With the FA Cup break in the fantasy premier league season and it being just over half way I thought it would be a good time to give out a few thoughts on the season to date.
fantasy premier league – a few thoughts on the season so far
I thought that I would outline what I think have been the main factors affecting rank in fantasy premier league this season and some thoughts on the impacts.
WIDER CHOICE OF PLAYERS
Football is a game of few events. Essentially goals, assists and clean sheets. Often there can only be a few of these events in a game shared between 22 players. These events don’t come in an even distribution either. You therefore have an inherently difficult game to predict and who will be the beneficiary of these few events
You can see from my player rankings charts that very few players return a goal or assist in over 50% of games. The average is more like 35%-40% which means that of your front 7 you may only end up with 3 of those players returning.
To give an example, at the moment there are 6 teams who could feasibly fight out the title and all of these have a few players to choose from all of which have merit to some degree
Arsenal – Sanchez, Ozil, Giroud and Walcott
Liverpool – Coutinho, Mane, Firmino, Lallana
Spurs – Alli, Eriksen, Kane
Man City – Aguero, De Bruyne and Sterling
Chelsea – Costa, Hazard
Man Utd – Ibrahimovic
Picking the key player in the team with multiple options isn’t always obvious and this pattern translates itself down to the rest of the teams due to the increasing amount of money into the premier league.
One of the articles I write is a 10 top FPL managers review of their teams. These managers have finished in the top 10k overall rank for the last 3 years. At the half way stage there is a wide variance in scores. 1 is just outside the top 100 and and 2 are in the 900k. Only 3 are inside 100k overall rank. This shows how difficult the season is
In addition, there are also 5 players Alonso, Sanchez, Hazard, Costa and Ibrahimovic in more than 5 of their teams. Thats 10 other players to pick which gives a wide variety for potential scores and that is what we are often seeing. There are regularly spreads of 30 odd points between the 10 managers. This wider choice of players is also starting to translate itself into wider captain picks of the top 10 managers further exacerbating their variety of scores
PLAYER VALUE FLUCTUATIONS
Normally I like to wait until the Friday press manager press conferences are over before making transfers so you have full information on injuries and player selection to some extent. That has been more difficult due to the seemingly vicious pace of price drops especially and price rises. If value is an important part of your strategy then you need to make decisions early in the week in order to preserve value.
Certainly the transfers I regret this season have come when I’ve wanted to avoid price movements that would harm my value and made them quicker than ordinarily I would like to do.
NEW MANAGER UNPREDICTABILITY
Of the 6 teams mentioned above 3, in Man City, Man Utd and Chelsea have new managers. The 2 Manchester teams managers have taken a while to settle on a first team and Guardiola particularly seems difficult to predict.
FEAR FACTOR
The difficult season for alot of experienced managers had created a fear factor in my view which has lead to bandwagons being heavily chased to avoid losing out or negative rank movements if popular players continue to perform well. This is exacerbated by managers trying to create value by buying bandwagons. This chasing of generally forwards and midfielders removes the chance to build a team in all areas. We do an article on the bandwagons assessing them each week.
WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN GOING FORWARD?
DEFENCE SHOULDN’T BE IGNORED
In looking at the high scores of the top 10 managers vs the low scores each week defence has been an important component. Apart from Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs there is good value at around £5m or less in the rest of the teams. Having 5 defenders that are in good defensive teams is worth the investment and worth keeping on top of in your team. If you can afford the player with additional attacking potential or those that have set piece or penalty duties all the better. We look and rank the defensive value and attacking players in each team. Here’s the link
KEEP ON TOP OF FIXTURES
Players with form and fixtures is the general consensus on how to pick players. I think there are various views on what form is but fixtures is more predictable. Picking players who play a series of teams that concede alot of goals by definition should increase the probability of them gaining FPL points. Our fixture ease articles covers teams and gives player suggestions for those with the best fixtures
SET PIECES, PLAYERS CLASSIFICATIONS & POSITIONING AND PENALTIES
The above are examples of what we try and identify in the narrative of our player ranking articles to give that extra layer of information to identify players with additional ability to score or assist. So Snodgrass, Phillips and Stanislas are good example of cheap players with set piece duties.
FPL classified Midfielders playing as strikers such as Jay Rodriguez or support strikers such as Dele Alli are identified in the narrative as players with an extra edge to their ability to score. Chris Brunt an FPL defender is playing as an LAM
In our gameweek review articles we try and identify the key players identifying these factors
Those with penalty duties will be identified in the narrative
In future my player rankings will identify all these factors in a separate section for all players in the schedule not just those with narrative which is generally just the first 10
BEING MINDFUL OF ROTATION AND SUBSTITUTION MAGNETS
Obviously the more time you’re on the pitch the more likely you are to score points. The less you are rotated the same. In the narrative of our player ranking articles we will identify whether players are minutes and rotation risk. I don’t think there is an absolute rule about whether to select these players but it’s worth going into a transfer with your eyes open.
LOOKING AT OTHER WAYS OF PICKING PLAYERS
The top 10 managers articles shows us what proven FPL managers are doing in team selection, transfers and strategy. That gives another view apart from just mine. Bookies odds on goal scoring of players and clean sheets is another bit of information we give to assess a decision on a player. The bookies make alot of money by assessing the odds of goal scorers and clean sheets and their view is also another interesting layer in our decision making. These are included in our player rankings articles
DOUBLE GAMEWEEKS TO THE RESCUE
The FA CUP quarters and Semis plus the EFL Cup final will give postponements which will have blanks and then Double gameweeks. Last season careful planning and using the wildcard and bench boost gave huge increase in ranks for a number of managers who put the time into planning.
That will be available again this season and we’ll be doing article to keep you updated so you can plan your transfers
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