Gameweek 16 Preview

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Attacking Rankings

Clean Sheet Rankings
Individual Rankings

A couple of quick notes on player rankings which will likely cause some consternation:

  • At City, United are forecast to register just six SiB which gives van Persie a couple, based on his 36% share to date. On those numbers the model just isn't going to forecast big returns for the Dutchman this week.
  • Ba's ranking over Berbatov looks a bit odd given that you would fancy the home team in the contest, but the ranking accounts for each player's share of their team's shots to date, and Ba simply dominates in that metric (53% SiB vs 26% for Berbatov). Berbatov's assist potential makes it close and the risk that Ba doesn't play would likely make me pick the Bulgarian here, but the model doesn't account for injuries.
  • The Reading players get the edge of Sunderland due to the other game, as while the model likes the extra fixture to be fairly close, it favours Reading against Southampton rather than Sunderland against Chelsea.

Comments

Astik said…
Do you take in account "Home and Away" games for predicting points for respective players?

Brilliant work BTW.
December 6, 2012 at 8:24 AM
Chris said…
Yeh the model splits each teams' performance at home and away, as well as how each player performed H/A, based on his own shot totals and his share of his teams.
December 6, 2012 at 10:47 AM
JT said…
Interesting to see that the model doesn't forecast very high returns for the much fancied Michu this week.

Many plan to pick him this week due to a lack of obvious choices (including me) but this is really putting me off.

Berbatov is my VC but I just can't justify captaining him given his/Fulham's form of late, arguably in part due to the ongoing absence of Ruiz.

Thoughts on who you'd pick outside of the DGW players?
December 6, 2012 at 11:42 AM
Chris said…
Michu is an interesting player as while his returns (and underlying stats) are excellent for a player of his cost, on a pure points expectation basis, it's still tough to suggest he's a truly elite player, other than the dubious notion of 'goalscoring form'.

In home games he has accounted for 20% of Swansea's SiB, and despite their perceived 'hot form' they've managed just 7, 4, 9 and 9 SiB in the last four home games, so we can immediately see that Michu is unlikely to enjoy a day filled will scores of chances.

If you believe he can continue to hit the target at a 48% rate (unlikely, but possible) and that those shots will continue to be converted into goals at a 53% rate (almost impossible) then there's reason to be very optimistic. However, my model is based on likelihood of success and thus while Michu remains a tremendous pickup at 7.8m, it's impossible to say his current conversion rates are sustainable without basically making the statement that he is literally one of the best players in history.

If you don't like any other options (which is reasonable given the lack of options this week) I'd be okay captaining Michu, but you do so betting against the kind of regression which has come for all but the very best players in the league, and even them when it comes to goals per SoT.
December 6, 2012 at 5:36 PM
Chris said…
If I was captaining a non-DGW player I would probably have gone with Ba, but given his injury concerns I would look to either Giroud, Cazorla or Berbatov. I feel that the demise of these players has been greatly exagerrated and like all three to return to fantasy production in the coming weeks. Neither NEW nor WBA are particularly formidable defensive foes, surrendering 20% and 15% more SiB than opponent adjusted league average, while ARS are still racking up 25%+ at home (FUL are +2%).
December 6, 2012 at 5:39 PM
Fantasy Overlord said…
Loving the stats on this site.

Try plugging your team into http://fantasyoverlord.com and see what transfers it recommends
December 7, 2012 at 5:51 AM
Fantasy Overlord said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
December 7, 2012 at 5:51 AM
stooshermadness said…
Great post as usual Chris. Despite my reservations about Cazorla as expressed in my comment to your last post, I expect to catain him this week. I tend to agree with JT above - it's tough to pick Berbatov when he doesn't have Ruiz to play off of. And I totally agree with your take on Michu. I knee-jerked him in last Saturday (a bit of a beer-infused transfer) before his price rises, but regression fears means I won't hand him the armband. I couldn't see my way to bring in any of the attacking DGW guys (Cuellar was already in my team) as I couldn't feature keeping them even over the short term.

This feature of yours on Thursdays is absolutely my go-to post before selecting my team for the weekend. Great stuff, thanks.
December 7, 2012 at 8:53 AM
Chris said…
I'm intrigued by the Ruiz point, and just noticed they've also touched on it over at FFS. It's definitely possible and worth investigating, but my concern would be that we're basing conclusions on a three game sample size against three teams @STK, @CHE and TOT, who are pretty useful defensively. The fact that Ruiz also missed GWs 3, 4, 8 and most of 5 and 9 in which Berbatov averaged 6 points a game seems like it needs mentioning too.
December 7, 2012 at 5:24 PM
Ton the Don said…
1) What's going on in Arsenal? I've been monitoring Giroud the whole season with interest, but the returns aren't there for him at the moment.

2) Michu does it again...Cisse of last year is the best comparison by far
December 9, 2012 at 1:09 PM
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