Michu up £0.8m Hazard up £0.6m.  Should fantasy premier league managers use a wildcard or take point hits to get them in their team?

Fantasy premier league managers who have come to the site from the beginning will know I was recommending them from an early stage.   Hazard started  in 3/5 of my  opening day teams  and Michu  only in TFF.    In a now extremely costly decision I changed Michu and Hazard in the last day before the Barclays fantasy premier league site opened and are now paying the price.  However, at least 192 out of the 300 people in the fantasy football geek  league didn’t take notice and at least have one in their team.  Those people can read this article out of academic interest only while others will be looking over it to see if the expenditure is worthwhile.

Lets start with some basics before we get on to the analysis.

My basic fantasy premier league strategy is to try and put players in who are on form when they hit clumps of easy fixtures.  Players are bought and sold on this basis.  However against this, a couple of players will usually become fixture proof as they perform irrespective of fixture difficulty.  RVP last year was the classic example.  Bale was probably the next closest.  You know someone is fixture proof because even when returns aren’t coming the underlying stats continue to be strong.

So lets look at both these players on this basis:

Hazard

Just before we start lets remember this is a player who scored 20 goals and got 15 assists in the French league last year and was player of the year for the last 2 seasons so there’s no doubting his quality.  However, in making a decision about purchasing him the place to start is  fixtures.  On the fixture ease schedule Chelsea are 19th for the next 6 games and then 19th, 20th and 19th for the 6 games from GW 5,6 and 7.  Chelsea probably have close to the worst fixtures of any team.  So that means that to buy Hazard now we need to think he will be one of the few fixture proof players who don’t need to be rotated.

His fixtures by the way are:

QPR A

Stoke H

Ars A

Nor H

Tot A

Mun H

So is he good enough to be fixture proof?  So far his record is 6 assists and 1 goal in 3 games.  Those are amazing returns.  Those games were  Wig A, Reading H and Newc H.  Hardly difficult.  However, how do the underlying stats stack up?

On the shooting stats front I rank him 5th as follows:

1  Fellaini

2.  Lallana

3.  Dyer

4.  Michu

5.  Hazard

As a note to this,  Cazorla and Bale had greater shots than Hazard but as they were predominantly outside the area I have discounted them.  Consistency wise Hazard was in my top 10 shooting stats for 2 of the 3 weeks.  However, remember this is only 3 weeks which isn’t really enough data.

On the chances created he also rates 5th as follows:

1.  Cazorla

2.  Gerrard

3  Park

4.  YYT

5.  Hazard

So he’s the only player on both schedules although to me the correlation between assists and chances created just isn’t as clear cut as you would think.

Is that enough to make him fixture proof?  I’m not sure as it was 3 relatively easy games and although there’s no doubt he is quality, to buy him on the back of being in a team with the worst fixtures is a big step.  At the moment I don’t have the cash to buy him and away to QPR, which will be a frenzied local derby, certainly doesn’t warrant a 4 point hit to get him in.  How he does in this game will be very interesting and may hold the key to the decision.  In summary though there’s no need to panic buy him this week.

Michu

Michu has started with a flourish.  The top scoring midfielder with 4 goals and 1 assist in the first 3 games.  The fixtures were QPR A,  West Ham H  and Sunderland H which is  relatively kind.

Swansea are in a much better place fixture wise than Chelsea.  At GW4 they are 7th in the next 6 fixtures although they then fall away in the 6 fixtures from game week 5,6 and 7 to 15, 10 and 10

The next fixtures are:

AVL    A

EVE     H

STOK   A

RDG     H

WIG     H

MCY    A

So not a compelling fixture purchase but not bad.

In underlying shooting stats you can see from the Hazard analysis that he was 4th in the shooting stats:

1  Fellaini

2.  Lallana

3.  Dyer

4.  Michu

Interestingly all are cheaper than him.  The difficult aspect about Michu is the clinical nature of his finishing. The goal against Sunderland and the second goal against QPR were examples of extraordinary finishing.  He definitely has a pedigree as I have said before with 15 goals in La Liga last year for a relegation threatened team.  Its just whether that level of finishing can be kept up.

I’m not convinced at this stage he’s an essential purchase.  The case is probably more compelling for buying Fellaini with Evertons fixtures or  Cazorla where the gap on value has dropped to £1.7m.

Well I hope that was useful.  I also hope these two don’t come back to haunt me for a second time.  However with Hazard now in 4 of 5 teams and Michu in Sky and TFF there would at least be some compensation.