EPL 2021/22 season is over, and for many Fantasy Premier League managers now there is a time to recap and evaluate their season.
As clean sheet odds and expected clean sheets are an important part of our decision-making process when selecting defenders for our FPL team, let’s look at which teams kept the most clean sheets in the 2021/22 season and which teams and which teams over or underperformed their defensive expectations based on bookies odds.
Just a quick reminder, before every gameweek of the 2021/22 season we calculated clean sheet odds (probability of keeping a clean sheet) for all Premier League teams using our Odds to probability calculator.
That helped us to construct an expected clean sheet table – a table with an expected clean sheet count for each team. This table shows how many clean sheets each team should have kept in comparison with the actual clean sheet count.
So, when we make difference between the actual and expected clean sheets, we get delta: the number which shows whether a certain team over/underperformed its defensive expectations according to boookies odds.
EPL most clean sheets 2021/22
| Team | Expected Clean Sheets | Clean Sheets | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 205.29 | 212 | -6.71 |
| Liverpool | 15.28 | 21 | -5.72 |
| Manchester City | 17.98 | 21 | -3.02 |
| Chelsea | 16.34 | 16 | 0.34 |
| Tottenham | 12.71 | 16 | -3.29 |
| Arsenal | 12.42 | 13 | -0.58 |
| Crystal Palace | 8.7 | 12 | -3.3 |
| Aston Villa | 8.89 | 11 | -2.11 |
| Brighton | 10.87 | 11 | -0.13 |
| Wolves | 10.16 | 11 | -0.84 |
| Brentford | 8.78 | 9 | -0.22 |
| Burnley | 7.96 | 9 | -1.04 |
| Everton | 8.39 | 8 | 0.39 |
| Manchester United | 12.14 | 8 | 4.14 |
| Newcastle | 7.45 | 8 | -0.55 |
| Southampton | 8.51 | 8 | 0.51 |
| West Ham | 9.71 | 8 | 1.71 |
| Leicester | 9.3 | 7 | 2.3 |
| Norwich | 5.73 | 6 | -0.27 |
| Leeds | 7.39 | 5 | 2.39 |
| Watford | 6.58 | 4 | 2.58 |
Most clean sheets: In the 2021/22 EPL season, Manchester City and Liverpool kept the most clean sheets – 21.
Most expected clean sheets: Bookies had the highest expectations from Manchester City, as they predicted that citizens will keep the most clean sheets from all teams – 17.98.
Biggest defensive overperformers: Liverpool overperformed their defensive expectations the most of all Premier League teams. The reds should have kept 15.28 clean sheets according to bookies odds instead of 21.
Biggest defensive underperformers: Manchester United underperformed their defensive expectations the most of all teams. The red devils should have kept 12.14 clean sheets instead of 8 according to bookies odds.
Real clean sheets vs expected clean sheets chart
In the cahrt below, you can see how average clean sheets per GW and average expected clean sheets per GW developed during the season:
GW1 – GW19: phase of defensive overperformance – we saw more clean sheets than was expected by bookmakers. It was a signal that average clean sheets per GW should go down and converge to the mean. It was a signal that we should focus less on defenders and more on attackers.
GW20 – GW27: phase of defensive underperformance – we saw fewer clean sheets than was expected by bookmakers. It was a signal that average clean sheets per GW should go up and converge to the mean. It was a signal that we should focus less on attackers and more on defenders.
GW28 – GW38: phase of defensive overperformance – we saw more clean sheets than was expected by bookmakers. It was a signal that average clean sheets per GW should go down and converge to the mean. It was a signal that we should focus less on defenders and more on attackers.
The 2021/22 season review
Total clean sheets: In the 2021/22 season, we have seen a total of 212 clean sheets, which is 5,58 clean sheets per gameweek. In comparison, in the 2020/21 season we have seen 224 clean sheets at the rate of 5,89 clean sheets per gameweek.
So, in the 21/22 we have seen fewer clean sheets, but we still got a tons of points from defenders, especially from TAA, Cancelo, Robertson…
Total expected clean sheets: bookies expected 205,29 clean sheets in the EPL 21/22 season. It means, that this was a season of small defensive overperformance as we saw 6 more clean sheets than we should have.
Clean Sheet reports from other seasons
Are you interested in comparing insights about clean sheets from EPL 2021/22 season to another seasons? Check our report from the end of 2022/23 season as well: EPL Most Clean Sheets in 2022/23 Report
Conclusion
Focusing on high-scoring defenders with high clean sheets expectations is a vital piece of a successful Fantasy Premier League strategy.
We hope these clean sheets data from 2021/22 season will help you get a good insight about clean sheets before the start of next season.
