PLFantasy

I don't recall there ever being a side in the Premier League with so many viable fantasy options. The 2009-10 Chelsea side that scored 102 goals had Drogba, Lampard, Anelka and Malouda all with double digit goals but there's a non-zero chance that this City side could have four players approaching those totals by the holidays plus  two of the best two creative players in the league in Silva and De Bruyne. This week they have the top five xP players - which is simply absurd - and even Sane could be argued to be higher as he's currently still being penalised for his early season sub appearances (though with Aguero back I'd personally argue they remain a risk). The real heartbreaker is that this game against Burnley looks delicious and someone is going to be benched and disappoint a lot of managers. Everyone except Aguero played midweek against Napoli so there are no clues there, but this is in theory the third game in which Aguero was fit enough play after his bro...

Learn About Tableau Given how early in the season we are, the model is still liable to throw up the odd outlier and so in these weekly posts I plan to address those, shall we say, unexpected results. In future weeks, the plan is to post the data as soon as possible after the final games' data is up and then you can raise questions/issues during the week, to be addressed on either the following Thursday or Friday. For this week, I'll just try and guess where the questions might lie: Keiren Westwood Sunderland have conceded at least two goals in six straight contests, yet the model thinks they'll do okay this week. What gives? Well, having conceded 7.3 shots inside the box at home, they're hardly a team without hope (that alone would be the 9th best  total of the teams playing this week). Add to that the fact that Newcastle have averaged 30% less SiB against their opponents than average, while only averaging 6.0 SiB on their travels, and you get a game where w...

Arsenal Mannone, Sagna, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Andre Santos, Arteta, Wilshere, Cazorla, Ramsey, Podolski, Giroud Subs: Martinez, Koscielny, Walcott, Coquelin, Arshavin, Jenkinson, Gervinho Poor old Jenkinson made way for Sagna who has finally shaken off his injuries. Jenkinson did a very good job while deputising for the French full back but for the overall value of the team Sagna probably gives them a decent boost at both ends of the pitch. The downside, of course, is that we lose one of the safe and cheap ways to access this unit. If Mannone can continue to hold of Szczesny when he returns to fitness he would be the obvious pick, though a lot of managers are hesitant to use too many transfers tinkering with 'keepers who might not always play. Mertesacker still faces some competition from Koscielny but he appears to be fairly safe for now and would be my pick for Jenkinson owners looking to move on. Gibbs should be back soon so the left back spot is still up in the air. Wi...

This week's preview piece is going to be in two pieces. The first piece will be the actual forecast for the week and a very high level explanation of what the numbers mean. Lower down you'll find the mechanics behind the forecast along with some identified weaknesses and some proposed questions as to where we go next with the model. First then, here is this week's forecast: Powered by Tableau xG Shots Expected goals based on shot data for both the highlighted team and their opponent to date xG Shots Regressed Expected goals based on shot data for both teams, this team regressed using league average shot conversion rates. The Nuts and Bolts This is the end result of a project I've been working on for a couple of weeks now, and it was discussed at length in an earlier piece . Now the data has actually come together though, I wanted to take the opportunity to run through an example so as to (a) help everyone understand where I'm coming from and (b) I ...