PLFantasy

Clean Sheet Rankings Blackburn Liverpool Man City Birmingham West Brom Chelsea Sunderland Everton Wigan Arsenal Bolton Newcastle Aston Villa Fulham Blackpool West Ham Wolves Tottenham Man Utd Stoke  Team Goal Rankings Arsenal Chelsea Blackpool West Brom Blackburn Tottenham Liverpool Wigan Birmingham Sunderland Stoke Aston Villa Man City Bolton Man Utd Wolves Newcastle Everton Fulham West Ham Team Goals (form adjusted*) West Brom Tottenham Arsenal Blackburn Man City Blackpool Sunderland Chelsea Stoke Birmingham Bolton Man Utd Wigan Aston Villa Liverpool Wolves Newcastle Everton Fulham West Ham *This formula simply adds extra weight (33%) to the last 5 games rather than the whole season. I haven't tested whether this has proven to be more effective but it's at least worth a glance. Captain Stats The captain picks this week are pretty tough with Chelsea and Man Utd squaring off on Sunday. The pick of the stats are b...

There have been justified rumblings lately about whether Drogba is, gasp, on the chopping board. I do not hide my admiration for the Ivorian legend and the fact he has recently played games while suffering with malaria (presumably caught while doing his extensive charity work ) only increases Drogba’s legend. However – perhaps unfortunately – there are no points awarded for bravery or good deeds and so we must brush aside our personal feelings and look at the cold hard stats (cue half the readers screaming that I am unable to do this Fabregas on a weekly basis . . . and me having no response). First things first, Drogba has really had two separate seasons already this year, or for the cliché lovers he’s been a ‘game of two halves’. The first five games were all quality starts (6 points or more) and he amassed an insane 55 points, including 5 goals 5 assists and 11 bonus points: perhaps the best 5 game run of any fantasy player in history (cue Ronaldo looking up suddenly from his tan...

Clean Sheet Rankings I'm changing things a little but this week as along with the standard statistical predictions for goals conceded, I have also worked in some of the goal trends that I noted earlier in the week in order to generate my weekly rankings. I have looked for concrete trends based on statistical fact so these are not 'hunches' but more tweaked facts to incorporate the wider trends. Newcastle v Sto 0.34 Birmingham v Wig 0.44 Liverpool v Sun 0.43* Arsenal v WBA 0.50 Aston Villa @Wol 0.79* Man Utd @Bol 0.93* Fulham v Eve 0.71 Blackpool v Bla 0.77 Wolves v Ast 0.91 Chelsea @MnC 1.36 Man City v Che 1.47 Everton @Ful 1.48 Tottenham @WH 1.57 Wigan @Bir 1.93* West Ham v Tot 1.67 Stoke @New 1.81 Blackburn @Bll 1.82 Bolton v MnU 2.04 Sunderland @Liv 2.79 West Brom @Ars 4.17 *denotes a team whose ranking has been altered based on specific trend analysis noted below. I have capped these movements to 3 positions to avoid basing the rankings on ‘gut’ r...