PLFantasy

Shots on target per 90 minutes (minimum 3 starts) 1.      Rooney 3.0 2.     Van der Vaart 2.8 3.     Aguero 2.4 4.     Dzeko 2.4 5.     Adebayor 2.3 6.     Van Persie 2.2 7.     Defoe 2.1 8.     Anelka 1.9 9.     Suarez 1.5 10. Di Santo 1.5 We've seen that correlation between shots on target and goals is (unsurprisingly) strong and the majority of the above players have benefited from that fact. Van der Vaart and Di Santo stand out for me and deserve a couple of words. Owned by just 3% of managers, Van der Vaart is somewhat of a forgotten fantasy force but the above indicates his lack of goals is not through a lack of trying. In his career, Van der Vaart is averaging a goal every 4 shots on target so if he carries on his current pace (9 shots on target in just 287 minutes) he should see his points tally start to rise quick...

A couple of weeks back, we looked at the correlation between shots on goal and goals scored and (unsurprisingly) found a pretty strong link between the two. This ground breaking research probably won't make it into the next Freakonomics book but it might help illustrate players who are getting good looks at goal but not converting their chances. I went on to mess up my explanation of regression to the mean (h/t to mustardking for correcting me) but in essence, while players who have yet to capitalise on a number of shots on target, don't suddenly find themselves 'due' a goal, if a player continues to get in good positions and take good shots, over a period of time we would expect them to score at their historical rate going forward (normally around a goal every three shots on target for elite players). Building on the shots analysis, we can now move onto to trying to predict assists. This is inherently trickier as the inputs we need to use will almost certainly invo...