PLFantasy

P90  Points per 90 minutes at home/away based on the player's fixture  QG  Number of quality games for the season (6 or more points)  BG  Number of bad games for the season (3 points or less)  %  Percentage of team goals scored or assisted  SD  Standard deviation of player scores (risk)  Rating  Percentage of team goals accounted for multiplied by expected team goals for the week. <a href="#"><img alt="Dashboard 1 " src="http://public.tableausoftware.com/static/images/Ca/Captain_0...

Looking back at last season Reputation as a high scoring team is not totally justified ranking just 10th at home with 1.58 GPG and 6th on the road (1.32 GPG ). They did however only fail to score 8 times, a mark that tied for 4th best in the league Just 8 clean sheets on the season ranked 12th, without much dominance at home (5) or on the road (3). The defense substantially improved in the second half though with 7 clean sheets compared to just 1 in the first half. This was despite conceding the same number of goals in total, so it could be someone of a statistical trick rather than a marked improvement in tactics. Their 'keepers gave decent value last year ranking 11th in P90 and 8th in P$ . Some of this value was derived from Cudicini's cheap minutes which will be gone this year with Friedel's arrival.  Defensive unit was actually more valuable on the road, ranking 8th in P90 (13th at home) and 3rd in P$ (11th at home). This is encouraging as it suggests Sp...

Clean Sheet Rankings Blackburn Liverpool Man City Birmingham West Brom Chelsea Sunderland Everton Wigan Arsenal Bolton Newcastle Aston Villa Fulham Blackpool West Ham Wolves Tottenham Man Utd Stoke  Team Goal Rankings Arsenal Chelsea Blackpool West Brom Blackburn Tottenham Liverpool Wigan Birmingham Sunderland Stoke Aston Villa Man City Bolton Man Utd Wolves Newcastle Everton Fulham West Ham Team Goals (form adjusted*) West Brom Tottenham Arsenal Blackburn Man City Blackpool Sunderland Chelsea Stoke Birmingham Bolton Man Utd Wigan Aston Villa Liverpool Wolves Newcastle Everton Fulham West Ham *This formula simply adds extra weight (33%) to the last 5 games rather than the whole season. I haven't tested whether this has proven to be more effective but it's at least worth a glance. Captain Stats The captain picks this week are pretty tough with Chelsea and Man Utd squaring off on Sunday. The pick of the stats are b...

This week's preview is going to be a bit condensed as my internet access has been limited while still on my travels. After the long rambling piece from GW2 was done I had enough time to throw together the below rankings which will hopefully help with lineup and transfer questions for the week: Clean Sheet Rankings Chelsea (0.27) Man United (0.36) Tottenham (0.40) Liverpool (0.55) Blackpool (0.63) Aston Villa (0.70) Wolves (0.79) Newcastle (0.81) Blackburn (1.13) Bolton (1.13) Sunderland (1.17) Arsenal (1.36) Fulham (1.44) Man City (1.48) Everton (1.61) Birmingham (1.63) West Brom (3.39) Stoke (3.73) West Ham (3.83) Wigan (4.03) Aside from the usual candidates, Blackpool stand out as a top pick for the week but I am cautious about this ranking due to the lack of data we have for them at home in the EPL. That said, Fulham were awful away last season (12 goals) and so Blackpool might just be worth a shot if you need a budget option this week. The top four picks...

The below is a bit late due to my lack of internet access. The GW3 preview will also be up shortly.  Seeing as these gameweek roundups invariably descend into random thoughts from the football world, I thought I would rename the segment as both a nod to the nature of my posts and to the greatest rock band of all time (see how even the introductions are now rambling . . . good luck to the reader!). This week is one in which my concise writing would be especially beneficial given the goals (38) and fantasy excitement of this past week. Without further ado then I will start with a few big performances that require our attention: Theo Walcott (7.1m) - I included Walcott in my ' under the radar' piece before the season started so while Walcott enjoying success is not a total surprise, the timing is much earlier than I expected. It is pleasing to see him flourish early in the season as this performance should buy him some patience for when he inevitably has one of those incon...

Well that went well. One of my better week of predictions is in the bag and Pure Juice sit 113th out of close to 2 million managers having managed six goals and four clean sheets on opening weekend. Unfortunately I don't think I have struck some sort of fantasy blueprint to be applied in all future weeks - more than I got a bit lucky and applied some fundamental principles that hold true for the coming weeks too: While I cautioned earlier about using minutes played as a sure fire barometer for future success, during these opening weeks when team selections are unsettled from prior season, it is essential to go with the sure things and try and avoid trying to discover the next big thing too early. That is why - as some of you have correctly pointed out - I somewhat deviated from my normal strategy of cheaper defenders and brought in Vidic and Terry for opening weekend (this was also due to saving some cash swapping Van Persie to Berbatov quite late on after it becam...

Before I get too carried away with the World Cup , I want to take a bit of time to look back over the season and hand out some well deserved awards. I will be posting some further analysis throughout the season as soon as I have managed to build a decent database that I can use. Premier League Blog Champion Congratulations to Ahmed el Kassar whose 'No Mercy' team won the blog league with a very impressive 2441 points to place just outside the top 1,000 in the world. I plan to comment more on the status of the league next year so please re-join next season and invite your friends as I look to integrate the progress of the team into the blog. PL Team of the Year I have selected the below squad which was available for under £100m at the start of the year, as my team of the year. I would guess that this might be the most controversial section so please post your alternatives below and we'll discuss: GK T.Sorensen (4.0m) Fourth among GK in points scored despite missing...