Here’s the 14th article in the series and a very interesting one given the shortened gameweek 29. If you haven’t seen it before I’ve sought out the teams of 10 top fantasy premier league managers and analysed who they’ve got in their teams. This is not the current top 10 fantasy premier league leaders but 10 managers who are currently successful and have been successful for the last 3 years. It continues to make interesting reading. However if you can’t be bothered with the detail there’s a team I’ve put together in the article to represent the top 10 managers
fantasy premier league – analysing 10 top fantasy premier league managers teams – GW29
Background
Just in case it’s your first time reading this article. In any part of life, sport or business it’s natural to look at the best and see what you can learn. It also helps challenge your thinking and make you question what you’re doing. If the best are doing it and so are you it may also give some comfort. I also know that going on to fantasy premier league sites if you get a bad tip then you can kind of ditch the site. So if you can see that other tried and tested fantasy premier league managers also believe in that player then it can provide some justification for the sites pick
The reason I haven’t just picked the current top 10 leaders is that these top 10 leaders will change over the season so the top 10 now will be totally different at the end of the year. In my mind it means nothing. Its more important to pick people in my mind who’ve consistently finished high in the overall league over the last 3 years.
Here’s some stats on the 10. First remember that there 10 fantasy premier league managers and I’ve looked at the last 3 years overall finish rank. Meaning there are 30 times they have played in the last 3 years. Sorry if you found that insulting, just for clarity.
1. The average overall position improved after a very good round for the 10 currently and the average at the moment is 11,000 up from the last gameweek of 13,200. 11,000 is top 0.3% of 3,192,000 fantasy premier league managers. No one is currently lower than 53,000
2. The average position over the last 3 years is around 3,500 (this is the top 0.1 % of fantasy premier league teams)
3. 10/10 have finished in the top 1000 in the last 3 years
4 6/10 have finished in the top 100 in the last 3 years
The above is pretty impressive consistency in fantasy premier league. What these teams look like is certainly something to take note of. My average over the last 3 years is 7,900 by the way.
There are 2 issues with doing this though. Firstly just because a player is owned by a fantasy premier league manager doesn’t mean he wants to own him. He could be wanting to transfer him out but can’t due to other priorities, injuries etc. That’s probably more for cheapies though as expensive players are probably ditched earlier. Secondly it obviously s a look back and not forward to the next gameweek
Ok so here’s the break down of their teams (obviously I don’t mention every player just the ones that appear frequently).
What was the average round score?
The average GW29 score of the 10 fantasy premier league managers was 55 points compared to the average of 29. 26 points and 90% above the average
What is the average team value?
The average value of the 10 fantasy premier league managers was £111.5m up from £111.4m last week
Interestingly I noted the time when the transfers were done for this week. The average day of transfers was Friday 7 March. This was later than ususal due to the European games increasing injury risk and with the limited games injury risk became a bigger factor.
GK/DEFs by player
Coleman is owned by 6 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Ward and Boruc are owned by 5 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Mannone Ivanovic and Evra are owned by 4 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Azpilicueta Baines KDavis Adrian Chester Mertesacker Terry and Olsson are owned by 3 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
GKs/DEFs by team
Chelsea GKs/DEFs appear 12 times as a GK/DEF in the 10 teams
Southampton GKs/DEFs appear 11 times as a GK/DEF in the 10 teams
Everton GKs/DEFs appear 9 times as a GK/DEF in the 10 teams
C Palace GKs/DEFs appear 8 times as a GK/DEF in the 10 teams
Cardiff GKs/DEFs appear 7 times as a GK/DEF in the 10 teams
Norwich and Man Utd GKs/DEFs appear 5 times as a GK/DEF in the 10 teams
Sunderland GKs/DEFs appear 4 times as a GK/DEF in the 10 teams
Norwich West Ham and Hull GKs/DEFs appear 3 times as a GK/DEF in the 10 teams
Midfielders
Hazard and Lallana are owned by 10 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Mata is owned by 9 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Snodgrass is owned by 6 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Noone is owned by 3 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Forwards
Suarez is owned by 10 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Adebayor is owned by 8 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Sturridge is owned by 5 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers
GW29 Transfers
The most transferred in players were in fantasy premier league GW29:
Evra x 4
Aapilicueta x 3
No one else was transferred in more than once.
The most transferred out were:
Koscielny x 3
Sturridge x 2
Mertesacker x 2
No one else was transferred out more than once
The most popular transfers were:
Koscielny to Evra x 2
No other transfer was undertaken more than once
The average day of transfers was Friday 7 March. This was later than ususal due to the European games increasing injury risk and the shortened gameweek meaning avoiding injuries was even more important
GW29 Captain Choices
Hazard was captained 8 times. RVP twice
How many took hits?
2 of the 10 fantasy premier league managers took point hits.
What was the most popular formation
This was all over the place due to the shortened number of teams in the gameweek and should be ignored this week
How many have used their Wildcard?
8 out of 10 have used their regular season wildcard
So what does this mean?
Here’s a few things which jump out:
- For the gameweek
The season average of 11,000 compared to their last 3 year average of 3,000 shows what a hard year its been for even the best fantasy premier league managers. However the 10 managers are continuing to perform with an average of 58 this gameweek compared to the league average of 46
The overwhleming choice of Hazard as captain
The sale of Arsenal defenders. Presumably due to the tough schedule ahead as well as no game in GW29
The purchase of Evra who was an early week bandwagon.
The ignoring of Rooney who was the number 1 bandwagon.
The ignoring (except for 1 transfer) of RVP who was a captain option.
The purchase of Chelsea defenders who are now the top owned defensive team
The selling by a couple of people of Sturridge. Could be people who have bought him recently.
Mata ownership increases
- For the season
An Chelsea Southampton Everton and Palace and now Chelsea look like where the defensive emphasis should be. Hazard Lallana and Suarez look the must haves elsewhere with Mata and Adebayor just behind .
These managers take hits
Transfers appear to be done early in the week except for European weeks
3-4-3 is still the most popular formation.
All have created valuable teams.
The concentration is on teams inside the top 4 challenging teams. Lallana (10) Nolan (2) Bony (1) Lambert (1) and Rodriguez (2) are the only players over £6m outside the top 4 challenging teams owned by the 10 fantasy premier league managers
Here’s a team to represent the top 10 fantasy premier league managers. Value was around £108m. This is below their average. Below the picture I’ll tell you how it would have scored
Here’s how the team would have performed
GK
Boruc – 6 points
DEF
Evra – 6 points
Ivanovic – 7 points
Ward – 2 points
Fabio – 2 point
MID
Hazard – 18 points captain
Snodgrass – 6 points
Lallana – 3 points
Mata – 3 points
Noone – 5 points
FWDS
Adebayor – 2 points
Reserves: Mannone Coleman Suarez Sturridge
Total points: 60 points vs average of 29
That’s it I hope you found it interesting. I hope it also challenged your thinking on some fantasy premier league players or provided some comfort if you’re holding on to someone and doubting
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