Aston Villa are once again teaming up with the No.1 independent fantasy football site in 2021/22.
Fantasy Football Scout will be providing regular reports packed with hints and tips to help you, hopefully, move into the top tier of fantasy football management.
If you need some advice ahead of GW3, sit back and take their advice on board…
Aston Villa fans and FPL managers alike very much enjoyed Saturday afternoon’s victory in front of a packed home crowd at Villa Park.
The underlying stats from the game highlight a huge improvement in Villa’s attacking fortunes between Gameweeks 1 and 2. Villa’s cross completion jumped from 7.7% in Gameweek 1 to 31.3% in Gameweek 2 and their chance creation rose from six to eight.
The same can be said of their expected goals, assists and goal involvement (xG, xI, xGI) stats, which all increased between the opening two Gameweeks of the season.
These are figures which only look likely to continue improving as the new signings and the FPL favourites from last season learn each other’s games, and stars like Ollie Watkins (£7.3m), Bertrand Traoré (£5.9m) and Leon Bailey (£6.5m) return to bolster the attack.
When FPL first launched in June, with a drip-feed of price releases, there were just three forwards listed in the game: Danny Ings (£8.1m), Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£8.2m) and Patrick Bamford (£7.9m). After the first two Gameweeks of the season, Ings is the leading FPL striker of these three on 15 points, with Calvert-Lewin narrowly trailing on 14 and Bamford further back on six.
Ings and Calvert-Lewin have both registered two goals so far, both with one from open play and one from the penalty spot. The Everton forward has had three times as many chances as Ings but being clinical with fewer opportunities comes second nature to the former Southampton man; he is the only current FPL forward whose shot-to-goal conversion rate was in excess of 20% in each of the previous two Premier League campaigns.
That killer instinct also helps on the Bonus Points System, with fewer baseline bonus points deducted for shots off target.
With creators like Traoré still to return, the rate of chances will surely increase so that Ings, the most-owned forward in the game, can marry his ruthless streak with more shots at goal.
In all the excitement about the attacking potential of Aston Villa in Gameweek 3, FPL managers shouldn’t overlook the defence. Tyrone Mings (£5.0m) was the second-highest-scoring defender of Gameweek 2, with two assists, a clean sheet and all three bonus points helping him to a round score of 15. Villa’s appointment of specialised set-piece coach Austin MacPhee in the summer should only add to his threat from free-kicks, corners and throw-ins, and Mings is currently the fifth-most transferred-in defender ahead of Gameweek 3.
When compared to other defenders in the same price bracket (£5.0m-£5.5m), Mings beats them all for FPL points.
The Villans also sit top of the Season Ticker for Gameweek 3, which bodes well for good returns at both ends of the pitch on Saturday afternoon.
