How to calculate a player’s goals and assists contribution

If you are a regular visitor to the site you will know that we present team goal projections for all the key fixtures. These are highly significant for fantasy football managers since the lion’s share of the points their line-ups accumulate in any fantasy football contest is likely to be as a direct result of goals and assists.

European competitions present fantasy football managers with a new dilemma – how to equate domestic form to gauge how well players might perform on the Champions League stage, for instance. In this week’s game difficulty feature we highlighted the expected goals for Manchester City and Real Madrid ahead of their clash at the Etihad. There wasn’t much between the two sides, with the Spanish side shading it by 1.54 goals compared with the Citizens 1.42.

Now let’s suppose you were trying to choose between Kevin De Bruyne and Gareth Bale, your first port of call is likely to be the relevant statistics pages for both players, where you will have access to something along the lines of the Oulala infographic displayed here.

In terms of goals and assists Bale comes out as a clear winner 28 to 15, even though he has played fewer fixtures. However, things are never that simple. The Spanish league is dominated by 3 sides whereas the Premier League is far more competitive – neither Manchester United, Liverpool or Chelsea are currently in the top 4. Real Madrid have already smashed through the 100 goal barrier for the current La Liga season while City have scored a respectable 66.

The key lies in determining what percentage of a team’s goals a player is likely to contribute to. In the case of De Bruyne, City have scored 47 goals in the games he has featured in, giving him a goals and assists ratio of 31.9%. Bale fares even better, with Madrid having notched up an impressive 71 goals in his 21 starts, earning him a goals and assists ratio of 39.4%. That is no mean feat when you consider the exploits of a certain Cristiano Ronaldo!

Of course, players can collect fantasy points for other facets of the game, depending on your choice of operator, and valuations will also need to be taken into account, but this is a great way of comparing the potential scoring capabilities of two players in any direct match-up.

It promises to be an absolute cracker tonight and Gareth Bale might just be the thorn in Manchester City’s side that presents them from progressing to their first ever Champions League final!

Read more on goal projections with our regular Game Difficulty features