Gameweek 30 Preview


Alright, hopefully we all got through week 29 unscathed and are ready to start milking the points with all the double gameweeks coming up. In summary, the doubles are below which need to be considered when planning your transfers:
  • GW30 - Ast and Wig
  • GW31 - Ast, Bir, Bla, Che, Eve, MNC, Por, Sun, WH and Wol
  • GW34 - Ful and Sto
There are also a number of games that are yet to be re-scheduled so the rewards will be even greater in the coming weeks. The side that springs out is Villa who face 4 sides in the bottom half of the table, 3 of which average less than a goal a game at the venue Villa face them (home/away) and 2 of which concede more than 2 a game in the venue Villa face them. In short, buy as many Villa as you can! I currently own zero but am contemplating a 4 or 8 point hit in order to maximise the spoils. Be careful not to transfer out a player with a double next week though as that will make it tough for you to realise a gain on your 4 point investment.

Clean Sheet Rankings
  1. Aston Villa
  2. Tottenham
  3. Liverpool
  4. Man Utd
  5. Birmingham
  6. Chelsea
  7. Wigan
  8. Burnley
  9. Stoke
  10. Sunderland
  11. Everton
  12. Arsenal
  13. Bolton
  14. Man City
  15. Wolves
  16. Hull
  17. Fulham
  18. Portsmouth
  19. West Ham
  20. Blackburn
Captain Rankings
  1. James Milner
  2. Gabriel Agbonlahor
  3. Jermaine Defoe
  4. Fernando Torres
  5. Wayne Rooney
  6. Richard Dunne
  7. Ashley Young
  8. Didier Drogba
  9. Frank Lampard
  10. Charles N'Zogbia
Obviously Villa players dominate the rankings this week though excellent fixtures for Spurs and Liverpool along with Rooney's insane form ensure that the top 5 is still a mix from different teams. I imagine alot of managers will go with Dunne or Milner this week so Agbonlahor could be a sneaky differentiator who is almost certain to get a goal or two in the next couple of gameweeks.

Post your thoughts, comments and transfer issues below or @plfantasy.

Comments

Unknown said…
I'm flyning back up my league. phew. got collins and milner already. any thoughts on Rooney > Agbonlahor (ill get rooney back in 2 weeks),great differential 4 games in 2 wks but is this a big enough reason not to back King Kai Wayne?
Ryan said…
David - I sold Rooney because of
1. his recent injury
2. uncertainty of whether he'll be back in time to play Fulham at home
3. the prospect of him being rested on Sunday after the Wednesday Champions League game
4. other strikers having double gameweeks

I'm regretting it now as Roo recovered faster than expected, went berserk and scored a brace! Fulham just lost 3-1 to Juventus and are looking fatigued. And we all know Fulham's away defence is not great. Plus, he's playing in GW 34 and is MU's only hope of winning the EPL.

Gabby looks good with 4 matches in 2 weeks as you said. But Villa has a blank GW 34 so if your team has enough depth, then OK go ahead and get Agbonlahor. Otherwise you are taking an 8 point hit this week only to have to lose even more points to get players who actually play in GW 34.

Question to anyone:
I know Torres has been rubbish in the last 2 away games against Wigan & Lille but do you think for the Portsmouth match at HOME he'll prove his worth and bag a few goals, assists and bonus points? I'm torn between Torres and Milner for captaincy.
Unknown said…
I think Agbonlahor will be more likely to produce this GW than Milner. The counter attacking play that Villa uses on the road suits him better. 7 of the 13 games where he scored 5+ points were on the road. Compared to Milner's 3 out of 10.

Agbonlahor scores 5+ points in 58% of away games. Milner just 25%.

Sure, Milner has thrown up 5 games of 10+, but only one was on the road. Agbonlahor's one was on the road too.

In the average away game, Milner has scored 4.27 points. Gabby has scored 5.00.

Using these same measurements, we should be captaining Dunne over Milner as well and is slightly lower than Agbonlahor. He has 6 away games of 5+. Scores 5+ in 55% of away games. And on average, scores 5.00 points away.

Using the expected points per game adjusting for home/away, we get the following rankings for captain:

1. Rooney
2. Drogba
3. Rodallega
4. Agbonlahor
5. Dunne
6. N'Zogbia
7. Lampard
8. Milner
9. Torres
10. Gerrard
11. Young
12. Defoe

Comparing these with the clean sheet rankings, it looks like:
1. Drogba
2. Rooney
3. Lampard
4. Dunne
5. Agbonlahor
NotoriousDre said…
hey guys, havent posted in a bit. Right now im considering my gw 31 move (gw 30 sorted due to villa)

which option do you all prefer;

lamps & johnson (man c)

or

malouda & arteta

thanks...
Chris said…
David - I do like agbonlahor but I think moving Rooney is a risk. He has a decent fixture this week and if he scores you lose 6 or 12 points on basically half of all players. If you're down by 100 in your league it makes sense but if you're closer or leading your league it looks agressive.

Ryan - good point on villas gw34 bye week that I forgot to mention. It might make it overly agressive to sign 3 villa players unless your bench is very strong. I like torres alot and this week he is a great play. On a one off game he might lead the rankings but I always like to play the odds with a double gameweek player.
Chris said…
Andrew -really interesting analysis. I haven't focused my individual player rankings on home/ away but you're right that this can play a major part in a players success. I am going to start tracking these splits from now on.

I would still rank the villa players a bit higher just because the squad is pretty settled so you're all but guaranteed 180 mins and 4 points. You then only need the odd assist or bonus point to match a goal scoring performance from drogba or torres.

I think some anlaysis onhow teams perform on short rest would be helpful as the constant stream of games for a small squad like villa must surely hurt their success. This might have to wait until the close season when I play to create a full database for the season and try to come up with some useful tools to assess and predict performance.

Dre - are we sure Johnson will continue to play? I can't decide if Mancini loves him or if petrov will start to steal minutes. If he plays then pairing him with lampard looks good though arteta/malouda will differentiate your team more. I will have a look at the reports on petrov and get back to you.
Unknown said…
ok granted, but i don't mind being called aggressive. it's a gamble but getting rid of rooney for gabbie,its allowed me to take a hit to get bendtner as well. surely agbonlahor x 2 & Bendtner outscoring rooney by 4 is 50-50(provided Nicklas can keep his pants on). I just hope the egg will wash off my face.

as for those gw34 fixtures, they seem to be coming back fast and apparently the av/eve game may still happen as villas cup match may be moved to midweek like the rest have already. we can dream
Unknown said…
Chris - I realized that I messed up my rankings by typing "4" instead of "5" for the villa players in my spreadsheet. The rankings should actually look like this:

Agbonlahor
Dunne
Drogba
Milner
Rooney
RossWB said…
Looking ahead to Week 31, it obviously looks like it has the potential to be a very big week. I already have quite a few double gameweek players, but was looking at adding a few more.

In particular, I was thinking of dumping Kuyt and Agbonlahor for Malouda and Tevez. Malouda has been in great form lately, while Kuyt seems to be receding into the background a bit with Gerrard and Torres back. I picked up Agbonlahor for last week's double gameweek and was (not surprisingly) disappointed in the results -- he barely played in the first game and did nothing much in the second. With Adebayor still out, it seems likely that Tevez will play a lot in both games. On the other hand, his match-ups aren't as kind as Agbonlahor's...

Are there any bargain defenders to look into? (I already have Cuellar from Villa and can't add another Villa player unless I dump Agbonlahor since I also have Milner.)

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