FPL season comparisons: Everton’s Jordan Pickford vs Notts Forest’s Matz Sels
Two high-performing Premier League goalkeepers in 2024-25 are under our FPL radar heading into the new season as we compare the numbers of Everton and England’s Jordan Pickford (£5.5m) and Nottingham Forest stopper Matz Sels (£5.0m) ahead of Gameweek 1.
Both Jordan Pickford and Matz Sels were ever presents for their respective clubs last season, each appearing between the sticks for 3,420 minutes, allowing us to directly compare their statistics for FPL managers to look over.
Sels managed to register one more Premier League clean sheet than Pickford, keeping out his opponents 15 times compared to Pickford’s 14 shutouts. However, Pickford was narrowly the busier stopper, making 122 saves, whilst Sels managed 120. In terms of points acquired through shot saves, it was impossible to separate the two.
Pickford led the way on xGC (expected goals conceded), as he was projected to only give up 46.1 goals. Sels’ xGC stood at 50.2 for the 2024-25 Premier League season. But with Pickford gaining more bonus points than Sels, he ended the campaign with a higher overall FPL score score.
All the numbers point towards Pickford over Sels, but the latter boasts a slightly cheaper cost at £5.0m, which is important when considering that many FPL managers opt to recruit cheaply in the goalkeeping department in order to spend more funds in other positions.
Combine this with a home fixture for Sels against a Brentford side no longer with Bryan Mbeumo (scorer of 20 Premier League goals last season) and it would be no surprise if Sels was to outscore Pickford from an FPL points perspective in Gameweek 1, with Everton away to newly promoted Leeds.
Verdict: Matz Sels (£5.0m)
