PLFantasy

[edit: thanks to Ben for pointing out that I forgot to include Foster's loan move to West Brom below. Replace all Myhill references will Foster but be mindful of his higher price] I've been talking about the GK combo strategy for a number of years now, though the basic premise is worth repeating. There are two main issues which give to my support for this strategy:  If you go for a 'big name' keeper you effectively burn 4.0m as you are highly unlikely to ever play the lesser player. Only in a perfect storm where Petr Cech travels to the Emirates while John Ruddy welcomes Swansea will you bench the 7.0m man. The correlation between cost and points for 'keepers (right) has never been particularly strong with low budget options showing up every year (Al Habsi, Foster) to rank close to, if not above, their expensive counterparts (van der Sar). With a combo strategy you play the best fixture each week, on the basis that if you stick to the logical projectio...

The old bonus points was a constant source of contention for fantasy owners and while we tolerated the system, I'm not sure anyone ever really understood it. Well, credit to the developers over at pl.com who have added a layer of accountability with the inclusion of EA Sports Index as the new method of awarding points. The system aims to measure a player's all round contribution to the success of his team using six key indices: Winning performance - shares league points won by a team between the players according to the minutes they played. This will obviously favour winning teams, and to a lesser extent home teams who generally enjoy a higher winning percentage. Player's match performance - earn points for positive events (shots, tackles, saves etc) and lose them for negative events (missed shot, yellow card etc). Doesn't really favour anyone as any talented player can have a good game. Slight edge to keepers from weaker sides who may rack up more saves and clea...

Looking back at last season Failed to score 11 times in the season, including 4 of the last 9 weeks.  Scored 52 goals last season (10th) but 20 of these have moved on with Elmander (10), Sturridge (8) and Taylor (2) no longer with the team. Only logged 5 clean sheets, which were all at home. One of only three teams to fail to log a single road clean sheet (Villa and West Brom). Actually ranked 13th in goals conceded at home and away, so were perhaps a bit unlucky with the clean sheet results Huge variance between home and road goals scored: 1.79 GPG at home (5th) while just 0.95 away (15th). Home record eclipsed Arsenal and tied with Man City. Jaaskelainen ranked 9th in points among 'keepers but the team total was only good for 16th place. If you think other teams will have more settled lineups, you might want to pass. Defensive unit scored just 319 points all season (17th), less than half of Chelsea's total.  Thanks to Cahill's bonus haul (23) the team somehow ran...

Looking back at last season Rovers had the 7th best home clean sheet total (7) while struggling mightily on the road (1). The difference in GPG at home (0.84) and on the road (2.26) was the largest in the league. Joined Arsenal as one of two teams to average more goals away from home (1.26) than at Ewood Park (1.16).  Failed to score 10 times all season. 2 of these came in the first 18 games, 8 in the final 20 games after Steve Kean took over as manager.  Rovers 'keepers ranked 2nd overall at home in P$ with a tremendous mark of 0.990. Much like the previously discussed Villains , the defense makes a potentially nice spot start at home. The Rovers midfield was a wasteland outside of Gamst Pedersen, with the group averaging just 3.4 PPG, better than only Birmingham.  The front line scored 311 points between them, good for a ranking of 6th, but they were too widely dispersed to make anyone overly valuable. A more regular partnership might be worth a look given their...

Looking back at last season Managed just 48 goals (13th) which conceding 59 (14th) in what was a pretty mediocre fantasy season in the midlands.  Three of the top five points scorers from last season (Downing, Young and Friedel) have all moved on. Villa players racked up 40 assists last season, 20 of which came from Downing (9) and Young (11). After moving to Villa, Bent added 9 goals in 16 games with a 5.4 PPG . He continued his career trend of contributing little outside of goals though (1 assist, 9 bonus points). Villa racked up just 7 clean sheets (14th) though all of them came at home which ranked 7th in the league. At 5.0m the price tags might be low enough to warrant spot starting them at home this year if this trend continues. Only Blackburn had a bigger differential between home (1.00 GPG ) and road (2.11) goals allowed. After Bent joined the team in January, Villa scored in every game but one. Villa 'keepers ranked 8th in P$ at home but 19th on the road. Given is...

