PLFantasy

However good a player projection system is, it will always have certain assumptions built in which require some judgement on behalf of the model's creator. This might include how much weight to put on recent games versus historic data or how much to regress team or player conversion rates back to a league or historic average. One such assumption I do not currently factor into my own model is which kind of games a particularly player performs well in. For example, if Harry Kane accounts for 30% of his teams shots inside the box and Spurs are forecast for 10 SiB then his forecast will be three SiB regardless of who the opponents are. The strength of those opponents is of course somewhat baked into how we get to the 10 SiB projection in the first place, but no attention is paid to whether Kane has tended to over or under perform expectations against weaker or stronger teams, or whether he's struggled against teams who deploy three centre backs. The data below takes the first ste...

Last week's FA Cup action coincided with a busy week for me away from fantasy football, hence the lack of posts this week. We're back on track now though and before we get to this week's rankings, I want to get out the first of a couple of posts regarding the final stages of the season, with focus on differentiation and playing your second wildcard if you still hold it. This won't be a huge post as I just wanted to share the data, but I must say that it is incredibly hard at the moment to find differentiating options. Unless you want your team to look like everyone else, you're really limited to grabbing players who have enjoyed limited success but look a tad overpriced (Walcott, Modric, Suarez, Lampard etc) or new arrivals who are notoriously hard to predict (Cisse, Cisse). We'll get to some names later in the week or early next week, but until then, below you will find the strength of schedule played by each team to date, along with the comparative strength...

We place an emphasis on strength of schedule around these parts, with the weekly rankings constituting a blend of a team's own ability along with their opponents. At this point in the season everyone has played each other once but you can get a significant differences in future strength of schedule based on where those games have been played (ie are your remaining tough games at home/away, did you already play the 'big teams' twice?) The below tables show the average goals per game of a team's opponents to date ( Avg ) and the average goals per game of a team's next 8 opponents ( Next 8 ). On the defensive side we hope to see a negative difference (ie easier games are to come) while offensively we want to see a positive number. I wouldn't get carried away with these numbers as we already account for strength of schedule in the weekly rankings, but for some teams it could help explain their offensive or defensive struggles and signify an improvement in the f...

Without wishing to tread on the toes on the first weekly preview post for the season, I thought it might be useful to quickly run through the strength of schedules for the new season, as these should factor into - but not wholly drive - your initial squad. Readers from last season will know how much I love looking at a team's fixtures, and I will often state how I prefer a good fantasy player (say, Clint Dempsey) with a great fixture over a great fantasy player (say, James Milner) with a so-so fixture. This holds true to an extent though two important caveats should be noted here: Don't get too cute - I would never drop Lampard on a weekly basis for someone like Steve Pienaar as there are sound reasons why Lampard costs twice as much: he plays for a top team, takes penalties and dominates the bonus category. You may look at Lampard's fixtures and decide that over a 6 game period his production might be limited and therefore look to sell him, but dropping a ...

There's a change of pace for this week's preview as I feel the game-by-game run-through often just tells you what you already know (Gerrard is a good play against Burnley - no kidding) and doesn't give you what you really want. I will therefore focus on 4 categories to help you make your decisions: - best clean sheet bet - captain rankings - game predictions - long term strength of schedules (for forward planning). Let me know what you guy s think and if any of the features are particular useful or if you could do without them. With that in mind, let the weekly preview begin . . . Gameweek 5 fixtures Blackburn v Wolves Liverpool v Burnley Man City v Arsenal Portsmouth v Bolton Stoke v Chelsea Sunderland v Hull Wigan v West Ham Tottenham v Man Utd Birmingham v Aston Villa Fulham v Everton Clean Sheet R ankings 1. Liverpool 2. Blackburn 3. West Ham 4. Sunderland 5. Bolton I don't like that many teams this week for clean sheets with Liverpool looking like the only odds on ...

One of the most overlooked aspects of Fantasy Football is the matchups our players face each week. Most players seem to simply follow trends (which can sometimes work) and pick those players who have racked up alot of points to date or in the previous week. However, this obviously ignores the fixtures on the horizon and often leads to wasted transfers and point chasing. By assigning a figure (1, 2 or 3) to each team based on their performance to date - in terms of goals scored and conceded whilst at home and away - we can generate a strength of schedule for defensive and attacking players. Defensive players Based on the next 6 games, the best strength of schedules for defensive players are: - Liverpool 1.3 - Sunderland 1.3 - Aston Villa 1.7 - Blackburn 1.7 - Chelsea 1.7 - Hull 1.7 (an average schedule would be 2.0) This clearly shows that Liverpool have a combination of the league's second best defense along with the easiest defensive schedule, which should lead to bumper points fo...