PLFantasy

[edit: thanks to Ben for pointing out that I forgot to include Foster's loan move to West Brom below. Replace all Myhill references will Foster but be mindful of his higher price] I've been talking about the GK combo strategy for a number of years now, though the basic premise is worth repeating. There are two main issues which give to my support for this strategy:  If you go for a 'big name' keeper you effectively burn 4.0m as you are highly unlikely to ever play the lesser player. Only in a perfect storm where Petr Cech travels to the Emirates while John Ruddy welcomes Swansea will you bench the 7.0m man. The correlation between cost and points for 'keepers (right) has never been particularly strong with low budget options showing up every year (Al Habsi, Foster) to rank close to, if not above, their expensive counterparts (van der Sar). With a combo strategy you play the best fixture each week, on the basis that if you stick to the logical projectio...

After discussing goals earlier , we now turn our attention to the defence and review who kept clean sheets last year and how. More defenders hit triple digits than forwards and their production is often an afterthought as we chase 20 point games from the biggest names. As we approach the new season, here are some somewhat random thoughts to keep in mind as you pick your team. Man City and Chelsea tied for the best defense overall (33 goals) and were both dominant home teams (12 and 11 clean sheet respectively). However, on the road City conceded 1.11 GPG with just 6 clean sheets, making them comparable to the Birmingham defence at home (1.16 GPG with 6 clean sheets). Obviously, if you own Kolo Toure or Ashley Cole you are playing him pretty much every week, but just be careful about buying into total defensive stats and not paying due attention to the home/road splits.  Clean sheets were particularly streaky last season with the longest streak being held to 4 all year (Arsenal GW...

The basic premise behind the goalkeeper rotation strategy is fairly simplistic but for further clarification please see the earlier post here . The best pairs for the remainder of the season, ignoring price - to the extent that I only include 'keepers who cost 5m or less (actually 5.2m now Foster's value has gone up) - are as follows: Gordon / Fabianski (9.3m) Gordon / Begovic (8.8m) Gordon / Harper (8.8m) Gordon / Jaaskelainen (9.1m) Gordon / Schwarzer (9.3m) Schwarzer / Fabianski (9.6m) Gordon / Green (9.3m) Fabianski / Begovic (9.5m) Gordon / Foster (9.7m) Fabianski / Foster (10.0m) You might start getting the idea that Gordon is pretty good value using my stats. This to be expected given the fact that Sunderland lead the league in clean sheets with 11, with no other keeper above having more than 7. Given the lack of clean sheets this year and the unreliability of most of the defenses in the league, I would understand if some owners wanted to spend as little a...

Last season I did a piece that proved to be quite popular regarding the two keeper strategy of picking players whose fixtures complement each other so as to maximise the number of good games you get. Though I whiffed with one of my picks (Kirkland) the other three cheap keepers - Sorensen, Jaaskelainen and Robinson - all had good seasons (top 12 GK) and along with Joe Hart gave you plenty of budget options to deliver value at the GK position. This season I am sticking with the same strategy, especially after my recent analysis that player cost is not a great indicator of future points for keepers. With that in mind, the below shows which 'keeper pairs sit well together in order to maximize the number of games played against weaker teams. Initially I only considered players valued at 4.5m or less from teams I considered to have a chance at doing okay this season (sorry Blackpool, this means you're out). The pairs in order of average goals scored by opponents are as below, ...

With Van der Sar's return to the reserves tonight, and Foster's continued struggle between the posts for the first team, it is likely that the English World Cup hopeful will see the end of his extended run and be replaced for gameweek 9 after the international break. At 5m he has provided decent fantasy value over the past 8 weeks and is currently held by 8% of fantasy managers. We are not seeing a massive amount of selling yet so there is no rush to act, but his owners will want to move him on assuming Van der Sar proves his fitness as 5m is too much for a 'keeper to warm your bench. The question is therefore who to get to replace him. I am not a fan of expensive keepers as 'save' points are the great equaliser that makes 'keepers from lower teams almost as valuable as the big boys. Add to that the strong performances of Birmingham, Burnley (at home) and Stoke this year and bargains can clearly be found. Last season 11 'keepers were within 36 points of ea...