The points system.

Minutes played

Any player who steps onto the pitch earns 1 point. Play 60 minutes or more and it is 2. A player who does not appear at all scores nothing — and one of your bench players comes on in their place, in the order you set.

Which is why a player who starts every gameweek beats a better player who sits on the bench.

Clean sheets

A clean sheet means the team conceded no goals in the match. Goalkeepers and defenders get 4 points, midfielders get 1, and forwards get nothing.

One condition: the player must have been on the pitch for at least 60 minutes. And if the team concedes at any point, the clean sheet is gone for every player in it.

Defensive contribution

A player does not have to score to earn points. A defender who puts in 10 defensive actions in a match — clearances, blocks, interceptions and tackles — picks up 2 extra points. Midfielders and forwards need 12, and the loose balls they win back count towards it too.

It is paid once per match, not per action. A player with 20 actions gets the same 2 points as a player with 10. It is what lets a defender who works all game score even when his team concedes.

Assists

An assist is the final touch before a goal. It is worth 3 points, and the same for every position — including a goalkeeper whose clearance ends up as a goal.

If the ball deflects off a defender on its way to the scorer, the assist still belongs to the player who played it, as long as the goal came from the same move.

Deductions

A yellow card costs 1 point and a red costs 3. An own goal costs 2, and a missed penalty costs 2 as well.

Deductions apply to that player only — they never affect the rest of your squad.

The captain

Your captain scores double. A 5-point goal becomes 10.

And if your captain does not play at all, the vice-captain takes over automatically — so pick a vice who starts too.

A worked example

Take a defender who played 90 minutes, scored, and whose team conceded nothing:

• Played 60 minutes or more: 2 points
• Goal by a defender: 6 points
• Clean sheet for a defender: 4 points

That is 12 points. If they were your captain, 24.

And if the same player picked up a yellow card, subtract 1 and it is 11.

Why position matters

Forwards score more often, so their goals are worth 4. Defenders score far less, so theirs are worth 6. Midfielders sit in between at 5, and pick up a point for a clean sheet on top.

Which means a defender in a side that defends well can out-score an expensive forward without scoring a single goal. That is the biggest difference between an average squad and a good one.

Extra points

When a match ends, its top places take extra points on top of everything above: 3 for first, 2 for second, 1 for third. Players level on the same rating share a place, and the place below them goes unpaid — two tied at the top means two 3s and no 2 at all.

The ranking comes from what each player actually did in that match — goals, assists, saves, defensive work and passing all push it up, while cards, own goals and missed chances pull it down. Nobody picks it by hand.

That ranking has a name in the app: open any finished match and the Performance rating section lists every player’s score, highest first — so you can see not just who took the extra points, but how close the players just outside missed by.

Can points change after a match?

They can. Stats are reviewed after the match, and sometimes a goal or an assist is credited to someone else. When that happens your points adjust on their own.