Gameweek 17 Rankings

Despite some customer dissatisfaction along with own disappointing form, I am sticking with the same prediction tools for now until I come up with something better. Here are rankings for this week:

Clean Sheet Rankings
  1. Newcastle
  2. Everton
  3. Man City
  4. Man Utd
  5. Chelsea
  6. Tottenham
  7. Stoke
  8. Aston Villa
  9. Bolton
  10. Fulham
  11. Wolves
  12. Wigan
  13. Sunderland
  14. Birmingham
  15. West Ham
  16. Arsenal
  17. Blackpool
  18. West Brom
  19. Liverpool
  20. Blackburn
Attacking Team Rankings
  1. Bolton
  2. Newcastle
  3. Aston Villa
  4. Man Utd
  5. Stoke
  6. Man City
  7. Wolves
  8. Fulham
  9. Everton
  10. Birmingham
  11. Blackburn
  12. Sunderland
  13. West Brom
  14. Chelsea
  15. Blackpool
  16. Tottenham
  17. Arsenal
  18. West Ham
  19. Wigan
  20. Liverpool
Captain Stats
The captain options are very limited this week with injuries (Fabregas, Van der Vaart) and tough fixtures (Che @ Tot, Ars @ MNU) taking their tole. The best options to be found are:

  •  Berbatov is averaging 10.83 PPG at home and has only failed to top 6 points once in all his home games this season. United project to score a couple of goals this week having averaged 3 GPG to date this year.
  • Like his teammate, Nani is deadly at home and is averaging an impressive 9.14 PPG at Old Trafford. His last four games at home have seen him notch points totals of 10-14-5-12 making him a great option again this week.
  • Drogba is not in good form and has not played well away from home all season (4.57 PPG). He is always an option given that he can score against anyone along with his recently acquired penalty duty but he is a risky pick.
  • Torres has been brutal away from home and travels to a Newcastle side who are pretty useful at home (1.25 GPG). As with Drogba he's always an option and anyone can have a big day (see, Berbatov, Dimitar) but the odds say this won't be it (cut to a scene of dozens (yes, dozens) of readers immediately transferring in and captaining Torres. And yes, this is an attempted reverse jinx having picked him up last week).

Comments

Unknown said…
Hey Chris, just a heads up that Tevez isnt playing this week because of his 5 yellows. Thoughts on captaining Elmander since they rank 1st in attacking potential?
Good writing Chris as always. Against Liverpool, quite tough for Newcastle to lead in the clean sheet and attacking rankings taking into consideration of the current events (new manager). Tevez is suspended for this week though, I planned to bench him. Agreed, Nani is a good shout for this weekend captain, I will go for it.
Carroll=Shearer said…
My opinion: Newcastle is ranked too high this week in both defense and attack. I know the stats say one thing, but the toon players are in bitter revolt right now. They loved Hughton.

I agree that Nani is captain material this week, but I could also see Arsenal scoring one or two.
Unknown said…
I'd like to echo the sentiment of others about Newcastle's rating.

I've been trying to figure out a better way of predicting goals scored and goals against. I'm toying with the idea of weighting the last 5 games more heavily than the previous games, as well as including both home and away form. I have no idea if this would work, and don't have the time to run the stats since I haven't been keeping my own spreadsheet this year.

I am thinking maybe something along the lines of: Last 5 games with a starting weight of 1. Of those, home games would have a weight of 1 and away games would have a weight of 1/2. Games prior to the last 5 start at weight 1/2. Home games stay at 1/2 and away games would be weighted 1/4.

This way it factors in current form rather than just season average. This would better predict teams that are going through form changes like Chelsea, Newcastle, and Liverpool.
Unknown said…
With most people leading towards obvious/popular choices, would going against the grain and captaining an overlooked player with a high ceiling (e.g. Elmander as a previous commenter suggested) be the ticket to gaining on your rivals? What do you think about this theory, Chris? I'm going with Etherington this week.
Unknown said…
Frowned Upon- I was also weighing my fantasy options this week and Etherington right now has the armband. My other option I'm considering is Nani (who will likely get it in the end).

I've had a rough time of it with my captain selections this year. Only once have I made an unusual pick, and it didn't pan out so hot with 4 points before the double. I've made 10/16 picks that have scored at least 5 points.
Kirk and Wayne said…
Tevez is suspended this week.
Chris said…
Apologies for the Tevez cock up. Post updated.

Auburn - I will add Elmander as the replacement. i currently don't track his individual stats as he hasnt been a traditional captain pick but i'll do that now.

Mel - Liverpool have been brutal away from home (5 goals in 8 games) hence newcastle rank first. I agree that Newcastle dont boast a great defense and that is the drawback with my rankings. I am working on a way to correct this. Either way Newcastle are a solid play this week.

The Hughton firing is all but impossible to factor into a stats based prediction so we have to use guesswork here. My gut says it goes one of two ways - they either totally implode of Pardew plays it very tight and they basically play not to lose against 'pool.

Andrew - not sure if the term great minds think alike applies here (as my mind is far from great) but have been having the same thoughts on weighting the past 5 games or so. This should increase the weight given to recent injuries and form.

Thanks for the comments and apologies again for the Tevez cock up. I havent really been following suspensions aside from obvious red cards. I will add this to the site now.
Colin said…
Chris,

I also like the idea of having the most recent five game weighting applied to the analysis. I think we also probably need in parallel with this some measure of how above/below strength teams are at a given time; this way you could factor in whether a team is out of form just due to injuries or if it's something more serious. It might also be a way of highlighting teams that migtht be about to come into a good run of form.
Chris said…
Colin - agreed. I was thinking of maybe giving extra weight to the past 5 results but not just on their face but against how they would be expected to perform in that game (eg if the plaed Newcastle who normally concede 2 GPG and the managed 5, the should get extra credit. However, just because they beat WH, Wol and Wig, doesn't mean they are necessarily playing well).

I am also trying to get a better ratio of which factor plays more into a team's performance: their own historic performance this season or that of their opponent (at the moment I just use 50:50).
Carroll=Shearer said…
I've placed the armband on Mario Balotelli. God help us all!
Leo said…
NO customer dissatisfaction here, I really love this blog, thanks.

However (!!) very suprised you haven't put Cahill on the captaincy list...thats where my arm band is.
Carroll=Shearer said…
Well that didn't work.

Super Mario my ass.
Unknown said…
Thankfully I let logic rule in the end and gave the armband to Nani instead of Etherington. Now just need Nani to perform.

I also made a good transfer this week to bring in Baines for A.Cole. Right now I'm on top of my mini-league and just need Tottenham and Arsenal to score a goal and I'll be good to go!

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