PLFantasy

Gameweek 1 has been somewhat less dramatic than last season. With the new Friday kick off and a solid day of Saturday action under our belts I went to bed on August 12th just like any other Saturday night. A few hours later I was woken by my wife who was in labour - 7 weeks before our due date. A few more hours later our twin girls appeared and let's just say that questions around Gabriel Jesus's playing time or Paul Pogba's xG suddenly seemed somewhat trivial. Needless to say, the past year has meant I've had less time to dedicate to fantasy football, although the early starts on the weekend make watching the 7am ET games much easier. Over the offseason I have been debating how, if at all, this blog can continue to offer value. With the prevalence of Opta's xG, my own version of a similar (but more basic) model becomes somewhat irrelevant and my absence from England means that I will never be as up to date on team news as those who live in the city, read the loca...

Given the short gameweek, I only have one main topic this week: Man City (and then a couple of words on Harry Kane). Whether you just saw the goals, highlights or whole game, there was no denying how impressive City's demolishing of Stoke was this week. All six of their starting midfielders and forwards amassed at least 31 points under the official BPS system, compared to just two players total from United, Chelsea, Spurs, Liverpool and Arsneal (Bakayoko and Eriksen). Jesus was given the most points under that system (which overvalues goals in my opinion), De Bruyne was awarded Man of the Match at the stadium while Sterling earned the most fantasy points thanks to his goal, two assists and bonus points. In short, there's a lot of talent to go around here. Two things jumped out this week about this City side that need a bit of exploring: 1. It's increasingly difficult to select just three City players given the talent on offer. Silva, Sterling and Mane are all perf...

One of the downsides of the premierleague.com fantasy game is the fact that every manager has the same access to every player, which can cause teams to converge as the season goes on. This can lead to the conclusion that we need ways to differentiate our teams to try and gain some advantage over the pack. I would suggest there is some danger in chasing this idea too much as ultimately you need to be chasing points, not just unique points but there is of course some value to having players who offer something a bit different. The below visualization shows the standard points vs expected points chart but with the marks colour coded based on ownership. The bluer marks are the players everyone seems to own (Lukaku, Kane, Salah etc) while the orange marks show the players flying below the radar. The first observation is that the vast majority of players are in very few teams so your search for differentiators doesn't need to go too deep. You don't need to be looking at the...

Readers of this blog will likely be comfortable with the idea that one way in which we tend to mis-evaluate a player's performance to date is to focus too much on outcomes and not enough on process i.e. on goals and not shots. This problem, of course, is what stats like expected goals (xG) try to combat, as does simply looking at underlying stats rather than focusing on goals or assists. Another area for caution is to adjust for the opponents an individual player has faced. A player may well be good value for their 3 goals in 3 games based on their underlying stats, but if those all came in games against Crystal Palace, Bournemouth and Swansea then it doesn't necessarily mean they will enjoy future success when the opponents get tougher. This is implicitly factored into the player projections , which are based on individual opponents but there are holes in the model that can need to be recognized. For example, the model allocates a team's projected shots to individual p...

Elite forwards It was quite a week for the league's leading forwards with five of the seven 10 million pound men all finding the back of the net at least once (the other two - Jesus and Zlatan - were not in action). Kane owners were feeling smug after his 13 point haul in the early game, only for him to be eclipsed by Morata and almost matched by Aguero later in the day, while Lacazette sent a reminder to the league that he is another talented option with a brace on Monday night. There is an emerging theory that one must  own three of these elite options, and make up the difference elsewhere in your team with reasonably priced defenders and budget midfield options. While I understand this logic, I would not be so fast to dismiss the midfield elite with Sanchez and Hazard returning to their sides and the likes of Eriksen and Salah putting in quality performances every week. The wisdom of this argument will likely only be settled with hindsight. What we can review is which ...

