Fantasy points per game – or FPPG for short – is one of the key stats used in fantasy football.

FPPG gives you a clear idea of how many points you can expect a player to earn over the course of a gameweek, although one of the joys of fantasy football is how unpredictable games can be.

Some fantasy football sites allow you to rank the player list in terms of FPPG, immediately allowing you to see the most reliable players available to pick. Having footballers with a high FPPG is a good starting point, but keep in mind that a lot of fantasy players will also have the same strategy, so at some point you are going to have to make picks that stand your team out.

FPPG is calculated in a simple way – by dividing a player’s total fantasy points for the season so far by the number of games they have played. So for example if a player has collected 200 fantasy points over the course of the season, making 20 appearances, this means they score on average 10 fantasy points per game.

While researching your fantasy football selections FPPG can be a very useful statistic, but it should only be used as a starting point.

You may value consistency highly from your players, so dive deep into their recent history to see if they score a steady number of points week by week or if their FPPG score has been skewed by one or two particularly outstanding high-scoring games.

Players also need to keep the scoring system of their preferred daily fantasy football game in mind when considering how vital FPPG is to your team. Some games have basic systems rewarding only a few scoring actions, while other fantasy providers have very detailed point scoring methods with dozens of ways footballers can both score and lose points for a fantasy team.