It’s that middle bit between Christmas and New Year. The calendar’s gooch.

Nobody knows what day it is. Public transport is pandemonium. Are your bins being collected anytime soon?

Whilst life itself might be confusing to navigate at the moment, one thing remains steadfast: the football schedule. Like the relentless transition from Christmas pudding to the cheese board, the football just keeps on coming.

Don your elasticated slacks and take a deep breath: it’s time to make room for Gameweek 19.

(I’m at the in-laws so it’s a short one).

Gameweek 19’s fixtures.

Win free LazyFPL Premium.

We give away a huge prize every month over at Sleeper. In return, all we ask is that you spend about ~45 seconds a gameweek picking which teams you think will win/draw.

Here are two of the options we’ve gone for this week:

This month we’re giving out 10 annual memberships to LazyFPL Premium, worth £50 each. Signing up is free and easy. Just click the button or scan the code:

Penetrative Stats.

Summary for the Lazy: The ICT Index is decent. We should refer to it more regularly.

This section was typed up before the evening kick-offs on Friday, which might impact the numbers for Arsenal, Brighton, Brentford and Ipswich players.

Imagine if an anonymous genius condensed over 40 match event stats into a singular metric, designed solely to measure a player’s FPL quality.

Mate - that’s the ICT index. In this week’s Penetrative Stats, we’re going to tell you a little bit more about it (and reveal some overlooked players that it points to).

What is the ICT index?

According to FPL Towers, the ICT index is “A football statistical index, developed specifically to give a verdict on a player as an FPL asset.”

It condenses more than 40 match event stats into 3 areas: Influence, Creativity and Threat.

⚽️ Influence - actual goals and assists, but also decisive defensive actions.

🪄 Creativity - a player’s propensity to create chances.

🗡️ Threat - a measure to identify the players most likely to score.

Think about this for a second: someone has created a stat purely for the purpose of measuring FPL potential. And nobody ever talks about it.

Does it work?

Well, yes. It does a bit.

Of the top 10 midfielders for ICT, eight are also in the top 10 midfielders for FPL points. This incredibly sophisticated table illustrates the point:

And here’s the top ten forwards in both departments:

Defensively, this trend doesn’t hold up.

But of course, the ICT is here to measure attacking aptitude: it doesn’t factor in clean sheet potential.

What’s most remarkable about the ICT Index is how reliably it mirrors points compared to other, more popular metrics. Take expected goal involvement (xGI), for example. It’s considered by many - including us - to be one of the more reliable measures of a player’s attacking potency. And yet when we compare it to FPL points, ICT comes out on top.

Here are the top 10 midfielders for xGI…

And here are the forwards…

The ICT Index is the only stat created specifically for FPL, and it shows. Those players who have a high ICT but a disproportionately low number of FPL points (I’m looking at you, Kai Havertz, Dejan Kulusevksi and Anthony Gordon) ought to be looked at by managers looking for a differential.

If we were Wildcarding...

It’s the last gameweek to use your first Wildcard. Remember, if you don’t use it, it’s gone, replaced by a new one in Gameweek 20. New Year, New Wildcard. The new one will be observing dry January and going to the gym three times a week.

Here’s the sort of team we’d be building if we still had ours:

The best captain for Gameweek 19.

Summary for the Lazy: It’s Mohamed Salah.

A slightly trickier one this week given Cole Palmer’s trip to Ipswich, but the Suffolk-based side proved against Arsenal that they’re more than capable of keeping decent teams quiet for long periods.

Mohamed Salah, meanwhile, is just too exceptional to overlook. He’ll visit a West Ham team that conceded five goals at home to Arsenal the last time they hosted a top-six side at the London Stadium.

Another green arrow for The Prof in Gameweek 18, who has enjoyed a decent December so far. He’s now at 373k overall.

He’s rolling a transfer this week. Mohamed Salah gets the armband.

Treat yourself to LazyFPL Premium this Christmas and get the full inside scoop on The Prof’s weird brain.

The key stats.

Other stuff we found interesting.

• Solly March features for Brighton for the first time since October 2023.

• Jhon Duran’s red card appeal was not successful.

• Bruno Fernandes and Dominic Szoboszlai are suspended for Gameweek 19 too.

• Manchester City have won just one of their last 13 matches.
  

We’ll be back next Friday morning ahead of Gameweek 20. If you’ve made it this far, reply and let us know where and how you’re spending New Year.

Stay lazy,

The LazyFPL Team.