Is offense the best defense?
In the recent Everton preview, I noted that I would stay away from Leighton Baines given the need for him to produce historic numbers to justify the lofty price tag. This statement was somewhat abstract and so I thought I should expand on a theory which I have long followed in fantasy football: don't pay for offensive defenders.
As with all overarching theories, the wording is too blunt and should really read, don't pay too much extra for last year's offensive defenders; but that isn't as catchy. Before we get too bogged down with words, let's get back on solid ground with some stats.
Goals
The below players have all had at least one season scoring 3 or more goals:
Only one player (Gary Cahill) has scored 3 goals or more in all three of the above season with nine players having two such seasons. Of the 31 three-goal seasons shown above, only 7 of them (23%) were preceded by another three-goal season. Vidic, Lescott, Taylor, Turner, Scharner, Cole and Craddock have all scored at least 4 goals one year, followed by one or less goals in the next. This suggests that while past success can indicate future gains, it is by no means a guarantee.
Assists
Again, only one player (Leighton Baines) has managed to notch 3 assists in all three seasons and only 7 have managed two such seasons. Of the 26 three-assist seasons shown above, only 7 of them (27%) were preceded by another three-assist season. Again, while past performance has some correlation to future success, it is by no means a guarantee. Big seasons from Johnson, Evra, Berra and Heitinga have all been followed by substantially reduced numbers.
The price of success
What is the price of a goal? Or, more precisely how much extra should we be willing to pay to secure the services of an offensive defender (if we accept the fact that such a player exists)?
Take the following fictitious example of Gary Cahill, the leading goalscorer over the past 3 seasons (P = appearance and defensive points, G = goal points, A = assist points, B = bonus points, T = total points):
Cahill needs 3 goals and extra bonus points (which aren't necessarily related based on the top scorers in last season's EA Sports Index) just to break even in terms of value, assuming Knight doesn't notch a single offensive point.
This situation gets more pronounced as you move onto more expensive players from better teams. Below is an example scenario for Everton:
Based on their varying price tags, Baines will need to generate over 50 offensive points more than Distin just to break even in terms of P$.
Now, granted, at a certain point you need to focus on points rather than value but I would strongly argue that you should do this with premium forwards and midfielders rather than your mid level defenders given the potential gulf in points among the attacking players. Consider that the same 2.5m could be used to upgrade from Darren Fletcher to Nani or from Zamora to Hernandez and you see how Baines' price tag might be tough to justify.
Hopefully this will go some of the way to showing why I tend to shy away from the pricey defenders but feel free to post any comments/criticism below as the strategy is definitely arguable. Also a quick reminder that the team previews can be found here and be sure to check out @plfantasy for the latest news on Twitter.
As with all overarching theories, the wording is too blunt and should really read, don't pay too much extra for last year's offensive defenders; but that isn't as catchy. Before we get too bogged down with words, let's get back on solid ground with some stats.
Goals
The below players have all had at least one season scoring 3 or more goals:
Player | 08/09 | 09/10 | 10/11 |
Cahill | 3 | 5 | 3 |
Samba | 2 | 4 | 4 |
Vidic | 4 | 1 | 5 |
Huth | 0 | 3 | 6 |
Johnson G | 3 | 3 | 2 |
Lescott | 4 | 1 | 3 |
Baines | 1 | 1 | 5 |
Hangeland | 0 | 1 | 6 |
Nelsen | 0 | 4 | 3 |
Ridgewell | 0 | 3 | 4 |
Taylor S | 4 | - | 3 |
Vermaelen | - | 7 | 0 |
Alex | 3 | 1 | 2 |
Craddock | 0 | 5 | 1 |
Faye | 3 | 2 | 1 |
Shawcross | 3 | 2 | 1 |
Cole | 1 | 4 | 0 |
Gallas | 2 | 3 | 0 |
Scharner | 1 | 4 | 0 |
Terry | 0 | 2 | 3 |
Turner | 4 | 1 | 0 |
Coleman | - | - | 4 |
Collins | 0 | 1 | 3 |
Ivanovic | 0 | 0 | 4 |
Kaboul | 0 | 3 | 1 |
Dunne | 1 | 3 | 0 |
Boyce | 0 | 3 | 0 |
Clark | 0 | 0 | 3 |
Collison | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Bardsley | 0 | 0 | 3 |
Upson | 0 | 3 | 0 |
Warnock | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Only one player (Gary Cahill) has scored 3 goals or more in all three of the above season with nine players having two such seasons. Of the 31 three-goal seasons shown above, only 7 of them (23%) were preceded by another three-goal season. Vidic, Lescott, Taylor, Turner, Scharner, Cole and Craddock have all scored at least 4 goals one year, followed by one or less goals in the next. This suggests that while past success can indicate future gains, it is by no means a guarantee.
