I have been using clean sheet and anytime scorer odds to help my Fantasy Premier League (FPL) decision-making for around four seasons now. It is a very useful tool that can help in deciding which defenders to play, who to captain and even which transfers to make.

Generally, bookmakers will price their odds by looking at such factors as form, historical precedents, advanced metrics and other factors that they don’t share openly. What we do know is that they are generally very precise in their pricing.

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It is the most accurate publicly available resource for predicting outcomes and this is why they are a good tool to help our FPL teams.

Clean sheet odds

In most weeks, we will know which defenders we are going to play in our starting XI. Our defenders from Manchester City and Liverpool will play in our teams most weeks and we probably don’t need clean sheet odds to tell us that.

However, they are handy when it comes to the smaller teams and your mid-priced or budget defenders, or which goalkeeper to play if you are rotating two.

Sometimes these decisions are really close and it usually pays to go with the one who has the higher clean sheet probability.

GW5 clean sheet probability 🧤🥅

MCI: 60%
ARS: 45%
LIV: 44%
CHE: 39%
WOL: 36%
CPL: 35%
BHA: 33%
TOT: 33%
LEE: 32%
MUN: 29%
FUL: 26%
BOU: 25%
BRE: 24%
EVE: 23%
WHU: 20%
LEI: 19%
SOU: 16%
AVL: 15%
NEW: 11%
NOT: 6%#FPL

— Abdul (@FPL_Salah) August 29, 2022

For example, we can see from the clean sheet odds for Gameweek 5 that Brighton had a higher chance of keeping a clean sheet than Brentford.

If you had Vicente Guaita (£4.5m) and Robert Sanchez (£4.7m) as your keepers then you might have struggled to decide which one to play. Brighton played Fulham while Palace hosted Brentford. The odds told you to play Guaita and although they both conceded, the Palace keeper did outscore Sanchez.

If you follow the odds over a prolonged period, you will get more decisions right than wrong.

Anytime goalscorer odds

I find the goalscorer probabilities especially helpful when I am undecided on who to captain. If the decision is close between two or three players then this really helps. In Gameweek 5, a lot of managers were struggling to decide whether to captain Erling Haaland (£11.9m) or Mohamed Salah (£13m).

GW5 anytime scorer % ⚽️

Haaland: 74%
Salah: 51%
Jesus: 45%
Ronaldo: 45%
Kane: 43%
KdB: 43%
Mahrez: 43%
Firmino: 40%
Diaz: 38%
Mitrovic: 36%
Sterling: 34%
Vardy: 34%
Foden: 33%
Martial: 33%
Son: 33%
Havertz: 32%
Zaha: 31%
Gundogan: 30%
Martinelli: 30%
Toney: 30%
Saka: 30%#FPL

— Abdul (@FPL_Salah) August 30, 2022

Looking at the odds, Haaland was the clear favourite to score anytime but we need to take into consideration that Salah is listed as a midfielder and gets an extra point for scoring a goal and also one point for a clean sheet. We need to add a bit of FPL thinking to these decisions.

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Again the anytime scorer odds can help in deciding which players to bench or play and what order to put your subs in. These decisions may seem trivial but for FPL, they are actually vital and over the long term will help you gain an edge over rivals.

Caveats

As always in FPL, there are caveats and we also need to use our intuition, like knowing midfielders get more points for a goal.

Another important factor is looking at the expected minutes of players. Although Haaland was the clear favourite to score this week, he was never going to play as many minutes as Salah and the Egyptian also has a higher assist threat.

The fact Salah didn’t score and Haaland only outscored him by seven points (even with a hat-trick) is a testament to this.

When it comes to clean sheets, Team A might have a better chance of a clean sheet than Team B, but it may be the right decision to play the defender from Team B. For example, in Gameweek 6, Manchester City have a 43 per cent chance of a clean sheet and Chelsea a 42 per cent chance. If you owned both Ruben Dias (£6m) and Reece James (£6.1m) then the right decision would be to play the Chelsea full-back as his attacking threat is much higher.

GW6 clean sheet probability 🥅🧤

MCI: 43%
LIV: 43%
TOT: 43%
CHE: 42%
BHA: 38%
NEW: 36%
NOT: 36%
WOL: 33%
BRE: 30%
ARS: 25%
MUN: 25%
SOU: 25%
BOU: 24%
CPL: 24%
LEE: 22%
LEI: 22%
WHU: 15%
FUL: 14%
EVE: 13%
AVL: 12%#FPL

— Abdul (@FPL_Salah) September 1, 2022

I always find it useful to look at both these odds at the start of the week before looking at any transfer plans.

Make sure to check out The Athletic FPL Podcast, hosted by The FPL General, for all the latest tips and tricks. Catch that for free on all the usual listening providers and ad-free on The Athletic app.

(Top photo: Visionhaus/Getty Images))