PLFantasy

There's been some chatter these past couple of weeks about Dimitar Berbatov's perceived decline, with Bryan Ruiz's absence being suggested by a number of sources as the main factor. Fantasy Football Scout members can read their well reasoned and logical take on the issue here . This post is not a rebuke to that or any other post - indeed Ruiz's absence might be a legitimate reason for Berbatov's apparent decline - I just want to highlight the danger of cherry picking stats and using small sample sizes to make data fit with a convenient narrative. Using just the last three games without Ruiz seems to be a touch imprecise as we have a number of other gameweeks from this very season where Berbatov played without his Costa Rican pal (GW3, 4 and 8, plus two games where Ruiz only came on a sub - GW5 and 9). Looking at Berbatov's data simply split between those minutes with Ruiz and those without gives a closer situation than the disaster some have suggested, but we...

I have alluded to aPoints before and the individual rankings through GW10 can be found to the right but I haven't ever fully explained what this rating shows. Simply, it is my way to giving an adjusted number of points a player 'should' have scored, if injuries/suspensions hadn't occurred and every player had faced the same schedule.While this is admittedly somewhat absract as injuries and suspensions do occur, it is nevertheless useful as form and schedule are a better indication of future success than the fact that a player has missed time to date through injury. If you lead this category then you will be, in my calculations, the best fantasy player over the course of the season if the current trends continue. 'Best' being defined as achieving the most points as opposed to the best value (which is dealt with by aPPMS ). I will continue to track this stat through the season and I like it as a key indicator of fantasy value to date. It can also be used to...

I'm a big fan of looking for ways to use statistics to give us clues as to players' performances. While this is very hard for an actual football team, (as you cannot quantity desire, leadership and passion) for fantasy sports stats work brilliantly. Below I have looked at the top scorers so far in relation to their value (as is done by the 'value' tap on the premierleague.com website). I've then adjusted this based on the fixtures they've played so far to account for players who have played easy/hard fixtures so far. The results are pretty interesting and may give a few clues as to bargains that are still to be found: Goalkeepers Given is atop the GK rankings despite only having kept one clean sheet due to his penalty save and multiple save bonuses. His relative low cost (5.1) have made him great value so far. David James has been the best of the big names after 4 games with an adjusted PPMS of 0.929. Almunia is a big loser in the system due to Arsenal's eas...