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I'm a little bit pressed for time this week so I'm going to keep this post briefer than before so we have time to get into the stats before the weekend. Liverpool Learn About Tableau Despite losing Suarez who was obviously a big driver behind this team's success last season, it's hard to argue that this squad isn't deeper than it was last year, with quality backups at virtually every position. Despite having seven playable options, the back line has been very settled with Moreno, Lovren, Skrtel and Manquillo each starting virtually every game and never appearing as a substitute. Moreno and Lovren were high profile captures during the off season so it was reaonable to pencil that pair in. Skrtel re-solididied his place in this side last season after a year or so of sporadic play but with Sakho available I still felt there was some risk there. That really hasn't materialised and with Sakho now sidelined, the big Slovakian looks pretty locked in right now. If I...

This was an enjoyable game to watch for the neutral spectator, with two teams that were fairly evenly matched on the day and a couple of quality moments which defined the game. If we're being honest, the game was generally close because of Everton's inability to really push on and dominate against the supposed "lesser" team, but credit must be given for Burnley's industry and the way Dyche had his team setup which countered much of what Everton wanted to do. The game stats show Everton dominating in overall possession (64%) though less so in the amount of time spent in the opponents' half (56%) which highlights the fact that Everton were cautious for long stretches of this game; something that was always likely to be true with Barry, McCarthy and Osman all used in the middle of the field. Though perhaps harsh to criticise a team who scored three away from home, without Mirallas, Barkley and Pienaar I believe this team lacks a bit of creativity and at times t...

Learn About Tableau The above chart doesn't show Burnley in a great light, with a few too many games drifting into that bottom left quadrant, but hey, at least they're (probably) better than QPR! The underlying data suggests their defense has actually been pretty useful with above average performances in every game other than this week's defeat to West Ham and for the most part they've been reasonable value for their three clean sheets. They have conceded 70 SiB which isn't great but given the fact they've already got one meeting with Chelsea and Man Utd out of the way and already travelled to Swansea and West Brom, there's hope that some success might come in the future against fellow bottom dwellers. Going forward, the team really struggled out of the gates with just a single goal in the first six games, but they have at least come back with two at Leicester and a consolation against West Ham suggesting there might yet be light at the end of the tunnel. Th...

Learn About Tableau Given their tough fixture list to date - Everton have already faced Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Man Utd - and having not seen too many of their games myself, I figured a deeper look at the stats would reveal a team who had either been particularly unlucky with their results or were simply victim to those tough teams. To a degree that's true, as they picked up just two points from the three games in which the data falls into the top right quadrant yet their defense has been below average in the other five contests as they've struggled along with just a couple of clean sheets. This week's 3-0 win over Villa will have many assuming the team have turned the corner but those three goals came on just eight SiB (six SoT) suggesting there is still some way to go until we see this attacking unit hit the heights of last season. It's not surprising to see that Everton have tended to favour the left side of the pitch when going forward with 49% of their cre...

Everton Learn About Tableau Everton have always been one of the sides I enjoy writing about as over the past couple of seasons they've had a pleasing blend of both ability and predictability, all while often flying under the radar of the masses. 1 For the most part those trends have continued this year with a solid back line and talented front man, although there isn't really a target player in midfield as we've had in the past with the likes of Arteta, Cahill, Pienaar and Fellaini. Starting at the back, we have Howard, Baines, Jagielka and Coleman absolutely locked into their respective positions, with at least threee of those options offering about as much security and low upside as you're going to find among premier league starters. We'll get to a comparison of the defenders potential weighed against their price in the next stats post but for now we can conclude that they are all essentially as safe as each other. The last man in when healthy is probably Stone...

Despite the suggestions in some section of old media, the so-called "stats" versus "scouting" debate is essentially over. I would imagine most, if not all, teams pay at least some attention to advanced stats with player performance tracked and assessed on an increasingly granular level. The same should be true in fantasy football. The suggestion that you can't scout players purely based on a spreadsheet is completely fair, but is likely something of a straw man argument as I don't know if anyone really believes that to be true. Equally, you are probably missing out if you think you can glean all the information you need by watching games (or more precisely highlights as the majority of games aren't televised in many regions). This game served a nice reminder that both those one sided views are foolish. The highlights package would give you much of what you need to know in that Arsenal largely dominated the game but were picked off by a couple of Hull a...

Even though we're still just seven weeks into the new season, we've already observed a number of interesting and somewhat strange happenings at the Emirates: in terms of underlying data, the defense has been more impressive than the usually explosive attack in terms of actual results though, the defense has struggled with just a single clean sheet to date Wenger did bring in a relatively big name forward - who's looked great so far - yet there still seems to be a feeling that they need more - probably in part due to the success of Diego Costa on the other side of London the team has quietly assembled the best depth they've enjoyed in recent memory yet they've suffered through so many injuries that the average bench has tended to be more Campbell and Coquelin than Giroud and Cazorla Arsenal out shot Chelsea 10 to five and enjoyed more possesion at Stamford Bridge last time out, yet lost the game (their first of the season) and now find themselves nine points beh...

Learn About Tableau The second team we're going to adopt this week are Arsenal's opponents - Hull - who have been enjoying a reasonable start to the new campaign, although as we'll get to later in the week, their underlying data suggests trouble might be brewing if they don't start to generate more chances for their talented front pair. Hull have switched between a 4-4-2 and 3-5-2 base formation thus far this year, making their lineup a little harder to forecast on a weekly basis. We don't really have enough of a sample of draw any concrete conclusions about the team scoring/conceding more/less goals when in either formation so I'm not going to focus too much attention there in this post. McGregor, Davies, Dawson, Robertson and Elmohamady all appear to be close to automatic choices here with Chester the first man in if the back three is favoured. Elmohamady is classified as a midfielder in the PL.com game so we'll touch on him in a second, leaving three op...

Learn About Tableau The first team we're "adopting" this week is Arsenal, and so we'll start with the basics and look at who's played so far and who's likely to keep playing in the future. At the back there isn't too much to talk about with a fairly clear first choice back four of Gibbs, Mertesacker, Koscielny and Debuchy with Chambers likely providing the first bench option in both the middle and on the right with Monreal serving as Gibbs' understudy. Injuries have prevented that lineup from playing together all season, and that trend will continue with Debuchy (three months, ankle) sidelined for a sustained period. That will allow Chambers to continue his impressive start at the Emirates (after his GW8 suspension) and so at 4.6m he would be the clear short-medium term option to use here. Despite the constant criticism of not spending enough money or being able to compete with the league's big spenders, Wenger has assembled a deep and talented m...

With a busy schedule of late, I didn't see much action last weekend and then with the international break in play I've been struggling for inspiration. Like all resourceful bloggers I have stolen settled on an idea for the next few weeks of action. Taking a page from my favourite NFL podcast ( Grantland ), I am going to "adopt" two teams each week and focus coverage on them in the lead up to their games (ideally against each other which allows a more comprehensive review after the game). The idea being that trying to cover 20 teams on your own is (a) difficult and (b) leads to average coverage of all teams rather than great coverage of some. I would suggest this idea works best in all media, though of course a lot of local news is terrible, but that tends to be because it panders to ridiculous local interests and biases rather than because it's a flawed principle. The schedule for each team will run roughly from Tuesday - Tuesday and try to feature (as much as ...