PLFantasy

Powered by Tableau I've finally got some captain data to use this week, and while it certainly isn't a finished product, I'm happy enough to share it and see where it leads in the next few weeks. The short story is that the value in the below graph is a very approximate forecast of the points for the week, based on a number of factors that correlate fairly well to future production. For more information on the actual nuts and bolts of the calculation, see below the captain commentary under the table. As a caveat for all, these forecast numbers should be taken with a pinch, nay a drum, of salt and are really intended to guide our thoughts rather than make factual predictions. That said, I believe that over the course of a season you'll be better using them than the old 'gut' feeling. I always like getting feedback from readers but as this is very much a work in progress, suggestions, ideas and criticism would be even more welcome here. Powe...

& lt ;a href ="#">& lt ; img alt="Dashboard 1 " src ="http://public. tableausoftware .com/static/images/Ga/Gameweek3Preview/Dashboard1/1_ rss . png " style="border: none" />& lt ;/a> Powered by Tableau We are still limited to subjective views on the captain picks for the week as stats for this season are too few while stats for last season are outdated for most players. Rather than arbitrarily focus on just one of two players, I've added some rough notes for all the main contenders below, including an overall summary of where my thinking is leading me for the week. In terms of playing the fixture, it's City players - by a distance - wh...

A couple of days back we looked at the defensive rankings for the first 8 weeks of the season, today we will focus on the attack (inc midfielders). I have used a similar process to calculate (a) a team's strength of schedule and (b) the average number of goals they score/concede in different situations. This gives an overall score which I have ranked from 17 to 1 (again excluding the newly promoted sides who are unlikely to feature highly on this list anyway). 17. Wigan Athletic Wigan have the second hardest schedule (opponents conceding just 1.158 goals per game) and the second worst goal production (scoring just 0.921 goals per game) which results in bad news for the Latics. Wigan have lost their best two attacking options from last year (Valencia and Zaki) which suggests that the goals may be even harder to find. New chief Martinez has brought in Jason Scotland (45 goals in 90 at Swansea) and Jordi Gomez who are both solid lower league players but are unproven in the Premier Lea...