PLFantasy

I'm a little bit pressed for time this week so I'm going to keep this post briefer than before so we have time to get into the stats before the weekend. Liverpool Learn About Tableau Despite losing Suarez who was obviously a big driver behind this team's success last season, it's hard to argue that this squad isn't deeper than it was last year, with quality backups at virtually every position. Despite having seven playable options, the back line has been very settled with Moreno, Lovren, Skrtel and Manquillo each starting virtually every game and never appearing as a substitute. Moreno and Lovren were high profile captures during the off season so it was reaonable to pencil that pair in. Skrtel re-solididied his place in this side last season after a year or so of sporadic play but with Sakho available I still felt there was some risk there. That really hasn't materialised and with Sakho now sidelined, the big Slovakian looks pretty locked in right now. If I...

Clean Sheet Rankings  I am hesitant to try and over-engineer these rankings but it has always been my view when I read other fantasy sites that I'd prefer to have as much info as possible and then use my own judgement to decide what is best to rely on. Therefore, given that we are now 6 weeks in, I am going to include the rankings to reflect both the hybrid stats (based on last year's results and this years) as well as the rankings if you purely use this season's data. I have also included below some trends that need factoring into your decisions this week. Hybrid rankings (based on 2009/10 and 2010/11 seasons) Birmingham (0.51) + Tottenham (0.53) Liverpool (0.56) - Stoke (0.62) Man City (0.66) + West Ham (0.76) West Brom (0.78) Chelsea (0.79) Everton (0.91) + Wolves (1.11) Wigan (1.13) Man United (1.20) + Sunderland (1.31) Fulham (1.63) + Blackburn (1.67) + Aston Villa (2.00) Newcastle (2.13) Bolton (2.16) Arsenal (3.17) Blackpool (3.68) 2010/11 ran...

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...

This week's preview is going to be a bit condensed as my internet access has been limited while still on my travels. After the long rambling piece from GW2 was done I had enough time to throw together the below rankings which will hopefully help with lineup and transfer questions for the week: Clean Sheet Rankings Chelsea (0.27) Man United (0.36) Tottenham (0.40) Liverpool (0.55) Blackpool (0.63) Aston Villa (0.70) Wolves (0.79) Newcastle (0.81) Blackburn (1.13) Bolton (1.13) Sunderland (1.17) Arsenal (1.36) Fulham (1.44) Man City (1.48) Everton (1.61) Birmingham (1.63) West Brom (3.39) Stoke (3.73) West Ham (3.83) Wigan (4.03) Aside from the usual candidates, Blackpool stand out as a top pick for the week but I am cautious about this ranking due to the lack of data we have for them at home in the EPL. That said, Fulham were awful away last season (12 goals) and so Blackpool might just be worth a shot if you need a budget option this week. The top four picks...

The below is a bit late due to my lack of internet access. The GW3 preview will also be up shortly.  Seeing as these gameweek roundups invariably descend into random thoughts from the football world, I thought I would rename the segment as both a nod to the nature of my posts and to the greatest rock band of all time (see how even the introductions are now rambling . . . good luck to the reader!). This week is one in which my concise writing would be especially beneficial given the goals (38) and fantasy excitement of this past week. Without further ado then I will start with a few big performances that require our attention: Theo Walcott (7.1m) - I included Walcott in my ' under the radar' piece before the season started so while Walcott enjoying success is not a total surprise, the timing is much earlier than I expected. It is pleasing to see him flourish early in the season as this performance should buy him some patience for when he inevitably has one of those incon...

Well that went well. One of my better week of predictions is in the bag and Pure Juice sit 113th out of close to 2 million managers having managed six goals and four clean sheets on opening weekend. Unfortunately I don't think I have struck some sort of fantasy blueprint to be applied in all future weeks - more than I got a bit lucky and applied some fundamental principles that hold true for the coming weeks too: While I cautioned earlier about using minutes played as a sure fire barometer for future success, during these opening weeks when team selections are unsettled from prior season, it is essential to go with the sure things and try and avoid trying to discover the next big thing too early. That is why - as some of you have correctly pointed out - I somewhat deviated from my normal strategy of cheaper defenders and brought in Vidic and Terry for opening weekend (this was also due to saving some cash swapping Van Persie to Berbatov quite late on after it becam...