The below visualization shows the share of their team's shots inside the box (SiB) and created chances (CC) each player have accounted for this season. The share represents only the games when the player was on the field so as to not penalise them for missing games. This also therefore means that the total team percentage will not add up to 100%. While shots inside the box are generally more valuable than those from outside, this data does not control for quality beyond that, so an overly trigger happy player like Andy Carroll might appear more valuable than he is, while a clinical finisher like Aguero might be underrated. Still, the idea here is provide a quick sense check as to where players rank within their respective teams. We often see people cite team A's superior fixtures to team B as the key reason to select player A over player B, but this misses the impact of the likelihood of these players benefiting from their team's favourable fixtures, which I hope this p...

One of the key complications with player forecasting - or indeed I imagine any forecasting - is deciding which data set to use. When it comes to fantasy football, we obviously want to include as much recent data as possible but the issue is when we can exclusively rely on this season's data and when we need to look to the past seasons for guidance. I am generally quite happy to solely rely on this season's raw event data such as shots or created chances fairly early on as they tend to occur with relative frequency and thus stabilise in a short time frame. How these events get converted into goals can fluctuate a lot more though, as the key driver there - goals - happen much less frequently. With this mind, the revised player projection table below allows you to choose how you are converting the raw chances into goals and assists: Past season - uses the benefit of having a 38 game sample to see how different teams convert chances into goals. The negative, of course, is that te...

Quick note: One of the reasons I restarted the blog this year was that my wife and I were expecting twins in late September so I knew I would be home a lot more with plenty of sleepless hours available to mindlessly consume football matches. Well, the twins didn't think this was a great idea and decided to convert xTwins into Twins on August 13th. This means I've been a bit delayed rolling out some of the models and ideas I had to kick off the season but once we get into a routine I will ramp up the content a bit. I like to think that they are already concerned about the potential issues around small sample sizes and wanted to force me to wait until the season was a few weeks old before overreacting. Selecting defenders and 'keepers requires a different strategy to your attacking options, given that so much of their value is locked up in their team's performance. Of course, playing on a good team will help any player but while it's possible to have a lot of succes...

With the new season upon us I wanted to get out some quick and dirty forecasts for the first few weeks of the year. The forecast data is almost entirely based on prior year data so I have not taken into account players changing teams (Lukaku, Walker) or those with new opportunities and teammates. By definition, a lack of historic data means that the new arrivals (Morata, Lacazette) are also missing for now, but will be added as soon as we have a small amount of data to go on. The defensive data looks a bit wacky for now so I would base my defensive decisions more on the team projections for now. I will also update and share some workings around how the model is going to work this year as I try to improve on the decent, but far from perfect version from a couple of seasons back. It's great to be back and I thank everyone reading this for giving the blog another chance. Please share your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter and I will make changes in the coming weeks. Good l...

I hope that the old adage about absence and fondness holds true and anyone reading this will still have some time for this little blog in this obscure corner of the internet. I took last season off from fantasy football - basically all football in fact - and now I'm back, armed with a pile of Opta stats and an online subscription to access all the live and archived footage anyone would wish to ingest. Since I last wrote on these pages I've changed careers and I am delighted to be expecting twins in a few weeks. These two factors have come together to shape the direction of the blog for the upcoming season. I am now working in the international development sector and one of the lessons I have learned so far is around comparative advantage - no one is best placed to do everything on their own. Thus I am not going to try and do everything on this site. I am not really going to cover injuries, suspensions or even expected playing time as many other sites are better at this and ha...

Powered by Tableau Captain Picks I'm still working on the calculations for some data-based captain picks, so for now let's stick to some good ol' narrative. I've kept the ramblings to notebook form for the sake of your time and my sanity: Eden Hazard vs Stoke (39% vote as FFS ) P90 of 12.0 at home after two games at Chelsea . . . scored or assisted 5 of Chelsea's 6 goals at Stamford Bridge . . . Stoke have been typically solid at home (1 goal conceded against City and 0 versus Arsenal) but have been mediocre on the road (3 goals in 2 games against Wigan and Reading) . . . 43% ownership means that picking Hazard will have limited gains while not picking him comes with a large risk . . . played full 90 minutes against Juventus midweek with Mata and Moses both rested so rotation risk if a slight concern . . . underlying stats are excellent (12 shots, 3 on target and 10 chances created) but aren't better than some of the other elite talent . . . penalt...

