What Is The FPL ICT Index And How Useful Is It?

Whether tables and graphs about goals scored, saves made, or accurate Premier League lineup predictions, or even a simple scan through the latest premier league news, you use statistics for many of your decision making with regards to the game.

There are several useful statistics, one of which is the ICT Index. What does it mean? What is it for? Read along to find out.

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What is the ICT Index?

Let us firstly state what the ICT Index isn't: it is not the "Information and Communication Technology Index." Rather, the acronym stands for Influence, Creativity and Threat. So what is it?

According to the official FPL website, the ICT Index is a football statistical index created with the singular purpose of assessing players and evaluating their impact on a game. It uses data obtained from matches to represent player performance (in form of numbers) in three key areas: Influence, Creativity and Threat. These figures are then combined to create the player's ICT Index score.

Out of the ample data available for player assessment, the ICT Index presents the most important ones (more than 40 of them) in easily comprehensible formats: scores.

What this means is that the ICT Index score shows the important player performance factors that have been proven to correlate with higher points in FPL (and isn't that what we all love to hear?).

Let's go over what Influence, Creativity and Threat really mean.

1. Influence

Influence shows how much a player's presence has influenced a match (or an entire season). It essentially gives a numeric representation of a player's importance on the field of play.

For example, Mohamed Salah being on Liverpool's starting lineup has a huge impact on the team's performance, so his Influence score would be quite high.

The Influence metric takes into account events and actions that could directly or indirectly affect the outcome of the match, from offensive actions like goals and assists to defensive ones like the effectiveness of defenders and goalkeepers.

2. Creativity

Creativity is determined by a player's performance in terms of creating goalscoring opportunities for fellow teammates. It can be used as a guide to identify the players most likely to supply assists in a match.

Manchester United and Manchester City midfielders Bruno Fernandes and Kevin de Bruyne have high Creativity scores due to their proven record of providing assists.

Creativity not only analyses the frequency of passing and crossing but also considers pitch location and quality of the final ball.

3. Threat

This is (perhaps) the most significant of the three scores. It gauges a player's likelihood of scoring goals. While attempts are the key action, the Index looks at pitch location, giving greater relevance to actions that are regarded as the best opportunities to register goals.

Mohamed Salah's recent hat-trick in Liverpool's 5-0 victory over Manchester United gives the Egyptian a much greater Threat score compared to any other Liverpool player.

Overall ICT Index score

All three of these scores (Influence, Creativity and Threat) are then combined to create the ICT Index score, which then offers a single figure that presents a view of that player as an FPL asset, especially relative to others in the same position in FPL.

By knowing a player's ICT Index, you immediately know his potential and the chances of him performing well in a match, which ultimately translates to points in your game. This is why the majority of managers choose players like Mohamed Salah, Harry Kane or Trent Alexander Arnold. They have Hugh ICT Index scores.

Where can I find player ICT Index scores?

On the player information screen, click on the "I" icon to get access to the ICT Index scores.

The Index is also available within the dropdown as a filter on the Transfers page and in the tables under the Statistics tab.

Using Premier League lineup predictions to improve your gameplay

Premier League lineup predictions are lists of players curated by experienced FPL players around the world. These are the players that many assume (based on news, statistics, interviews and gut feeling) would be in the starting lineup for any given match. 

A lot of players on those lists are those who have high ICT Index scores. The predictions are reliable and accurate, so following them would increase your chances of success.

Jessica Tanner

Update 11 March 2022