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In hindsight perhaps this wasn't perhaps the best game to review these two teams in. We knew Chelsea were good and that West Brom were somewhere between solid and inconsistent though ultimately lacking a great depth in quality. Both these hypotheses proved accurate this weekend as Chelsea not only won the game but did so with almost embarrassing ease. 74% possession, 21 totals shots and eight shots inside the box (versus 24%, 5, 1 for West Brom) go some way to illustrating Chelsea's dominance but while they do capture the result, they don't quite show the ease as which that result was obtained. One positive - at least in terms of forming a nice narrative to fit into a 500 word review - was the fact that Chelsea's dominance was only matched by the predictability of how that dominance came to be. Fabregas led the way with the created chances (5), Costa contributed his customary shot haul (4 SiB, 1 goal) and Hazard came inbetween the two with a piece of both pies (4 crea...

Chelsea Learn About Tableau So this Chelsea defense is pretty solid. They've topped -20% SiB +/- in all but three of their games and currently rank second in supressing opponent SiB with -25% overall, trailing only Arsenal. At home they've been frankly ridiculous with three games over -60% including the -100% effort against Leicester (one of only two such games in the league this year). So far this has only translated into three clean sheets but with an incredible four games allowing five SiB or less yet still conceding a single goal, we can expect some steep improvement in the future. If we want to access this defensive unit then, who should we focus our attention on? Ivanovic comes with a much higher price tag while the cheapest option - Azpilicueta - is probably the one player who faces at least some rotation threat with Felipe Luis hanging around on the bench. Let's take a look at their respective attacking threat to date: Learn About Tableau As e...

Hopefully you've made it through the international break unscathed - unlike many players - and you're ready for the fantasy fun to start again. We start this week with a new set of team's to adopt, headlined by the all conquering Chelsea and supplemented by a hard-to-pin-down West Brom side. Let's start with the team who appear to be have been crowned as the Champions-elect, which seems like a great idea in mid-November: Chelsea Learn About Tableau Chelsea are generally regarded as having the deepest bench in the league, though at the back they don't have a multitude of options and are thus somewhat limited when it comes to rotation options. This, of course, is good news for fantasy managers as while Felipe Luis has shown flashes in limited time, Azpilicueta was quickly restored to the side last time out and still looks fairly entrenched at left back. Zouma meanwhile will be closely watched by the Football Manager crowd having brought a sizeable reputation...

As we enter another drab international week, it presents a well-overdue chance to dig a little deeper into this year's model and look at some of the results which don't necessarily align with what the majority of people appear to be thinking. I don't want to get too bogged down in the merits of any particular assumption in the model, though obviously as we look back and see where the model missed reality, tweaks can and are made. I do however want to illustrate how individual forecast numbers are made up and why that leads to the situation, for example, where Alexis Sanchez has so-so forecast numbers despite leading all midfielders in points to date (by a distance). Regressing conversion rates The first and most obvious point to note is that Sanchez has a particularly high goals per shot on target ratio (50%) which based on history is unlikely to be sustained. The model uses a regressed conversion rate based on a combination of a player's history (where applicable)...

Right off the bat, let's all dispose of our shock that this game didn't finish 4-3. Okay, those games happened almost 20 years but I really felt that Stan Collymore and Tino Asprilla would have a big impact on this game. In reality this game was along way from a classic, with two sides lacking something , quite what that is is hard to say. The optimist will say confidence while others will argue quality. I might argue Suarez and Cabaye. Liverpool The gap between Liverpool's dominance in possession (65%) and shot production (two SiB) is about as stark as I recall seeing and probably performs a reasonable summary for Liverpool's woes. I'm not going to make this 500 words on Balotelli's ineptitude as, simply, he just isn't a bad player. He is however not playing particularly well on a zero to Suarez scale and the system he's being used in does not seem to be working well for either party right now. The Italian seems to want to drop off the front, much l...

Liverpool Learn About Tableau These pages lack the kind of influence that might be able to convince the masses 1 , but I hope at least one reader with affection for Liverpool might see the above chart and at least take their finger off the panic button, even if they're not willing to put the emergency cover back on. Yes, Luis Suarez has left. And you're right Daniel Sturridge is injured. You can no longer see a movie for a nickel and kids don't have respect for older generations anymore. We get it, all is lost. Except when it isn't. We see above that Liverpool have generated better-than-average shots inside the box in every game while their defense has been solid with five such performances of their own. The conversion of goals per shot on target probably cannot simply be regressed back to league average without other considerations taken into account (type of shot, for one), but it's also reasonable to suggest that it's unlikely Liverpool have gone from a tea...