PLFantasy

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...

Arsenal Szczesny, Jenkinson, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Gibbs, Diaby, Arteta, Cazorla, Walcott, Gervinho, Podolski Subs: Mannone, Andre Santos, Giroud, Ramsey, Djourou, Coquelin, Arshavin. Not too many surprises here, though I had assumed Santos would get the nod at left back over Gibbs. Gervinho's inclusion was also mildly surprising, though Wenger had mentioned on several occasions that Giroud was not ready to start in gameweek one and thus he found himself on the bench. Over the course of the season I would expect Giroud to get significant minutes up top with Podolski pushed out wide in those games. Koscielny and Sagna are due back at the end of the month and thus I would temper any early excitement there might be over Jenkinson and Mertesacker. The team looked better going forward than the final score suggests though I suppose one could argue that the game was a reminder that players take time to fit together, with the occasional move breaking down due to miscommunicati...

I've been debating whether or not to do a full weekly preview but given the lateness of the post, I think the decision has been made for me. The forecast data for the week can be found here , though a huge caveat must be added that it is purely based on prior year and takes no account for transfers, manager changes etc. A couple of brief points to consider as you finalise your team: Don't forget your free transfers in GW2 We are obviously setting our squads for the medium-long term and don't want to be too short sighted, but given that we have a free transfer to come, it makes sense to pick one player specifically for his GW1 fixture based on the fact he can be dumped next week if need be. The obvious choice of course are Reading midfielders and forwards who don't project too well over 10 weeks but enjoy the double gameweek in the opener. The same logic probably applies to Villa and Fulham attacking players who project well for one week but then have a relatively ...

I don't know how this crept up on me, but it did. I blame living within sight of the Rogers Centre (Sky Dome) here in Toronto. With live sporting action available for $10 within a 2 minute walk 81 times a season, it's tough to stay in and crunch stats from last year. Anyway, we're done looking back and it's time to look forward. In the interest of time I'm not going to rehash some of the 'big themes' we've already talked about in the off season but I will gently point you in the direction of the below: team previews general fantasy rules some thoughts (guesses) on the new bonus system goalkeeper rotation theory , and the value of goalscoring defenders So onto week one. The strength of schedule and goal per game rankings are posted here and I'll be moving them over the weekend into a nicer format, on a permanent page so they're more accessible. I therefore won't repeat them every week in the preview column, instead just referenc...