The idea, in three lines
In fantasy football you pay for what has already happened. A player who scored twice on the opening weekend costs double a week later, and most of the time that price never comes back down.
The player worth buying is a different one: the one arriving at the shot from good positions, creating chances for others, and still waiting for the ball to go in.
We call it credit: what a player has produced minus what he has collected. You add up his expected goals and his expected assists, then subtract the real goals and assists. High credit means one thing only: he is doing the right things, and the door is still shut.
Serie A, the list
Numbers from the matches played through Sunday night.
| Player | Club | Min | Shots | G+A | xG+xA | Credit | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Armand Lauriente | Sassuolo | 180 | 13 | 0 | 2.07 | +2.07 | | Kieron Bowie | Sassuolo | 164 | 5 | 0 | 1.98 | +1.98 | | Lautaro Martínez | Inter | 145 | 10 | 0 | 1.47 | +1.47 | | Federico Dimarco | Inter | 180 | 3 | 0 | 1.41 | +1.41 | | Gonçalo Ramos | Milan | 180 | 13 | 1 | 2.39 | +1.38 | | John Yeboah | Venezia | 173 | 5 | 0 | 1.27 | +1.27 | | Mattia Zaccagni | Lazio | 180 | 6 | 0 | 0.98 | +0.98 | | Patrick Cutrone | Monza | 109 | 1 | 0 | 0.88 | +0.88 | | Randal Kolo Muani | Juventus | 180 | 7 | 0 | 0.76 | +0.75 |
Lauriente tops the list and it is not an isolated case: Sassuolo are the side who created 2.70 expected goals against Atalanta on the opening weekend and lost. Thirteen attempts in two matches, three key passes, and still nothing in the fantasy columns. If Sassuolo keep producing like this, those shots turn into goals.
Lautaro deserves his own line, because the context helps him. Ten shots in a hundred and forty five minutes, no goals, inside an Inter side that built 3.97 expected goals at Cagliari and won 1-0. He is not a striker in trouble inside a team that creates nothing. He is a striker on a barren run inside a team that creates a great deal, and those are two different situations.
Dimarco is the entry worth the most of all of these in fantasy terms, because he is a defender: nine key passes in two matches and 0.78 expected assists. A defender producing like that brings bonus points.
Gonçalo Ramos has already scored once, but with 2.27 personal expected goals from thirteen attempts he is running well above his return.
Beyond the border, the three most extreme cases in Europe
If you also play European leagues, these are the highest credits across the big five.
Antonio Martínez (Alaves), credit +3.04. The highest in Europe. Three matches, 235 minutes, seven shots, four key passes, 1.82 expected goals and 1.22 expected assists. No goals, no assists. Nobody in Europe is leaving more behind.
Lamine Yamal (Barcelona), credit +2.33. This is the figure that surprises most: two matches, no goals and no assists, with 1.02 expected goals and 1.31 expected assists. Nine shots, six key passes. Against Athletic he took seven of them without scoring. It is not a problem, it is an outstanding account.
Eddie Nketiah (Crystal Palace), credit +2.15. A hundred and twenty nine minutes, 1.33 expected assists. Palace have no points from performances worth 2.38, so the credit here is double: the player and the team.
And the ones already delivering
For balance, the opposite list: the most productive per ninety minutes, adding expected goals and expected assists. These are not market opportunities, they are confirmations.
| Player | Club | xG+xA per 90' | Real G+A | |---|---|---|---| | Raphinha | Barcelona | 2.35 | 4 | | Florian Thauvin | Lens | 1.85 | 4 | | Kylian Mbappé | Real Madrid | 1.66 | 4 | | Bruno Fernandes | Manchester United | 1.43 | 4 | | Jude Bellingham | Real Madrid | 1.24 | 4 |
Bellingham is worth a note: of his numbers, 2.46 are expected assists against 1.03 of expected goals. He is playing as a pure creator, and anyone who bought him for the goals is using him wrong.
The honest point
Three warnings, because without them the list above is worth little.
Two matches are two matches. A high credit built on a hundred and sixty minutes can vanish with one poor performance. The names with more minutes behind them are more reliable than the ones with fewer.
Credit guarantees nothing. It says a player is arriving in the right places, not that he will score. A striker can keep missing for two months, and it happens.
Minutes matter more than talent. Cutrone has an interesting credit in a hundred and nine minutes, but if he stays on a hundred and nine minutes a month nobody will ever cash that credit in.
And now we keep score
This list is published today, before the next round, with the date on it.
In a month we come back here and check it: how many of these nine scored or assisted, and how many did not. Without picking the convenient names afterwards, and without deleting the ones that embarrass us.
It is the only way to find out whether this method works or whether it is just another chart. And it goes for you too: if you buy one of these names, write down the date.
Do your own maths. In the Nerd Zone you will find expected goals and expected assists for every player in the big five leagues, and in the Fanta Draft section there is the method we use to build these lists.