PLFantasy

For the first time in decades, Manchester, not London, is the focal point of the Premier League race and, more importantly for this site, the key source of joy (and possibly frustration) for fantasy managers. True, Manchester United have at times dominated the Premier League to a degree that would make the Harlem Globetrotters blush, but their sides have often failed to provide too much fantasy depth with one or two stars racking up massive totals, while being supplemented by a group of overpriced and oft-rotated journeymen and defensive players. For every Beckham, Ronaldo or Rooney we seem to have had three Keanes, Fletchers or Scholes', all excellent players in the own right, but not too helpful in fantasy circles. Their cross-town rivals in sky blue have been much worse, stockpiling average assets and going through players and managers at the same rate Mario Balotelli acquires parking tickets. The tide obviously started to turn with the arrival of the investors from Abu...

Looking back at last season Averaged an incredible 2.58 GPG at Old Trafford, a full half goal more than everyone else. Their 1.53 GPG mark on the road was third behind Chelsea and Arsenal Failed to score just 5 times, all of which came on the road. This just in: don't play your defenders at Old Trafford With 0.63 GPG conceded at home, United had the best record in the league but yet finished behind both Chelsea (11) and City (12) in clean sheets (10).  Rattled off 5 clean sheets over the final 11 gameweeks  Defensive unit ranked 3rd in total points and P90 and despite their relatively high price tags managed a useful 8th ranking in P$ . Aside from Evra and Vidic this unit is fairly well priced with potentially sky high reward. The midfield was incredible at home averaging 5.6 P90 as a team. Only Chelsea (5.0) managed to even get into the five point range. They struggled a bit on the road (8th in P90 ) and thus delivered poor value when away from Old Trafford. The fr...

This is the hardest time of year for fantasy league as big scores in mini leagues look insurmountable and most teams become fairly homogeneous with 5 or 6 'must have' players forming the back bones of most successful sides. Add in a growing injury list, suspensions and rotation for European games and it becomes increasingly hard and frustrating to field a side you are truly happy with. However, 9 games is almost a quarter of the season so it's way too late to give up just yet. Instead, you need to re-evaluate a few things and dig even deeper to find those differentiators. Before we get into the weekly rankings, let's get some perspective on the form teams. Below are the goals per game since the halfway point of the season: Arsenal (2.1) Chelsea (1.9) Man Utd (1.9) West Ham (1.8) Man City (1.8) Everton (1.7) Aston Villa (1.6) Newcastle (1.5) Tottenham (1.5) Wolves (1.4) Liverpool (1.4) Fulham (1.4) Blackpool (1.4) Blackburn (1.3) Wigan (1.2) West Brom...

This could be a big week for our fantasy teams as the double gameweeks start rolling in , new arrivals start playing and the teams start to sort out who are contenders and pretenders. Plenty of owners will be looking to play their wildcards this week so I thought I should get the weekly rankings up as soon as possible which along with the aforementioned double gameweek analysis, should give everyone plenty of food for thought before they plan their final assault on the league table. Along with the standard weekly rankings, I have included the rankings for the next 6 weeks and the remainder of the season. Clean Sheet Rankings (GW24) (clean sheets kept and opponents' failed to score in parenthesis) Man United (6 - 3) and (3 - 0) Arsenal (3 - 5) Fulham (4 - 3) and (3 - 1) Everton (3 - 6) Blackburn (4 - 5) Blackpool (0 - 4) and (0 - 3) Liverpool (2 - 1) and (4 - 4)  Wigan (3 - 2) and (2 - 5)  Aston Villa (4 - 3) and (0 - 3) Wolves (2 - 4) Man City (4 - 3) Bolton (2 ...

Clean Sheet Rankings (clean sheets kept - opponents failed to score) Man City (7 - 4) Sunderland (7 - 2) Chelsea (7 - 2) Birmingham (4 - 5) Liverpool (4 - 3) Fulham (3 - 3) Stoke (3 - 3) Arsenal (3 - 1) Tottenham (3 - 2) Wigan (2 - 4) Bolton (0 - 3) West Brom (1 - 5) Blackpool (5 - 2) Everton (2 - 1) Man Utd (2 - 2) Newcastle (3 - 2) Aston Villa (0 - 4) Wolves (1 - 3) West Ham (3 - 2) Blackburn (0 - 1) Attacking Rankings Man City Arsenal Chelsea Birmingham Tottenham Stoke Sunderland Blackpool Fulham West Brom Man Utd Blackburn Bolton West Ham Wigan Everton Newcastle Aston Villa Liverpool Wolves Captain Stats I keep suggesting it could be a statistical anomaly but Van der Vaart continues to crush mid level teams (between 1 and 1.5 GPG conceded) for 9.57 PPG. Given that he is also averaging over 7 PPG at home and 8 PPG over his last 4 games, he remains an excellent option at home this week despite the tricky fixture on paper.  Despite th...

No time to breathe or dwell on GW 21 (which was fairly successful by recent standards) as the EPL action continues on a short week. The highlight for most will be the double gameweeks for Blackpool and Liverpool, who both also enjoy a double in GW24 (some thoughts on them below). Clean Sheet Rankings The rank order is based on the normal form adjusted expected goals per game. In parenthesis you can find the number of clean sheets (at home/away) by the listed team and the number of times the oppositon has failed to score (at home/away) Man Utd (6 - 3) Blackpool* (1 - 3) and (1 - 4) Blackburn (4 - 4) Bolton (2 - 5) Newcastle (2 - 5) Aston Villa (4 - 4) Chelsea (2 - 1) Fulham (3 - 4) Tottenham (0 - 2) Liverpool (2 - 2) and (2 - 0) Man City (3 - 1) Everton (3 - 2) Wolves (1 - 4) Arsenal (2 - 2) Sunderland (3 - 2) West Brom (0 - 2) Wigan (3 - 2) Birmingham (2 - 0) West Ham (0 - 2) Stoke (2 - 0)  *double gameweek Team Goal Rankings (form adjusted) Man City Bl...

