PLFantasy

A couple of days back we looked at the defensive rankings for the first 8 weeks of the season, today we will focus on the attack (inc midfielders). I have used a similar process to calculate (a) a team's strength of schedule and (b) the average number of goals they score/concede in different situations. This gives an overall score which I have ranked from 17 to 1 (again excluding the newly promoted sides who are unlikely to feature highly on this list anyway). 17. Wigan Athletic Wigan have the second hardest schedule (opponents conceding just 1.158 goals per game) and the second worst goal production (scoring just 0.921 goals per game) which results in bad news for the Latics. Wigan have lost their best two attacking options from last year (Valencia and Zaki) which suggests that the goals may be even harder to find. New chief Martinez has brought in Jason Scotland (45 goals in 90 at Swansea) and Jordi Gomez who are both solid lower league players but are unproven in the Premier Lea...

No fantasy analysis here, just had to share the comedy tweetings of Darren Bent: July 29th 3:25am - "this is the longest day in the world. flipping hec" July 29th 9:34am - "Soon as I have news ill let ya'll know don't worry" July 30th 11:31 - "Seriously getting pi**ed off now" July 30th 13:27 - "Sunderland are not the problem in the slightest" July 30th - 17:41 "Do I wanna go Hull city NO. Do I wanna go stoke NO do I wanna go sunderland YES so stop f***ing around levy" Probably won't be heading back to Spurs then? Would be amusing if he signed for Hull or Stoke now. On a more interesting note, is this the future of sports news? Three seperate sports have been affected by athletes breaking news in the past few weeks. Kevin Love broke news of Kevin McHale departure from the TWolves, Phil Hughes spilled the beans on his dropping from the Aussie cricket team and now Bent has clearly broken silence on where he wants to ply his...

Anyone who read the blog last year will know that I am huge advocate of playing the fixture list and picking players based almost as much on their matchup as their innate footballing talent. I assess a team's strength of schedule by looking at how their opponents have fared at home and on the road, for example: Arsenal face the following three opponents: @Eve, Sun, @MNU. Their strength of schedule would be calculated as the average number of goals Everton score at home, plus the average goals scored at on the road by Sunderland plus United's average home goals, divided by three. As you can see, it isn't rocket science but it can highlight some surprising insights (eg. statistically, Blackburn away is only a slightly tougher fixture in terms of goals per game than United at home). For this season, I am taking a slightly different approach and rather than just calculate a team's strength of schedule, I am combining it with the average goals conceded by that team at home/a...

With less than three weeks to go until the big kick off, its time to start seriously checking the health of the players around the league, as it is vital that you get all eleven players playing every week from the start (especially in light of the several bye weeks in gameweek 2): Phil Jagielka (6.0m) - this one is long term (November) and should rule Jagielka out of fantasy contention until around Christmas time when his return to the starting lineup can be guaranteed. When fit Jags will be a cheap way to get access to the solid Everton defense but forget about the former Blades man for the near future. Jonathan Woodgate (5.0m) - 'unlikely' to be ready for the start of the season, the return to the injury table is not a surprise for the former Leeds star, who just cannot stay fit. I had Woodgate pencilled in as a nice mid level option for a team who had the best defensive home record in the league, and were getting Bale and Hutton back from injury. However, with Woodgate, Ki...

Its no secret that I am not a huge fan of this year's striker class. There are very few strikers who are guaranteed a game every week, nevermind guaranteed fantasy point production. Many strikers are currently involved in transfer speculation and others have already moved so lets run round the league and sum up whose moving where and how that might affect their production. Done deals Michael Owen (8.5m) Owen has made an impressive start to his United career during the pre-season and the indications from Alex Ferguson are that Owen will get a decent chance to shine during the season, suggesting that the English hitman can reach 15 goals this season . Owen's career Premier League goal ratio is one every 1.64 games which over a 38 game season would give 23 goals. However, Owen has only played in more than 20 games in the league once since 2004 and with Rooney reverting to a central role and Macheda looking like the real deal it is hard to see Owen topping 20 or so games this te...