Assists
The below players have all had at least one season with 3 or more assists:
Player | 08/09 | 09/10 | 10/11 |
Baines | 6 | 9 | 11 |
Ivanovic | 1 | 6 | 5 |
Cole | 2 | 4 | 5 |
Johnson G | 4 | 5 | 2 |
Evra | 2 | 7 | 2 |
Sagna | 1 | 5 | 3 |
Warnock | 3 | 3 | 2 |
O'Shea | 3 | 1 | 3 |
Corluka | 3 | 2 | 2 |
Steinsson | 5 | 2 | 0 |
Nelsen | 1 | 2 | 3 |
Figueroa | 2 | 1 | 3 |
Berra | 0 | 4 | 1 |
Higginbotham | 3 | 2 | 0 |
Jose Enrique | 2 | 0 | 3 |
Huth | 0 | 1 | 3 |
Baird | 0 | 3 | 1 |
Heitinga | 0 | 4 | 0 |
Shawcross | 1 | 3 | 0 |
Coleman | 0 | 0 | 4 |
Evatt | 0 | 0 | 4 |
Olsson | 0 | 0 | 3 |
Zubar | 0 | 3 | 0 |
Walker | 0 | 0 | 3 |
El-Mohamady | 0 | 0 | 3 |
Again, only one player (Leighton Baines) has managed to notch 3 assists in all three seasons and only 7 have managed two such seasons. Of the 26 three-assist seasons shown above, only 7 of them (27%) were preceded by another three-assist season. Again, while past performance has some correlation to future success, it is by no means a guarantee. Big seasons from Johnson, Evra, Berra and Heitinga have all been followed by substantially reduced numbers.
The price of success
What is the price of a goal? Or, more precisely how much extra should we be willing to pay to secure the services of an offensive defender (if we accept the fact that such a player exists)?
Take the following fictitious example of Gary Cahill, the leading goalscorer over the past 3 seasons (P = appearance and defensive points, G = goal points, A = assist points, B = bonus points, T = total points):
Player | P | G | A | B | T | Cost | |
Knight | 100 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100 | 4.5m | 0.614 |
Cahill | 100 | 18 | 0 | 5 | 123 | 5.5m | 0.612 |
Cahill needs 3 goals and extra bonus points (which aren't necessarily related based on the top scorers in last season's EA Sports Index) just to break even in terms of value, assuming Knight doesn't notch a single offensive point.
This situation gets more pronounced as you move onto more expensive players from better teams. Below is an example scenario for Everton:
Player | P | G | A | B | T | Cost | |
Distin | 100 | 6 | 0 | 10 | 116 | 5.5m | 0.555 |
Baines | 100 | 24 | 30 | 15 | 169 | 8.0m | 0.555 |
Based on their varying price tags, Baines will need to generate over 50 offensive points more than Distin just to break even in terms of P$.
Now, granted, at a certain point you need to focus on points rather than value but I would strongly argue that you should do this with premium forwards and midfielders rather than your mid level defenders given the potential gulf in points among the attacking players. Consider that the same 2.5m could be used to upgrade from Darren Fletcher to Nani or from Zamora to Hernandez and you see how Baines' price tag might be tough to justify.
Hopefully this will go some of the way to showing why I tend to shy away from the pricey defenders but feel free to post any comments/criticism below as the strategy is definitely arguable. Also a quick reminder that the team previews can be found here and be sure to check out @plfantasy for the latest news on Twitter.
Comments
Any thoughts?
Going off of your article, I'd probably downgrade Cole. But how far?
- A large number of teams have Danny Simpson as their 4.0 Defender. Can you tell me a bit about him?
That was an interesting analysis regardless, as I've come to be quite fond of attacking defenders after Coleman also gave me some good points last year (but alas that option is out of the question this year). I definitely will give some thought next time I want to get abother attacking defender though.
