PLFantasy

There seems to be a growing chorus that Man City players are becoming harder and harder to own due to constant rotation from Pep Guardiola. There are two key pieces of information that are useful to assess how damaging rotation can be to a player: The predictability of when the rotation happens (before of after Champions League games, away from home etc), If not selected for the first team, how often do they come on as a sub. If you have a decent bench then - while frustrating - you can deal with players not playing at all. However, if they consistently come off the bench for only 15 minutes or so then you are lowering your odds at success. Predicting team sheets is not really my forte (nor a particular interest) so we're going to focus on the second point here: We can see four of the City options have spent time on the bench this season while De Bruyne and Silva have been ever present to date. The calculation for this pair is slightly different as you're getting i...

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...

As we enter another drab international week, it presents a well-overdue chance to dig a little deeper into this year's model and look at some of the results which don't necessarily align with what the majority of people appear to be thinking. I don't want to get too bogged down in the merits of any particular assumption in the model, though obviously as we look back and see where the model missed reality, tweaks can and are made. I do however want to illustrate how individual forecast numbers are made up and why that leads to the situation, for example, where Alexis Sanchez has so-so forecast numbers despite leading all midfielders in points to date (by a distance). Regressing conversion rates The first and most obvious point to note is that Sanchez has a particularly high goals per shot on target ratio (50%) which based on history is unlikely to be sustained. The model uses a regressed conversion rate based on a combination of a player's history (where applicable)...

Given the number of transfers already made (290k at the time of writing), this post is potentially too late, but for those Aguero owners who haven't yet pulled the trigger on a replacement, here are a few factors to consider before you do. The Argentinian's absence seems to be being pegged anywhere between four and six weeks, which means he will almost certainly miss gameweeks 17-21 and his absence could potentially extend through GW22 or even 23 (with good squad depth City should be mindful not to push their talisman and risk further injury as seems to have been the case with Kompany in the past ). With his return therefore scheduled to coincide with the middle of the second wildcard window, the cost to buy Aguero back should essentially be ignored and value for money for right now  is  a factor. This contradicts the situation if he was missing for just a week or two, in which case it might be worth eating his cost to sit on the bench rather than lose 0.5m when you ar...

As we all know, the fantasy season does not comprise 38 independent events. Medium and even long term plans need to be put in place based on the next 'x' number of games and over-reliance on the now can handcuff your team in the future. Though all teams are constructed differently and thus will encounter these periods at different times, there are also overarching factors which impact all (or at least most) teams in the same way. Sometimes these are obvious, such as the opening of the second-wildcard transfer window or the real-life transfer window which potential opens the door to new options for our teams. On other occasions, however, the trends are tougher to spot, especially when we're in the eye of them (they are much  easier to see with hindsight). We are potentially at a changing point for one of these period-changes. Like any mostly free market, the demand for players will settle into something of an equilibrium, and for most managers the leading role in de...

As a quick introduction for those new to the blog, this piece runs every couple of weeks during the season and looks to shine a light on those "hot" players whose "form" looks unsustainable and those "cold" players who should enjoy success in the future if they keep playing the way they have to date. The below chart shows this week's subjects, with those on the left having outscored their underlying data and those on the right having outperformed their score. Before we start, as is becoming a tendency on this blog, I need to add a quick caveat as to exactly what we're saying here. First, we are not  saying that a player will somehow "get back" or "give back" their production to date or that bad luck will necessarily follow good luck. We are saying that players' (and teams') conversion rates should regress to the mean , seeing them earn points at a rate more in line with their underlying stats (which could be a good ...

The situation in both Manchester teams has been one of the most important issues so far this year in fantasy, and to a degree, those who have simply ignored the drama and gone with elite players from the London clubs have been rewarded. Of course, Robin van Persie and Carlos Tevez have both enjoyed plenty of success to date, but that has been achieved amidst a shroud of uncertainty, which at least in Tevez’s case is still far from cleared up. The prompt for this post is United’s prospects over the next eight gameweeks, which under the new model look simply outstanding, particularly at the attacking end of the field Powered by Tableau First, as always, a couple of caveats on this data. If we look at what Man United have done so far versus league average, their shot generation statistics are excellent, though not to a degree that would arouse suspicion about their validity. At home they’re generating 40% more shots inside the box (SiB) than the average team has against thei...

<a href="#"><img alt="Captain Data " src="http://public.tableausoftware.com/static/images/Ca/Captain38/CaptainData/1_rss.png" style="border: none" /></a> Powered by Tableau P90 Points scored per 90 minutes at home/away based on this week's opponents QG% Percentage of games played where the player scored 6 or more points xPct The percentage of his team's goals a player has accounted for, multiplied by the expected goals for this week Rating Based on the player's rankings in the other three categories. Note: above data assumes 90 minutes of action, with rotation risk not being factored in. The data hasn't liked anyone as much as Aguero this week for some ti...

To supplement the weekly captain stats , I am going to try and post the relevant links from around the league with regards to the key players' status. Some weeks there won't be much to say, but given that I spend a good couple of hours looking though these reports anyway I figure they're worth sharing: Robin Van Persie I speculated last week that the Dutchman is probably due for a rest at some point and some ' news ' sources seem to be indicating this could be the week. The logic makes sense (supposedly easy game this week and AC Milan on the horizon) and Wenger has confirmed as much , suggesting he is 'tempted' to rest Van Persie. The generally accurate Guardian squad sheets have Van Persie starting, though that may well have been written before Wenger's latest comments. With Chamakh still away, and Henry and the Ox struggling for fitness it would be a surprise to see Van Persie miss out, but the option is clearly there. The good news is that if ...