PLFantasy

I was away last week visiting beautiful Whistler (highly recommended to all) but we're now back on track with this week's Fanning the Flames piece. We're not too far removed from the Gameweek 3 piece so there's some familiar names and narratives here, but let's press on regardless. Alexis Sanchez continues to produce shots at an alarming rate but simply cannot catch a break. The Chilean's 28 total shots and 21 SiB lead the league and come close to doubling the totals of his fellow midfielders. His production is a microcosm for Arsenal's "struggles" to date with the team leading the league in SiB by a distance (ARS 79, SOT 59, MCI 51) yet only having five goals to show for their efforts. Sanchez has had a large amount of his efforts blocked which is somewhat tricky to explain, and a quick look at last year's stats tells a similar, if less dramatic story (42/121). Last year also tells us that he was able to convert 13 of his 71 SiB into goa...

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 ...

A slight change of pace with this week's fanning the flames piece due to a couple of observations over the last few weeks and months. First, I felt that old graphic didn't really show enough information that might lead us to fan said flame (or, more likely douse those hyped up fires). Second, looking at the data on a single week basis was always going to lead to a large number of 'variances' due to the ridiculously small samples involved. I've therefore currently included three gameweeks of data, but have built the model to allow for anywhere between one and five to be included so this may again be tweaked in the future. Finally, this is a piece which should probably run every two or three weeks to avoid too much repetition, so this new format lends itself more to that time frame. First then, let's look at the new graphic and a couple of lines to illuminate the way the data is intended to be read: Powered by Tableau The G , xG , A , xA , P and xP ...

Powered by Tableau As in prior weeks, each player is assigned a 'buy', 'hold/monitor' or 'sell' status. These do not necessarily reflect what I would personally do, rather what I suggest to be a decision based in logic. For example, I might feel that Rooney represents better value than van Persie, but I would still 'buy' the Dutchman's success and consider him very ownable. The different assigned statuses are summarised as:  Buy  - the player can be purchased immediately taking consideration of his playing time, fixtures, injury status etc. This status does not necessarily mean you should buy him now as it depends who else you own, only that it is reasonable to do so.  Hold, and/or monitor  - if you own the player you're not in a rush to sell him but there's sufficient risk here to justify potential buyers holding off.  Sell  - the player has too many risks and should either be sold or not purchased. This does not mean he might n...

Powered by Tableau As in prior weeks, each player is assigned a 'buy', 'hold/monitor' or 'sell' status. These do not necessarily reflect what I would personally do, rather what I suggest to be a decision based in logic. For example, I might feel that Rooney represents better value than van Persie, but I would still 'buy' the Dutchman's success and consider him very ownable. The different assigned statuses are summarised as: Buy - the player can be purchased immediately taking consideration of his playing time, fixtures, injury status etc. This status does not necessarily mean you should buy him now as it depends who else you own, only that it is reasonable to do so.  Hold, and/or monitor - if you own the player you're not in a rush to sell him but there's sufficient risk here to justify potential buyers holding off.  Sell - the player has too many risks and should either be sold or not purchased. This does not mean he might not ...