FPL Glossary
Your guide to FPL-speak. FPL acronyms, slang and abbreviations. Talk the Fantasy Premier League talk.
- ASM - Allan Saint-Maximin.
- Autosub - When one of your substitutes automatically plays in your team because one of the starting 11 did not play at all.
- AWB - Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
- Bang - A player bangs when he scores a decent number of FPL points. c.f. haul.
- BB - The Bench Boost chip.
- BGW - See blank (gameweek).
- Bench Fodder - Unspectacular players who you intend to sit on your bench. Generally "reliable" and "good value". e.g. Douglas Luiz. c.f. enabler
- Big At The Back - Investing high resources in your defence, at the expense of other positions. e.g. A back 4 or 5 of high-budget defenders. Particularly popular around 2018 (TAA, Robertson, Alonso, Digne etc.).
- Blank (gameweek) - In a blank gameweek, one or more teams do not play. Navigating blanks and doubles is key to FPL success.
- Blank (player) - A player blanks when he does not achieve any points above his appearance points, other than maybe a bonus point or 2.
- BPS - Bonus Points System. BPS points are assigned for various actions on the pitch. The players with the top 3 total BPS are allocated 1 to 3 bonus points. Often controversial. Full explanation here.
- Burn a transfer - Choose not to make a transfer, despite having 2 free transfers, effectively wasting 1. But why not, if you're happy with your team.
- Bus Team - The team you set early in the gameweek in case you get hit by a bus before the deadline (or you didn't realise it's an early deadline, or it slips your mind cuz you're out on the lash). Always a good idea to set a bus team before you forget.
- Buyer's Remorse - A sense of regret after making a purchase. Often occurs soon after making a transfer, when you followed the crowd and not your heart. I'm sure you can think of your own examples! c.f. rage transfer.
- Chip - Free Hit, Wildcard, Triple Captain & Bench Boost are chips.
- Confirmation Bias - When you convince yourself that your decision is/was the correct one, by using stats or other information selectively.
- CS - Clean sheet. When a team concedes no goals.
- DCL - Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
- Dead End - To make transfers for short-term gain in anticipation of wildcarding shortly after. e.g. "I plan to dead-end my team leading up to blank gameweek 18 then wildcard in gameweek 19."
- DGW - See double.
- Differential - A player of low ownership who may help you climb rank if he bangs.
- Double - In a double gameweek, one or more teams plays more than once. Navigating blanks and doubles is key to FPL success.
- Enabler - A cheap player who frees up funds to enable you to buy the players you want. e.g. Tsimikas, as the cheapest player in the game at 3.7 million, can sit in your last bench place and may save you just enough money to buy Salah. c.f. bench fodder.
- EO - Effective Ownership. The ownership percentage of a player when captaincy is taken into account. Owning or not owning players with high EO is critical to your rank. If a player has >100% EO at your rank, you cannot gain rank due to his points, no matter how many he scores, unless you captain him. Effective Ownership of players by the top 10k managers is often quoted.
- EV - Expected Value is a statistical term meaning the average of outcomes multiplied by their probabilities. In FPL terms, it loosely means the number of FPL points we can expect a player to score. FPL Form's equivalent is Predicted Points (PP).
- Eye Test - Never mind the stats. Does the player actually look any good?
- FDR - Fixture Difficulty Rating. A measure of opposition teams' strength. FPL provide basic FDR figures (explained here). FPL Form provides more granular FDR ratings calculated home and away for each position.
- FH - The Free Hit chip.
- Flagged - The player is marked ("flagged") as injured, doubtful, suspended, unavailable etc..
- FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out. Which is why you signed Timo Werner with no idea whether he'd actually perform in the EPL or not.
- Fraud - A player who flatters to deceive. Who repeatedly convinces you that he's a good signing but invariably disappoints.
- GOAT - Greatest Of All Time. Messi? Ronaldo? Pele? Maradona? Or how about the GOAT FPL manager?
- Ghost Team - A team that is left unchanged all season. The top-ranked ghost team always beats many fine managers who live and breathe FPL.
- Haul - A player hauls when he scores a lot of FPL points, typically more than 10. That's a haul.
- High Ceiling - A player who has a high ceiling is not necessarily consistent, but has the potential to haul big. e.g. Maddison. Such a player can make a great differential.
- ICT Index - A statistical index, explained here, developed specifically to assess a player as an FPL asset, combining Influence, Creativity and Threat scores. Not used by FPL Form but worth a glance.
- In the mud - Things ain't going well. Your captain blanked, your double Brighton defence condeded in the 95th minute, your new signing got a straight red and your bench hauled. aka "mudded".
- ITB - In The Bank.
- ITK - In The Know. Those with prior, inside knowledge on team selections. Beware of fakes!
- ITM - See in the mud.
- JWP - James Ward-Prowse.
- Locked in - You will make no further changes to your team.
- Mini-Wildcard - A bit of a silly term which generally means rolling your free transfer so that you have 2, and taking a points hit on top, so that you have 3 or more transfers to make at once.
- Mini-League - An invitational league created by an FPL manager. i.e. Any league except the standard leagues provided by FPL.
- Nailed - Nailed on. Guaranteed to start.
- NLD - North London Derby. Arsenal vs Spurs.
- OR - Overall rank. Your rank in the league of every manager playing FPL.
- Pep Roulette - The phenomenon whereby Pep Guardiola screws the entire FPL community over by seemingly random and unpredictable rotation. Good for the game though. c.f. Tuchel Tombola.
- Premium Player - An expensive player, typically costing in excess of £10.0m (but expected to return an associated wealth of points). Think Salah, De Brune, Son, Kane, Haaland etc..
- Rage Transfer - The act of impatiently making reactionary transfers early in the gameweek without a rational decision-making process. Often involves alcohol or other drugs.
- RMT - Rate my team, as offered by various FPL websites, apps and forums.
- Roll a transfer - Carry your free transfer over to the next gameweek, so that you have 2.
- TAA - Trent Alexander-Arnold.
- Team Reveal - When an FPL manager shows their team in advance of the transfer deadline. If you're going to pay to copy other managers' teams, at least check out their track record on my manager ranking.
- Template - A template team is the same as "everyone" else's, based on a consensus around the best current combination of players. To win FPL you need to break the template and be very, very lucky.
- Threemium - A lineup with 3 premium players squeezed into it. Difficult without compromising on other players.
- VVD - Virgil van Dijk.
- Upside - If 2 players have the same predicted points (or EV), one has more 'upside' if he is more likely to score more than his predicted points. Conversely, he will also have more 'downside', and is therefore a more risky pick.
- Variance - A measure of the spread of numbers in a data set. Players with higher variance have relatively high upside and downside. They are relatively risky and inconsistent in terms of FPL points but they may be good differential picks.
- WC - The Wildcard chip.
- xA - Expected assists. A performance metric representing the quality of assist opportunities.
- xG - Expected goals. A performance metric representing the quality of a player's scoring chances. When referring to a team, it means the total xG for the players in that team. xG and xA can be found on sites such as Understat.com and FPRef.com.
- xGA - Expected goals against. Refers to total xG scored by the opposition team.
- xP - Expected points. A measure of FPL points that a player or team can be expected to score. I call it PP (predicted points) on this site.