FPL tips: Toffees’ toothless attack underlined by FPL data

Despite a thrilling victory against Newcastle, Everton still have work to do to stay in the Premier League, as well as to make themselves enticing FPL prospects once more.

The Toffees sit just one place above the relegation zone as the business end of the season approaches, and their attack is at least partly to blame.

Before Alex Iwobi‘s stoppage-time winner against the Magpies it looked as though Everton were about to go five games without a goal, having lost their previous four fixtures.

However, despite that late and possibly crucial winner on Thursday, the club have set an unwanted record regarding one attacking metric.

Threat is a metric introduced by the FPL to measure the quality of the opportunities a player enjoys in front of goal, with a score of around 100 usually accounting for a goal’s worth of chances.

By totalling the Threat scores of an entire team it is possible to see how much Threat a team scored and conceded in any given game.

Everton have become the first team this season to score less than 100 Threat in five consecutive games, underlining the struggles they are going through.

While the solitary goal they scored in that five-game period tells its own story, a run of dismal Threat scores tells us that their lack of goals has been no stroke of ill fortune.

Those Threat scores, in games against Southampton, Manchester City, Tottenham, Wolves and Newcastle, were 80, 71, 65, 80 and 98.

To put that into context, rock bottom Norwich have managed two 100+ scores in their last five games, while Liverpool and Manchester City have not dipped below 100 all season.

Conceding nine goals in those games before finally scoring at the death in game number five, Everton can at least hope that the drama of their victory will inspire a run of form which will keep them safe.

So far, none of Frank Lampard’s team can boast more than five league goals, though, with Demarai Gray the leading scorer at the club despite not netting since December 6.

Gray is also the leading Threat scorer (604) at Goodison Park as well as the leading FPL point scorer with 79 points, the lowest total of any Premier League team’s top points scorer.

Richarlison has four goals but is currently on a run of eight games without one, while Dominic Calvert-Lewin has failed to score in the league since his return from injury.

Things don’t look much better when considering the performances of the providers in the team – Andros Townsend has the highest Creativity score at Everton (468.9) but only ranks 29th among midfielders in the division.

Meanwhile the top FPL assist maker in the team is Abdoulaye Doucoure with five – West Ham’s Jarrod Bowen leads the way with 13.

The Toffees face West Ham, Burnley, Manchester United, Leicester and Liverpool next – FPL bosses will need to see much more in attack from Lampard’s team if they are to consider Everton as FPL contenders once more.