Everton top picks for FPL

The Premier League season is edging closer and closer along with the Official Fantasy game. Because of this we direct our focus towards the Everton top picks in FPL. Analysing their defensive and offensive stats from last season to pick out their best fantasy players.

Looking at the Everton top picks in FPL can be extremely helpful to managers. ‘The Toffees’ struggled to maintain any sort of consistency which meant they finished in 17th place just surviving relegation. But before looking at their players, lets take a look at their early fixtures.

Fixture ticker

Everton rank ninth on the ticker in the first six matches. They face Fulham, Aston Villa, Wolves, Sheffield United, Arsenal and Brentford. This could suggest some may be interested in their assets early on this season.

The Everton defence

Everton found it difficult to maintain a good level of defensive data last season – ranking:

Seventh worst for goals conceded (57)
Joint fourth worst for shots on target conceded (185)
Second worst for expected goals conceded (67.08)

Everton defensive assets

We compare all of the Everton defensive assets in terms of minutes played and goal threat last season.

Firstly it is important to see how reliable the Everton defensive players could be.

We can see that centre-back James Tarkowski (£4.5m) played the most minutes with 3420. He is closely followed by goalkeeper Jordan Pickford (£4.5m) who played 3330 minutes. Left-back Vitaliy Mykolenko (£4.5m) played the third most minutes (2664).

A change of manager and system along with defensive injuries last season means it could be worth monitoring during pre-season.

Now we take a look at the non-penalty expected goal involvement of all defenders below.

We can see that James Tarkowski leads the pack once again after accumulating 5.01 NPXGI. Centre-back Michael Keane is considerably behind in second with 2.16.

The standout defensive option could well be goalkeeper Jordan Pickford. Another great option could be James Tarkowski who topped both the minutes and the NPXGI data last season.

The Everton attack

Everton were poor offensively last season and that showed in their numbers – they ranked:

Second worst for goals scored (34)
Ninth worst for shots on target (146)
Sixth worst for expected goals (45.60)

Everton attacking assets

We compare all of the attacking assets in terms of minutes played and goal threat.

Firstly lets take a look at how reliable their assets are in terms of minutes played last season.

Alex Iwobi (5.5m) managed more minutes than any other player with 3375. Fellow midfielder Dwight McNeil (£5.5m) ranks second with 2521 minutes.

Midfielder Demarai Gray (£5.5m) sits third after playing 2499 minutes. Main man and striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£6m) played 1157 minutes – this was largely due to his injuries.

Now we compare the above assets in terms of goal threat.

Just edging second place is Dwight McNeil who managed to accumulate 8.95 non-penalty expected goal involvement. Just following McNeil is Demarai Gray who managed 8.49 NPXGI.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin played far less minutes than some of the other attackers but still picked up 5.81 NPXGI.

The standout Everton attacker is Dominic Calvert Lewin. His season was tampered with injuries but still managed a solid NPXGI. Calvert-Lewin also takes penalties and leads the frontline. He has been lacking gametime in pre-season due to another injury.

Demarai Gray’ situation could be worth monitoring as he has been heavily linked with a move to Fulham.

Another great option to watch is new signing and midfielder Arnaut Danjuma (£5.5m). He can play both on the wing and in a strikers positions.

Pre-season notes

Everton have played four matches during their pre-season – winning three and drawing once.
In the four friendlies they have played Everton scored four goals and kept three clean sheets.
Amongst the goal scorers was striker Neal Maupay (£5m).