If your team is based around 11 7m guys then this article isn't for you. If however, like most fantasy players you like to have a premier player or two, then read on for some thoughts on how to pick your lynch pin. The main advantage in my eyes of bringing in a premier player for your team is the fact you can captain him and bring in a unrivalled amount of points. For example, last year Lampard scored 226 points, which would give you 452 points if you captained him every week. Even at his steep price tag of 12.5m this season, a similar level of production would lead to a 0.952 PPMS and almost 12 points per game. This kind of production is just not possible from 2 or even 3 mid level players, even if you strike it rich with a cheap superstar like Stephen Ireland. Factor in the chance to find a bargain to play alongside your stud (perhaps Larsson, Jimenez or Muamba) and the choice to grab a star player appears to be made for you. But who do you take? With over a tenth of your whole b...

Taking a break from the statistical analysis, lets take a trip around the league and see what managers, players and even pundits are talking about, as we try and glean some concrete information upon which to base our fantasy strategies: Frank Lampard is my new Kaka This one all but confirms Frank's return to my team, with a promotion to default Captain highly likely. For those who don't follow Italian football, here is Kaka's line from last season at Milan: 31 appearances (3 as sub), 16 goals, 9 assists Lampard , in his fantasy leading 226 point season had 12 goals and 10 assists, so the type of production seen above would be outstanding. Of course, I think we all agree that Kaka is a more gifted player but Anelotti's system does promise much and in light of Gerrard's court issues (see below) I think Lampard is the premier player in the league right now. Lampard also converted a penalty against Inter , as if to further underline his fantasy...

With less than a month to go until the big kick off, its time to get serious with team selections and I will start the first in a series of position focused posts at the logical place - between the sticks. In previous seasons I have often gone with the strategy of getting a consistent 'keeper on day one and sticking with him throughout the season, to give myself one less headache on selection day. Last year I rode van der Sar all year, which was great for that epic 9 game clean sheet run, but was it really the best strategy? The answer is almost certainly no, especially when you consider that I, along with around a quarter of the league, held Schwarzer from day one - who only went on to lead all keepers in scoring despite only costing 4m. Most would think that this was an aberration, that Schwarzer was a one off steal and no other can give that kind of value. However, the top four keepers in 2008-09 in terms of points per million spent (PPMS) all cost less than 5m and Sorensen at 4...

This category is always a tough one, though because we only need three strikers, the need for budget strikers is not so important. That being said, in recent years, premium strikers have not proved to be great investments, and so money saved here can allow extra to be spent on the big name midfielders. A quick look at the value (2008-09) of the big name midfielders and forwards illustrates this point well: Further analysis on where best to spend your money will be done in a later post, but for now, the main point is that top line strikers can be very hit and miss, and so bargains can be extremely valuable if selected well. Without further ado then, the best bargains I like for the upcoming season are as below (a budget of 5.5m has been set): Sylvan Ebanks-Blake (5.5m) Wolves The England Under-21 international will get his chance to shine in the big leagues this year, having led the Championship in scoring for the past two years (with 23 and 25 goals respectively, including this absolut...

The third segment of the squad filler series will focus on midfielders, a vital position in fantasy football and one which can make or break any team's fantasy season. The unquestioned bargain last season was Stephen Ireland, who at 5.5m, finished as the 5 th best midfielder, ahead of the likes of Ashley Young, Cesc Fabregas and Deco. As we are looking for squad fillers I have set the maximum price at 5m, and it is therefore unlikely we will find such a fantasy stud within. However, the value of Danny Murphy or the first 4 months of Geovanni last year cannot be underestimated and many-a- championship was won with these bargain studs on board. With that in mind, the top squad fillers for the upcoming season are below: Phil Neville (5m) This one is totally inexplicable to me, and apparently to many of the early registered players (of whom 27% have selected Neville). Neville is the Everton captain and so should be a lock to feature in 35 games+ save for injury. Granted, the f...

The second installment of the minimum price squad fillers focuses on defenders, and I have set the limit at 4.5m. As the likes of Figueroa, Cahill and Turner proved last year, a budget defender can prove to be an invaluable sub, with the three aforementioned players being good enough to feature regularly for many teams. Wigan defenders - Bramble, Figueroa, Melchiot, Scharner (all 4.5m). The Latics had the joint 7th best defense in the league last year and notched 8 clean sheets at home (all of which came in the final 14 games). No new defenders have arrived at the JJB to date and so we can assume the back four will remain as it was last year (with perhaps Sharner moving back into midfield and Boyce (4.5m) stepping in at the back). I therefore think all these four players are decent sub options, with possibly Bramble being the best value based upon his 17 bonus points last year. Stoke defenders - Higginbottom, Shawcross, Faye (all 4.5m), Wilkinson (4m). As mentioned in the goalkeeper ...