FPL tips: Who are the season’s Threat and Creativity kings?

The Fantasy Premier League scores players according their own Threat and Creativity metrics, but what do they mean and which players are dominant in those areas?

To find out, we must first understand what the two metrics mean, and put the numbers into context.

What are Threat and Creativity?

Threat is a metric which assesses the quality of a chance that a player has in front of goal, while Creativity assesses the quality of chance a player provides for a teammate.

A score of around 100 historically translates to a goal’s worth of chances in either category, while scores in excess of 50 per game tend to indicate a good performance for a player.

While a manager can identify a good player from goals or assists achieved, what Threat and Creativity offer is a chance to look beyond – if a player doesn’t score, they may have been unlucky.

Likewise, if a player is enjoying a purple patch, Threat and Creativity can hint at whether the player’s returns have been earned by good performances, or whether they look unsustainable.

So who scores well in these areas? Who is the real deal?

The all-rounders

Three players emerge as the big hitters when it comes to scoring well for both Threat and Creativity: Jack Grealish, Bruno Fernandes and Kevin De Bruyne.

For Grealish this truly is an impressive season – in almost two of every three appearances he has scored at least 50 for one of either Threat or Creativity. He doesn’t have many quiet games these days.

The England international has also scored 50 in both categories in a single game on two occasions (7-2 v Liverpool and 0-0 v Burnley). The goalless draw against the Clarets was followed by two assists the next week, showing you can’t keep a man with good Creativity scores down.

De Bruyne, meanwhile, has the highest proportion of appearances this season in which a player has scored 50 in both categories, doing so against Wolves, Leeds and Tottenham.

The Belgium playmaker has returned double figures for FPL points returns on four occasions as a result of his ability to provide and score goals, but his rival up the road has him beat on that score.

Manchester United’s Fernandes has a whopping eight double-figure FPL points returns already this season, having earned 50 scores in both Creativity and Threat in a single game on three occasions.

To anybody thinking of selling the Portuguese due to his recent form (10 FPL points in three games) be warned, his numbers in both metrics remain impressive.

The surprises

While the aforementioned trio are perhaps unsurprisingly at the top of the charts, there are some surprises, not least the appearance of Aston Villa’s Anwar El Ghazi who has returned to the side with style.

The Villa man comes in cheap for a midfielder at £5.8m, while his ownership of 4.2 per cent makes him a potential differential, especially when considering he posted plus-50 scores for both Threat and Creativity in a 0-0 draw against Burnley.

Once again, while some may question why he didn’t notch a goal or assist in that fixture, the proof lies in the next game, in which El Ghazi notched a brace, a score of 120 Threat, and 16 FPL points.

He has continued to deliver, and already has five league goals in just 500 minutes of play.

Elsewhere, Leeds’ Patrick Bamford has yet to score 50 or more for Creativity, but is the top-scoring forward for Threat so far this season.

Bamford has managed to score 50 or more for Threat in almost half of his appearances (44.4 per cent), suggesting his tally of 10 goals at the halfway stage of the season is no fluke.

Furthermore, while he has failed to score in his last three games, Threat scores of 62 and 70 in that period suggest Bamford is on course to find the net again soon.