PLFantasy

To supplement the weekly captain stats , I am going to try and post the relevant links from around the league with regards to the key players' status. Some weeks there won't be much to say, but given that I spend a good couple of hours looking though these reports anyway I figure they're worth sharing: Robin Van Persie I speculated last week that the Dutchman is probably due for a rest at some point and some ' news ' sources seem to be indicating this could be the week. The logic makes sense (supposedly easy game this week and AC Milan on the horizon) and Wenger has confirmed as much , suggesting he is 'tempted' to rest Van Persie. The generally accurate Guardian squad sheets have Van Persie starting, though that may well have been written before Wenger's latest comments. With Chamakh still away, and Henry and the Ox struggling for fitness it would be a surprise to see Van Persie miss out, but the option is clearly there. The good news is that if ...

Powered by Tableau

Dealing with the red half of Manchester is easy when you compare the available options to the depth of talent available for City this year. Once you lock Rooney into your team and compliment him with either Nani or Young (likely not both), you are basically left with the decision of grabbing a pricey defender like Evra, a budget defender like Jones or going all in on the front line with Hernandez. Things aren't that simple for City. As with United, let's run through the viable options on offer and then attempt (perhaps with some futility) to apply a ranking to the best Citizens to own for the short-medium term. Man City Goalkeeper / Defenders It's always nice when you start to write something with an idea in mind and then find stats to back up your premise, but it can be equally useful (perhaps even more so) to be so overwhelmed by the evidence that your original proposition is reversed. My impression of the City defense this season was that they remained an elite unit...

In years past, Chelsea playing away at Old Trafford would have caused countless issues for fantasy managers, who would have been forced to contemplate how to use their Chelsea assets. No more. Aside from the emerging Mata, Chelsea have become a fantasy afterthought and instead it's Man City and Liverpool's tricky trips causing us issues this week. The best fixtures for the week appear to belong to some of the mid-level teams, with Bolton and Everton looking like the pick of the bunch. Without further ado then, here are this week's clean sheet and attacking rankings: Clean Sheet Rankings Forecast goals conceded and clean sheets kept - opponents failed to score in parenthesis Aston Villa vs Newcastle (0.86 8-8) Everton vs Wigan (1.05 6-9) Man Utd vs Chelsea (1.10 11-8) Sunderland vs Stoke (1.12 7-10) Swansea vs West Brom (1.14 n/a - 9) Tottenham vs Liverpool (1.17 5-6) Wolves vs QPR (1.22 4 - n/a) Man City @ Fulham (1.31 6-4) Stoke @ Sunderland (1.36 4...

It seems like an eternity since the last Premier League games, though despite my dislike for the international break , we actually got through relatively unscathed with only a few injuries of note. In short, we've lost Van der Vaart, Vermaelen, Jarvis, Nasri, Richards, Long and Bent though from that group only Van der Vaart and Vermaelen look like the long term casualties. Hopefully you resisted the urge to jump into any rash decisions immediately after the last gameweek finished and so can take these latest developments in stride as you look to shape your team for the coming weeks. A few readers have asked about playing their wildcard, which probably deserves a separate post, but given a lack of other stories for this week I thought it might be worth quickly discussing here. For me, the key is striking a balance between not overreacting but acting quickly enough to avoid stubbornly holding on to worthless assets. You should be in a position where you need  to get rid...

Anyone who has followed my  Twitter  feed over the past few months knows I am big baseball fan, specifically with regards to the statistical side of the game. I am also a big proponent of trying to use lessons from one sport to help us understand or improve another (the Premier League’s stubbornness in ignoring the success stories of officials, salary caps, transfer rules etc from other sports is a huge source on frustration for me). The statistical awareness in baseball is possibly the best of any sport in the world, with legions of fans (and team employees) dreaming up new ways to measure players and hopefully identify undervalued assets and commodities (the now over, and often incorrectly, used term ‘moneyball’ attempts to convey this thought process). One term you will quickly come across if you ever decided to visit a statistically leaning site like  FanGraphs , would be ‘regression to the mean’. I am no statistician so I apologize to anyone that is if the below is...