PLFantasy

Despite the suggestions in some section of old media, the so-called "stats" versus "scouting" debate is essentially over. I would imagine most, if not all, teams pay at least some attention to advanced stats with player performance tracked and assessed on an increasingly granular level. The same should be true in fantasy football. The suggestion that you can't scout players purely based on a spreadsheet is completely fair, but is likely something of a straw man argument as I don't know if anyone really believes that to be true. Equally, you are probably missing out if you think you can glean all the information you need by watching games (or more precisely highlights as the majority of games aren't televised in many regions). This game served a nice reminder that both those one sided views are foolish. The highlights package would give you much of what you need to know in that Arsenal largely dominated the game but were picked off by a couple of Hull a

Learn About Tableau The second team we're going to adopt this week are Arsenal's opponents - Hull - who have been enjoying a reasonable start to the new campaign, although as we'll get to later in the week, their underlying data suggests trouble might be brewing if they don't start to generate more chances for their talented front pair. Hull have switched between a 4-4-2 and 3-5-2 base formation thus far this year, making their lineup a little harder to forecast on a weekly basis. We don't really have enough of a sample of draw any concrete conclusions about the team scoring/conceding more/less goals when in either formation so I'm not going to focus too much attention there in this post. McGregor, Davies, Dawson, Robertson and Elmohamady all appear to be close to automatic choices here with Chester the first man in if the back three is favoured. Elmohamady is classified as a midfielder in the PL.com game so we'll touch on him in a second, leaving three op

With the season drawing ever closer its time to look at the next 5 teams in the final pre-season preview. With the transfer window open for another 3 weeks, things have the potential to change but it is vital to at least get players who are featuring regularly right from the start of the season. Without further ado then, here are the next 5 team summaries: Burnley Projected Team: Jensen, Alexander, Kalvenes, Carlisle, Duff, Gudjonsson, McCann, Eagles, McDonald, Paterson, Fletcher Owen Coyle's men had a dream season last year, gaining promotion to the Premier League along with a couple of great cup runs. However, with limited funds in the off season the squad depth has been strengthened but the overall quality appears to be lacking somewhat. The Clarets were the second top scorers last season, but also had the 7th worst defence, worse than the likes of Plymouth and Barnsley. The arrivals of Edgar (4m) and Eckersley (4m) provide depth and one of the pair may even crack the starting l

Finally a staurday afternoon with a decent tally and wouldn't you know it, I had to miss it for the dreaded christmas shopping! Therefore I was not on hand to see Valencia and Young terrorise opposition defenses to give the Juice a decent 52 point haul on Saturday. In absence of my weekly diary and general ramblings, I'll review each game below noting any key trends and scorers and suggesting where future sleepers may lie: Middlesbrough 1 - 1 Arsenal Middelesbrough: Turnbull, Huth, Pogatetz, Riggott, McMahon, Arca, Downing, Johnson, Digard, Alliadiere, Tuncay Arsenal: Almunia, Clichy, Djorou, Gallas, Sagna, Denilson, Fabregas, Diaby, Song, Adebayour, Van Persie. I think Adebayour has staked a claim for the best premium striker around with his 11th goal in 20 games (in all competitions) and the return of Drogba to potentially limit Anelka's minutes (more on that later). With just one clean sheet since week 9, players are abandoning the Arsenal defense and the likes of Clichy

Saturday sees the anniversary of Einstein's paper "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?" which first introduced the equation E=MC2. Such intricacies and brain power will not be required this week in the fantasy world. Four of the best hot spots for fantasy talent - Arsenal, United, Chelsea and Villa - all face what appear to easy matchups that could be filled with goals and fantasy points. Its surely a matter of filling your lineup with as many of these as possible to max out your points this week. Arsenal v Hull City Hull have impressed so far with the exception of the Wigan game where their potential frailty was exposed. Arsenal have been in good form this season and after a bit of a nervy start against Bolton they played some breathtaking flowing football where the only disadvantage for fantasy owners was that anyone in the team could pop up with a goal (or be benched in van Persie's case). With the big guns rested against Hull you would ex