PLFantasy

So here's my excuse: the players listed in each team section within the team reviews are those with stats from last season. The players listed in the transfer section are all the new signings (per Transfermarkt ). Romelu Lukaku doesn't fit into either category (his data all relates to West Brom, of course) and thus I somehow excluded one of the most exciting prospects in the league from my eBook (I think I got everyone else though so check out the rest of the book if you want to see what I'm talking about). If I'd had a bit more sleep, and a few less wedding tasks to complete, here's what I would have written: Lukaku enjoyed a tremendous first real season in the Premier League, notching 17 goals and seven assists, supported by excellent underlying data including 97 total shots with an impressive 45 on target. These totals ranked 8th and 4th among all forwards respectively: excellent numbers for a player in a mid level team with a mid level price tag. What'...

A couple of readers on Twitter and here on the blog rightly suggested that a bit of a preview of the eBook might be useful for people to see if it's something they'd be interested in. With that in mind, here are a couple of screenshots of the kind of analysis you'll find in the eBook: 100 player profiles including expected goals, assists and points total from prior year (based on underlying data and regression). Includes a 'buy', 'consider', 'monitor' and 'avoid' status (Coutinho here is shown as a player to consider but one who carries at least one question mark: SImple data tells us how many games everyone played, but why did they miss the other games? The below chart provided for each defense shows which players were rotated by choice and which played whenever they were healthy: Forecast starting lineups for all 20 teams: Distribution of expected goals and assists by team: I hope these screenshots whet the c...

Welcome back everyone! Well, actually you've probably all been around a lot more than I have, so I guess it's me who's back. It's been a busy time for me personally (I got married on August 2nd!) and for the blog, as I've finally finished my proposed e-book season preview. It's something I've wanted to do for a couple of seasons but have finally managed to complete the project this year and, honestly, I'm delighted with how it turned out. It's 64 pages of content (all penned by yours truly) featuring: 100 individual player profiles and fantasy status (buy, sell, monitor etc) 17 full team previews including assessment of 2012-13 data, transfer analysis and forecast lineups Goalkeeper rotation data Forecast data for the first eight gameweeks of the season Brief analysis of every transfer, including fantasy status A review of the model in 2012-13 and how it will be improved this season. Now here's the awkward bit: there is a price tag...