It's starting to get serious now. With Chelsea's win at Old Trafford and Arsenal's last minute winner against Wolves, the title is race is fully on with all three teams have a legitimate chance to win it. With the cancellation of the Stoke-Fulham game, gameweek 34 becomes a standard 10 game week, though with no top of the table clashes, there should be points on offer so long as we don't suffer any more big name casualties. Clean Sheet Rankings Liverpool Wigan Stoke Wolves Chelsea Hull Aston Villa Man City Tottenham West Ham Man Utd Portsmouth Blackburn Everton Arsenal Sunderland Birmingham Fulham Burnley Bolton The stats suggest that no less than 8 teams will concede - on average - less than a goal this week which makes for some potential gains from our defensive lines. Liverpool, Wigan and Stoke are a cut above the rest this week and it would be wise to try and get at least three of these in this week. Normally I would stay a million miles away from Hull but with a gr...

Before we get stuck into gameweek 32, I am going to quickly fly through my top strikers for the remainder of the season, as promised yesterday. I also urge, nay implore you to look at yesterday's ramblings on midfielders which while somewhat of a Cesc-love-fest contains at least a few useful stats for your amusement. I am limiting this discussion to the big three strikers (Torres, Drogba and Rooney) though that is not a slight on the prospects of Tevez, Bent etc, more that most of us can only afford to employ one or at most two of these stud strikers and so we really need to know which one (or two) we should hitch our wagon to. It must also be noted that Van Persie still leads all strikers with 7.7 PPG, an astonishing stat given the plaudits Rooney (7.4 PPG) has received this year. While some reports are suggesting Van Persie may be back before the end of the season I will only entertain the prospect of spending 10m+ on a player when he is a lock to start, which just isn't th...

Another average week in the books for Pure Juice and I'm strongly considering drastic action. I'm out of the cup now and find myself 38 points adrift in my work league. I have Hart, Sorensen , Fabregas , Milner , Bent and Tevez who are all owned by at least 28% of all managers. None of these players have had much joy in the past few weeks and I particularly frustrated by Milner , Sorensen and even Bent's form. Add this to the fact that Valencia's place in the United team might be in jeopardy and suddenly my team looks weak. I think Fabregas is too good to drop while Tevez gets a double gameweek in week 26. The others are all on the block and I am looking to move to players held by 10% of managers or less over the coming weeks, ready for the late season push. For that reason I will be featuring players' ownership every time I mention them from now on. Clean Sheet Rankings Man United Birmingham Stoke Tottenham Burnley Liverpool Sunderland Chelsea Wolves Bolton M...

Firstly, an apology for the lack of preview last week. Work commitments along with the short game left me caught short. Hopefully everyone was aware of United and City's absence and planned accordingly while picking a captain become somewhat trickier with the likes of Rooney and Tevez absent. The headline game of week 24 will of course be the clash at the Emirates between Arsenal and United, which is probably the biggest game of the season so far. Fantasy wise I don't love the game with these games tending to have a couple of goals and a lack of clean sheets (the only clean sheets in this fixture since 2002 have been the 0-0 in 2005/06). Four more teams have double gameweeks with the highlight of course being league leaders Chelsea who have a pair of road games against two of the weaker sides in the division (though both have actually been decent at home). Double gameweeks are going to play a massive part of the remainder of the season with no less than 14 scheduled over the ne...

In case I can't get a full preview up in the next day or two, I have posted below my clean sheet and captain rankings for the week. The clean sheet rankings use a new tweaked formula to give a weighted average to both the teams average goals conceded at home/away and the ranking of their opponent for the season. Hopefully this will lead to better decisions for the future. Clean Sheet Rankings Chelsea Man City Man Utd Wigan Liverpool Birmingham Burnley Arsenal Fulham West Ham Tottenham Sunderland Portsmouth Aston Villa Blackburn Bolton Stoke Everton Hull Wolves Captain Rankings Fernando Torres Cesc Fabregas Didier Drogba Steven Gerrard Wayne Rooney Darren Bent Hugo Rodallega Ashley Cole Antonio Valencia Carlos Tevez Apologies for the brief post this week, I will try and flesh this out in the next day or so. I will be on twitter and my iPhone though so please post questions below or @plfantasy and we can all discuss our plans for the week.

