PLFantasy

Captain Notes Despite not boasting an overly impressive set of results to date, the model rates Liverpool's defense quite highly and thus perennial captain option Lukaku is well down this week's rankings. Morata  is a injury risk which is unfortunate given Chelsea's visit to lowly Palace, although even if fully fit the model is not enamored with the Spaniard thanks to so-so shot data for Chelsea on their travels. While they've racked up a very impressive 8 goals in 3 games, they've done so on just 21 SiB and 12 SoT, which makes the model cautious of future regression. For context, Arsenal have 20 SiB and 8 SoT in their three away trips and have yet to score. With Aguero out and City at home, Jesus is a very real option and I might have him second on my own adjusted list. He gets a good share of City's chances when on the pitch (24%) and while his SiB numbers cannot match the likes of Kane or Lukaku, his Big Chances per 90 minutes are right up there and...

Learn About Tableau Risk slider - this season each player is assigned a risk rating, based on their playing time and current injury status (as explained here ). There's no reason to definitely exclude all risky players, but you should consider their playing time before pulling the trigger with them. I've had a couple of questions about a couple of the 'odd' forecasts above, namely Loic Remy's lofty status and how Sturridge out ranks Suarez. I'll address those in more detail tomorrow but wanted to get the data out now.

You know the story by now; each player has been assigned a 'Buy', "Hold' or 'Sell' status. These don't necessarily reflect what I would do, more what I believe to be a reasonable action at this time: Buy - the player can be purchased immediately taking consideration of his playing time, fixtures, injury status etc. This status does not necessarily mean you should buy him now as it depends who else you own, only that it is reasonable to do so. Hold, and/or monitor - if you own the player you're not in a rush to ditch him but there's sufficient risk here to justify potential buyers holding off. Sell - the player has too many risks and should either be sold or not purchased. This does not mean he might not have value in the future, just not right now. Juan Mata 18 points A couple of us on Twitter have been discussing Mata a lot these past couple of weeks (h/t to TalkOfTheCrowd for the original tip) and it seems I might have missed the boat bo...

I didn't see a ton of football this week as I was away for the weekend so this week's lineup lessons will be somewhat condensed, focusing purely on surprise omissions and potential issues, and avoiding the often rambling detours these electronic pages have become synonymous with. Indeed, the reader may well find themselves wishing your humble blogger watched less  weekly action to keep future posts this short. Arsenal Mannone, Jenkinson, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Andre Santos, Ramsey, Arteta, Cazorla, Gervinho, Giroud, Podolski Subs: Martinez, Wilshere, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Djourou, Coquelin, Arshavin, Gnabry Nothing to report here at all. Wilshere made a return to the bench from injury (delighted for him: one of the English players with truly elite upside in my humble opinion), but from a fantasy perspective we're along from that mattering. This was an odd result for Arsenal, though not totally out of character with their recent struggles, and Cazorla and P...

I am away this weekend so I'm not going to have time to write up how  the below numbers have been generated, but it's essentially the format prescribed in the recent goals and assist pieces, only limited to teams for now. I'm posting the data now so we will have a real test set of data from this weekend to work with, which will hopefully highlight a couple of areas where the model could be improved (and by that I mean where the process, rather than the result, is wrong. If Stoke hold United to no goals on 27 shots, the model isn't necessarily broken, it was just a bad day at the office for van Persie and co). xG Shots - expected goals scored based on the shot data they have registered and the shots given up by their opponents, regressed to a team average conversion rate (not a league average). xG Chances - expected goals scored based on the chances created by a given team and the chances surrendered by the opposition, regressed on a team average conversion rate...