We're under three weeks until the start of the season so team previews are more than due. In order to save time, I have kept the posts to a scouting notebook style, rather than fluffing them up with prose which doesn't really teach you anything. The aim is to post a couple a day to give everyone time to digest them, ask questions and, more than likely, object to something contained within. First up, a deep source of fantasy talent: Arsenal. Headlines 72 goals scored ranked second in the league, 2.05 GPG rate on the road better than every other team by over half a goal. Failed to score on only 6 occasions, only bettered by Man Utd (5) Second in bonus points received (142), again only trailing the Champions (154) Sixth in clean sheets (13) overall, but dramatic splits between home (9 - 4th) and away (4 - t8th) Squad depth looks worryingly deep from a fantasy perspective with arguably the best squad Wenger has had since Henry, Pires et al graced the Emirates pitch. Looking...

The new game is finally here, so go ahead and sign up at the usual address:  http://fantasy.premierleague.com/ There will obviously be a few weeks of analysis to follow before the season kicks off, but until then lets look at a few of the price highlights and possible trends that emerge on first glance: Goalkeepers The rotation strategy is probably in play again this year, though sub-5m options are somewhat limited. Al Habsi (4.5m), Harper (4.5m) and Gordon (4.5m) look like early favourites though Given (5.0m) could justify the extra price assuming he locks down the #1 jersey at Villa.  With the return to fitness of Ferdinand and Vidic you wouldn't bet against a big season from new boy de Gea (6.5m) who could well prove to be the points leader come year end. Defenders No one has any idea who will start for City. Despite having the best defence last season, the most expensive players along the back line for City are Lescott (6.5m) and Kolarov (6.5m) though no less than sev...

After discussing goals earlier , we now turn our attention to the defence and review who kept clean sheets last year and how. More defenders hit triple digits than forwards and their production is often an afterthought as we chase 20 point games from the biggest names. As we approach the new season, here are some somewhat random thoughts to keep in mind as you pick your team. Man City and Chelsea tied for the best defense overall (33 goals) and were both dominant home teams (12 and 11 clean sheet respectively). However, on the road City conceded 1.11 GPG with just 6 clean sheets, making them comparable to the Birmingham defence at home (1.16 GPG with 6 clean sheets). Obviously, if you own Kolo Toure or Ashley Cole you are playing him pretty much every week, but just be careful about buying into total defensive stats and not paying due attention to the home/road splits.  Clean sheets were particularly streaky last season with the longest streak being held to 4 all year (Arsenal GW...

The sun is out, the money is flowing , players are on strike and fantasy football is on the horizon. Before the new prices come out and we scramble to attach value to the likes of Gervinho or Adel Taarabt, let's take a quick look back at some of highlights from last season, and what that might teach us for next season. Today we will start with the sexiest of the fantasy categories: goals. Goals per Game Taking a player's goals per 90 minutes and extrapolating over 38 games gives some interesting names to note, who quietly had exceptional seasons and would have delivered great fantasy value if you knew when to pick and choose your spots. The number of goals each player would have scored if playing every minute of every game is below: Robin van Persie - 35 Dimitar Berbatov - 33 Javier Hernandez - 30 Carlos Tevez - 29 Demba Ba - 26 Steve Fletcher - 25 Daniel Sturridge - 24 Salomon Kalou - 22 Roman Pavlyuchenko - 22 Andy Carroll - 21 Jermaine Beckford - 21 Rafael v...

Welcome back everyone. It seems like just a couple of weeks since the United players were lofting the Premier League trophy up high - before most of them signed for Sunderland that is. This site has been quiet since then I didn't even get a chance to chip in with my end of season thoughts as I have been re-working my data to try and setup better predictive tools for next season. In the meantime I have an exciting opportunity involving a new fantasy game - SimPrem . I have long speculated on the creation of a draft style game in which each player can only be owned by a single team and the boys over at SP have delivered in a major way. The rules are fairly complex compared to the PremierLeague.com game but they are intuitive and once you understand them, they should make the game very interesting to play. John and Doug are currently welcoming new entrants to the league so I thought I'd put it out there for any readers who are keen to try something new and can commit...