Clean Sheet Rankings Chelsea Tottenham Liverpool Man City Sunderland West Ham Arsenal Everton Stoke Birmingham Fulham Wigan Man Utd Newcastle Blackpool West Brom Wolves Bolton Blackburn Aston Villa Attacking Rankings Man City Chelsea Man Utd Sunderland West Brom Newcastle West Ham Wigan Tottenham Blackburn Arsenal Everton Stoke Wolves Liverpool Birmingham Bolton Blackpool Fulham Aston Villa Captain Stats Van der Vaart is playing equally well at home and away though he is crushing mid level team for 10.8 PPG. As Spurs welcome Fulham this week he is a very good option and projects to score more points than anyone this week. On the flip side his last two home games have yielded just 4 points so his owners must decide whether he is a funk or just a dip in form. Tevez isn't necessarily better at home than away but he is crushing weak sides at over 7 PPG and welcomes a Blackpool side who are giving up over 1.6 GPG. As with Van der Vaart his...

At time of posting I am working on the basis that all games will go ahead as planned this week, though at least the Blackpool-Liverpool game is already looking doubtful. More updates on this will of course come later in the week but I would recommend holding off on your transfers for now and definitely not paying 4 points for any moves until we are more certain who will actually play. Clean Sheet Rankings Fulham Man Utd Blackburn Wolves Blackpool Everton Aston Villa Birmingham Arsenal Man City Bolton West Ham  Wigan Stoke Chelsea Newcastle Tottenham Liverpool Sunderland West Brom Team Goals Bolton Man Utd Blackpool Aston Villa Man City Arsenal Blackburn Wolves Fulham West Brom Newcastle Chelsea Everton Tottenham Birmingham Liverpool Wigan Stoke Sunderland West Ham Team Goals (form adjusted) Bolton Man Utd Man City Blackpool West Brom Blackburn Everton Arsenal Tottenham Chelsea Liverpool Fulham Birmingham Newcastle Stoke A...

Sorry for the delay again this week, some joker at my job has got it in his head that any of those pesky clients are worth more than fantasy football rankings. Has he seen my team? I haven't topped 50 points for five weeks. Five weeks! Hopefully the below will help: Clean Sheet Rankings Sunderland Chelsea Liverpool Blackburn Arsenal Birmingham Stoke Man City West Brom Bolton Tottenham Wigan Newcastle Wolves Everton Fulham West Ham Aston Villa Attacking rankings (team goals) Liverpool (2.67) Sunderland (1.87) Arsenal (1.76) Chelsea (1.76) Blackburn (1.66) West Brom (1.42) Stoke (1.36) Birmingham (1.25) Man City (1.14) Newcastle (0.93) Bolton (0.82) Wigan (0.78) Tottenham (0.74) Fulham (0.67) Aston Villa (0.44) Wolves (0.44) Everton (0.31) West Ham (0.30) Captain Stats Tevez - Tevez has strangely been a lot better away from Eastlands (7.43 PPG) than at home (4.86 PPG) but has been very useful against sides conceding more than 1.5 GPG (7.25...

No rambling this week as I've been moving home with boxes stacked high and much upheaval. This isn't unlike my fantasy team which is chaotic and unpredictable and might need a renovation of it's own very soon. I was saved last week by Vidic and Adam's performances but cruelly punished by last minute goals conceded by Williamson and Jaaskelainen. As you have hopefully noticed I am starting to re-design the site a bit to give everyone constant access to the stats I try and incorporate into my work. I have started with the aPPMS and aPoints to the right of this post and I will be adding short and long term strength of schedules soon. Any requests for specific data to be posted would be welcomed. Without further delay then, here are this week's rankings: Clean Sheet Rankings (expected goals conceded in parenthesis) Birmingham (0.28) Sunderland (0.38) Man Utd (0.40) Blackburn (0.60) Fulham (0.64) Arsenal (0.69) Chelsea (0.98) West Brom (1.02) Everton (1.0...

I'm putting all the design nonsense to one side to get down to some actual fantasy writing. As I'm sure most of you are chomping at the bit to get into your transfers/lineups so I will get straight down to business. Clean Sheet Rankings Aston Villa (0.43) Arsenal (0.49) Chelsea (0.56) Man City (0.69) Everton (0.72) Bolton (0.72) Newcastle (0.72) Fulham (0.77) Man Utd (0.82) Blackburn (1.26) Wolves (1.26) Wigan (1.60) Blackpool (1.72) Liverpool (1.74) Stoke (1.93) Sunderland (1.95) Birmingham (2.05) Tottenham (2.44) West Brom (2.79) West Ham (4.53) Captain Rankings Cesc Fabregas: Arsenal are the top rated team for the week with an expected 4.5 goals. Arsenal have scored 10 league goals with Fabregas on the pitch this season and he has scored or assisted three of them. This would suggest he should notch points this week and I wouldn't bet against him getting one of each, even after his penalty miss last week. Dimitar Berbatov: 38 points in 4 home ga...