Do you think you could go more in-depth with this P$ stat.... maybe get the xP of some of the more popular players being chosen this season and giving them a P$ figure which could justify picking one over the other.
PS Cant believe I just found this blog... keep up the good work!
I imagine the few examples you gave there could be replicated all over the park, perhaps even to the extent where one could say, generally speaking, that the best P$ (shouldn't that really be P£, anyway!?) is to be found with the dirt cheap players that had a half decent season.
While you should definitely have a few of these sorts of player sin your team, if you filled your team entirely with them, you wouldn't score many points at all.
Another thing that is not taken into account in the P$ score is that some players have a higher price tag because they represent a lower risk of being benched, not just because they score lots of points.
I'm sure there are many examples of cheap players that got the chance to play most games in the season (perhaps because a team regular was on long-term injury). These players are certainly not guarunteed to have the same position in the team this season, while our friend Mr Baines is likely to start every game he is fit for.
Please, please, keep up the good work though, this is an excellent blog you have here. I'm hanging on every word and tweaking my team accordingly!
I'm not sure that Simpson will play. He got a decent amount of minutes last season and I think he is winning favor with managers as the 4.0m defender with the most prior year points. Wilkinson from Stoke has shown that he should get decent minutes (he started for Stoke in Europe already) and may be more consistent that Simpson.
Musicshares - Baines would have the been the exception to the rule given his amazing contributions over the years but the price makers knew this and 8.0m is just too much for me to justify. To clarify, I LOVE attacking defenders and will always try and pick those defenders who will score at both ends, I'm just suggesting that we don't pay a huge premium for prior year prodcution. Coleman last year was extremely cheap and attacking, the perfect combo.
Exquisite - sounds like a good idea. Now I finally figured out how to write a table in HTML, I can start putting larger amounts of data onto the site. As I said, value for money isn't everything as at a certain point you just want to accrue as many points as possible, but I do find it useful to try and gauge how much to spend on a particular skill set.
Simon - excellent points. Leaning too heavily on value for money is indeed a potential trap, and one I have fallen into before. I tried to be fair to Baines and Cahill by comparing them to players who will almost certainly play every week rather than an obscure gem that emerges in the season.
If Baines can lock in another season like last year then he possibly is worth 8m as he's one of a handful of players who could even touch that kind of production. However, his upside beyond last year's numbers is minimal while the downside has been shown by players like Evra and Cole who've had 2 assist, 0 goal seasons in the past.
Finally, it absolutely should be P£ but I live in Canada now and my keyboard only has the dollar sign on it. I'm too lazy to insert a symbol every time so I'm afraid the blog has been Americanised!
Thanks for the comments guys
btw, come and join my fantasy football league everybody! I need to get some more names on the board!
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Great stuff this season - thank you,
Michael
Frank - send me a tweet and I'll follow you so you can DM me
I was with you until you said "Consider that the same 2.5m could be used to upgrade from Darren Fletcher to Nani or from Zamora to Hernandez".
No-one's picking Fletcher.
I generally have expensive defenders because the difference between the premium players and the value players is much less than for midfielders and forwards.
I would consider Etherington, Barton, N'Zogbia, Moses, Brunt, Eagles and Murphy to be the value in midfield (assuming Etherington isn't injured and Barton plays nicely with the other kids in the sandpit). I haven't done the math this season but I'd be surprised if you spend an extra 2.5m on top of any of that lot that you'd get better value than Baines.
Having said that I think the value in the Everton defence is Jagielka!
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2.5m more than N'Zogbia gives you Nani, the best fantasy player last season who showed a 250 point pace. Zamora is the 17th most selected forward. I would very much argue that the difference there is highly likely to be (a) higher than between Baines and Jagielka/Distin and (b) is more likely to be higher as the chance of Nani not scoring goals/assists is surely lower than Baines doing the same?
Baines probably isn't the best example as I rate him very highly (in real life) and believe he can have success again, but the general point is that paying for past success is a bad idea in this particular area.
We can make stats prove either point which is why I try not to give too much advice on here rather than point out facts and suggest how they could be used.
Megaan - thanks for posting, the blog looks good
TD - well played , Sir
Well said Sir. Keep up the good work!