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In FPL, there are certain players that season after season, overperform their underlying stats (and vice versa). Players like Son Heung-Min and Jamie Vardy spring to mind - renowned for their clinical finishing and consistently overperforming their Expected Goals (xG). This is also great for their teammates as it increases the likelihood of them overperforming their Expected Assists (xA). On the flip side, there are also players who consistently underperform - Timo Werner feels like the most obvious candidate here.

In this article, I'll look at the players who outscored their xG metric and see whether it was a fluke or something that they've consistently done. We've got 8 players for you split over 2 articles, all of which have played more than 900 minutes this season and an overachieving xG (G-xG) of 0.15 or higher.

Player	Team	G-xG	Per 90
De Bruyne	Man City	8.6	0.35
Vardy	Leicester	5.5	0.27
Wissa	Brentford	3.3	0.23
Cucho	Watford	2.5	0.20
Son	Spurs	6.6	0.20
Smith Rowe	Arsenal	4.2	0.20
Guimaraes	Newcastle	2.1	0.18
Zaha	Crystal Palace	4.6	0.15

Kevin De Bruyne

(Per 90 stats are in brackets)

Season	Goals	xG	Difference
17/18	8 (0.23)	6.2 (0.18)	+1.8 (+0.05)
18/19	2 (0.18)	2.1 (0.20)	-0.1 (-0.02)
19/20	13 (0.42)	7.6 (0.25)	+5.4 (+0.17)
20/21	6 (0.27)	9.7 (0.44)	-3.7 (-0.17)
21/22	15 (0.61)	6.4 (0.26)	+8.6 (+0.35)

Season	Minutes	FPL Points	PP90*
17/18	3,073	209	6.1
18/19	968	59	5.5
19/20	2,790	251	8.1
20/21	1,995	141	6.4
21/22	2,196	196	8.0

• PP90 - Points Per 90 Minutes

There's rarely a need to justify the inclusion of a premium asset such as Kevin De Bruyne and these stats provide us with another reason why.

His 2020/21 campaign was riddled with injury causing him to miss a total of 13 matches. It was a similar story in 2018/19 where injury ruled him out of 28 matches.

In contrast, last season he missed 4 matches through injury (and another 4 through Covid) and his best season, 19/20 he also missed just 4 matches through injury.

From this, we can see that if De Bruyne can stay fit and clear from injury, then he invariably finds the form to outperform his Expected Goals data.

Last season saw him start the season at an all time high of £11.5m and it'll be no surprise to see a repeat of this in 2022/23.

Jamie Vardy

(Per 90 stats are in brackets)

Season	Goals	xG	Difference
17/18	20 (0.55)	17.7 (0.49)	+2.3 (+0.06)
18/19	18 (0.59)	17.8 (0.59)	+0.0
19/20	23 (0.68)	20.3 (0.60)	+2.7 (+0.08)
20/21	15 (0.47)	19.7 (0.62)	-4.7 (-0.15)
21/22	15 (0.75)	9.5 (0.47)	+5.5 (+0.28)

Season	Minutes	FPL Points	PP90*
17/18	3,248	183	5.1
18/19	2,726	174	5.7
19/20	3,032	210	6.2
20/21	2,838	187	5.9
21/22	1,801	133	6.6

• PP90 - Points Per 90 Minutes

A darling of FPL, renowned for his clinical finishing and stats defying performances.

Unlike De Bruyne, injuries don't see to affect Vardy's output (other than lack of game time of course) with 2021/22 being his worse season for injury so far, missing a total of 21 matches. If anything, the additional rest and protection by Brendan Rodgers has benefitted him as it proved to be his most clinical season that we've included.

Last season, he was priced up at £10.0m and it's difficult to guess where they'll price the 35 year old this time around. Given how clinical he continues to be and the lack of European football for Leicester, a price around £8.5m could be a very tempting prospect as Vardy continues to outperform his underlying data.

Yoane Wissa

(Per 90 stats are in brackets)

Season	Goals	xG	Difference
20/21 (Lorient)	10 (0.34)	11.8 (0.40)	-1.8 (-0.06)
21/22	7 (0.49)	3.7 (0.26)	+3.3 (+0.23)

Season	Minutes	FPL Points	PP90*
20/21	-	-	-
21/22	1,268	92	6.5

• PP90 - Points Per 90 Minutes

With a starting price of £6.0m, the powers at FPL had priced Wissa as Brentford's most expensive midfielder and just £0.5m cheaper than pre-season darling Ivan Toney (and £0.5m more than the also popular Bryan Mbeumo). Whilst Toney and Mbeumo went on to frustrate their owners for much of the season, Wissa was pretty much ignored (although over 15,000 managers brought him in for the final game at home to Leeds).

It's hard to draw much from 2 seasons of data, especially with one of those seasons being in Ligue 1 but with much of the attention likely to be on Mbeumo and Toney once again, Wissa could be an interesting alternative if he is priced kindly. He appeared to be first choice on the left of Brentford's attack but much will depend upon the future of Christian Eriksen when assessing Brentford's assets.

Cucho Hernández

(Per 90 stats are in brackets)

Season	Goals	xG	Difference
18/19 (Huesca)	4 (0.17)	10.0 (0.42)	-6.0 (-0.25)
19/20 (Mallorca)	5 (0.30)	4.2 (0.25)	+0.8 (+0.05)
20/21 (Getafe)	2 (0.12)	2.5 (0.15)	-0.5 (-0.03)
21/22	5 (0.39)	2.5 (0.20)	+2.5 (+0.19)

Season	Minutes	FPL Points	PP90*
18/19	-	-	-
19/20	-	-	-
20/21	-	-	-
21/22	1,138	62	4.9

• PP90 - Points Per 90 Minutes

The final player we'll be looking at in this article is Cucho Hernández, a player who struggled to break into Watford's starting XI.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Watford (-5.8) were one of the most wasteful teams last season with Josh King the biggest culprit contributing to their early relegation. Brighton (-6.0), Burnley (-7.0) and Norwich (-12.3) were the only teams to underperform their xG by more.

Cucho (along with Emmanuel Dennis) was a rare exception to the stats but history suggests that this is an anomoly more than something that will be repeated consistently. It's unknown at the moment whether Cucho will be at Watford next season or if a move (probably back to Spain) is on the cards. Either way, it's unlikely that he'll come into our thinking.

Part 2 Is Now Available

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