Gameweek 14 Fixtures Blackburn v Stoke City Fulham v Bolton Man City v Hull City Portsmouth v Man Utd West Ham v Burnley Wigan v Sunderland Aston Villa v To ttenham Wolves v Birmingham (Sun) Everton v Liverpool (Sun) Arsenal v Chelsea (Sun) I love the fixture list this week from both a fantasy and real life perspective, with Sunday's fixture list looking particularly tasty (not to mention ¡El SuperClásico! between Real Madrid and Barcelona later that evening). The stats suggest Villa, Everton, Fulham, City and West Ham should score goals, while common sense suggests that United should clearly be in this list (even though Portsmouth have actually been very solid at home 1.33 GPG conceded). Unfortunately some managers won't be very well placed to make changes to capitalise on these fixtures as they try to put out fires in their team with Darren Bent the latest to go down with injury, although the latest reports suggest this isn't as bad as initially feared. Meanwhile, Dr...

With Van Persie (6 weeks) joining fellow fantasy stud Lampard (3 weeks) on the sidelines, a large portion of fantasy owners will be looking to bring in one or two big name players this week. I have therefore ranked the 10m+ players at each position who will provide the best bang for your buck over the next 6 weeks: Cesc Fabregas - his fixtures aren't great but as with Ronaldo in previous years Fabregas is now a must own player and should probably be captained most weeks. He is the natural replacement for Frank Lampard and will even save you 1.1m as an added bonus. You can make this change with confidence and perhaps target the week 17 game against Portsmouth as a good time to bring Lampad back if you so wish. However, with 43% ownership I'm sure most of you already have Cesc, so lets look slightly down the ownership ladder for our next pick. Andrei Arshavin - Arshavin is the least held of the 10m midfielders and is well placed to prosper in the absence of van Persie. Befor...

Suspensions Plenty of suspensions this week as the 5 yellow cards start to kick in and the raft of red cards last week: Jamie Carragher Habib Beye Gary Neville J'Lloyd Samuel Philp Degen Stiliyan Petrov Barry Ferguson Diniyar Bilyaletdinov Geovani Lorik Cana Kenwyne Jones Note that Jermaine Defoe is back after serving his recent 3 game ban. Injuries A few headlines this week, none more so than some potentially disastrous news from Anfield: Fernando Torres - Rumours are flying round that Torres might need surgery though Sky Sports suggest that having seen a specialist this week, El Nino could avoid any procedures and even play this week against Birmingham. Still held by an incredible 26% of owners makes Torres overpriced and too risky right now. Weeks 14 - 19 look good for Liverpool and Torres might be worth a look then for Van Persie owners spooked by Arsenal's tough schedule but until then I would stay away for now. Steven Gerrard - Phyio Room rate Gerrard as very doub...

Apologies for not getting this out sooner. I hope no bad decisions were based on a lack of decent information. Injury roundup from around the league: Gerrard and Torres are both confirmed to be out ( Football 365 ). For weekly replacements I still like the Arsenal pair of Fabregas and Van Persie. I also really like Adebayor's matchup against Wigan and he is a long term buy so might be a good fir for Torres owners. Rooney is confirmed as being out ( Football365 ). With his upcoming fixtures, Rooney is a sell rather than bench player and as with Torres I'd go with Van Persie or Adebayor to replace him. Van der Sar is definitely back which spells the end of Ben Foster ( Football365 ). I considered replacements earlier in the week here . Michael Ballack will miss the Villa game after a tackle from teammate Yuri Zhirkov while on international duty ( BBC ). Is there anyone I tipped this week and haven't cursed! Eduardo is out for the Gunners ( BBC ) Lescott, Toure, Bellamy and De...

Welcome back fantasy fans, I hope everyone didn't suffer through the bye week too much (I hate Saturday afternoon at 3pm when there are no Premier League games). Nothing good can come of these international games and the best outcome is that no-one gets injured. A few players of note have not been so lucky though most look likely to avoid missing out this week: Fernando Torres Spain coach Del Bosque: "I told him (Benitez) that we will treat Torres as if he was at Liverpool. If the boy is well and wants to play, he will play against Bosnia. And if he has any problem, he will not play. It's that simple."Liverpool play three fairly tricky games through week 11 so it might be worth employing your 11.5m elsewhere. Adebayor and Van Persie have the best fixtures of the big five strikers in the next 6 games, with Liverpool being by far the worst. Steve Gerrard The Liverpool captain is said to be close to fitness for Wednesday's games against Belarus so barring any furthe...