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...

Looking back at last season Provided decent value at the back with 9 clean sheets, evenly spread between home (4) and away (5). Failed to score in 10 games, though only 3 of these were at St James' Park where the Magpies are deadly. 2.16 GPG at home was second only to Man Utd Not a great deal of production from the 'keepers (2.8 PPG ) though they did deliver decent value as Harper and particularly Krul came at a very low price. The defensive unit provided decent value for money (9th in P$ ) and made useful spot starters. Whoever solidifies there place in the side alongside Coloccini and Jose Enrique should provide decent value again, particular is it's any of the 4.0m options. The midfield was also fairly average (13th in PPG and P$ ), especially when you take out bonus magnets Barton and Nolan Amazingly, the front line gave the best value in the league with a P$ of 1.33. The problem was that the points were widely dispersed between 4 or 5 players, without muc...

We're under three weeks until the start of the season so team previews are more than due. In order to save time, I have kept the posts to a scouting notebook style, rather than fluffing them up with prose which doesn't really teach you anything. The aim is to post a couple a day to give everyone time to digest them, ask questions and, more than likely, object to something contained within. First up, a deep source of fantasy talent: Arsenal. Headlines 72 goals scored ranked second in the league, 2.05 GPG rate on the road better than every other team by over half a goal. Failed to score on only 6 occasions, only bettered by Man Utd (5) Second in bonus points received (142), again only trailing the Champions (154) Sixth in clean sheets (13) overall, but dramatic splits between home (9 - 4th) and away (4 - t8th) Squad depth looks worryingly deep from a fantasy perspective with arguably the best squad Wenger has had since Henry, Pires et al graced the Emirates pitch. Looking...

The new game is finally here, so go ahead and sign up at the usual address:  http://fantasy.premierleague.com/ There will obviously be a few weeks of analysis to follow before the season kicks off, but until then lets look at a few of the price highlights and possible trends that emerge on first glance: Goalkeepers The rotation strategy is probably in play again this year, though sub-5m options are somewhat limited. Al Habsi (4.5m), Harper (4.5m) and Gordon (4.5m) look like early favourites though Given (5.0m) could justify the extra price assuming he locks down the #1 jersey at Villa.  With the return to fitness of Ferdinand and Vidic you wouldn't bet against a big season from new boy de Gea (6.5m) who could well prove to be the points leader come year end. Defenders No one has any idea who will start for City. Despite having the best defence last season, the most expensive players along the back line for City are Lescott (6.5m) and Kolarov (6.5m) though no less than sev...

The league title might be decided this weekend but the fantasy season keeps going and with three gameweeks left there is still plenty to play for. On a personal level I set the bar for a successful season at 2,000 points so anyone flirting with that still has something to aim for. Add in countless mini leagues that remain unsettled and the importance of these games becomes clear. The key to the week is undoubtedly the DGWs for City and Spurs though be careful about over doing it here as the matchup between the two doesn't play out as a great fixture for either. Also consider that Spurs have to go to Anfield next week before loading up on too many of Redknapp's boys. Clean Sheet Rankings Man City (5 - 2) and (10 - 3) Fulham (9 - 4) Man Utd (10 - 6) Tottenham (5 - 7) and (2 - 3) Aston Villa (6 - 8) Bolton (5 - 8) Newcastle (4 - 5) Everton (5 - 6) West Ham (4 - 5) Wolves (3 - 7) Stoke (6 - 2) Chelsea (4 - 0) Wigan (3 - 4) Arsenal (4 - 3) Liverpool (5 - 3) West Br...