EURO 2012 – WILL FANTASY PREMIER LEAGUE PLAYERS BE AFFECTED BY FATIGUE

Strategy

When fantasy premier league managers  are picking their squads this season, in the back of their minds there will be the following question?  How will Euro 2012  and the Olympics affect their fantasy premier league performance selection and injury record.  . This article will seek to establish whether history shows that summer tournaments affect players fantasy premier league performance or not by comparing players fantasy premier league performance in the season before and after the tournament. 

Euro 2012 finishes on the 1st July, just a week before pre season training for most clubs.  Most fantasy premier league will have some time off and the question is,  does this lack of pre season and Euro 2012 fatigue effect form, selection and injury, making them an unnecessary risk for fantasy premier league managers.

Firstly lets take a look at last season.  There wasn’t a World Cup but there was a Copa America for South American countries in the heat of Argentina.  Lets not also forget that some players would have played in the World Cup 2010 as well meaning they had 2 consecutive summers without a “normal” preseason.  Surely this would have affected their fantasy premier league performance.  We will start our analysis  by comparing fantasy league performance last season to the previous season.  Its not a perfect analysis but it will give a good indication.  We will  then look at the world Cup 2010 and its affect on players. After that then at least us fantasy premier league managers can go in to the year armed with some facts

Copa America 2011

Lets analyse the data of the players who had circumstances that can give a reasonable comparison:

Luis Suarez –  He was player of the tournament and played 6 games stats are

2010/11 BPL season

4 goals and 6 assists  12 starts.(came in the January transfer window)

 goal or assist every 110 minutes

2011/2012

11 goals and 6 assists from 29 starts

goal or assist every 150 minutes

You can see there was a  major drop off in performance stats wise.  Not surprising after  2 summers of tournaments. Even without stats there is no doubt there was a major drop in fantasy premier league performance.  From being an absolute revelation in his first fantasy premier league season, the guy couldn’t hit a barn door most of last season (although he could probably have hit the frame of the barn door 3 or 4 times in trying to do so).

 Summary: affected

Ramires –  played 4 games 2 as a late sub.

2010/11

2 goals and 0 assists  22 starts

 goal or assist every 970 minutes

                        2011/12

5 goals and 2 assists  28 starts

 goal or assist every 353 minutes

Again, you don’t need to see stats to see that his fantasy premier league performance was significantly better in 2011/12 than the previous year.  Had a great box to box season scoring goals and making defensive plays.  Improved dramatically.  So much so that he became a Chelsea value fantasy premier league option

Summary: unaffected

Rodellega – played 3 games

2010/11

9 goals and 0 assists  34 starts

 goal or assist every 336 minutes

                        2011/12

2 goals and 6 assists  11 starts

 goal or assist every 155 minutes

The stats don’t really tell the picture in my mind.  On the face of it they clearly show a huge  improvement in fantasy premier league performance.  That’s not as black and white as the figures make it look like.  Although there were no assists its hard to think of Rodellega in 2010/11 as anything other than inspirational.  All Wigan fans will remember the goal he scored at Stoke to keep them up on the last fantasy premier league day and there’s no doubt Rodellega and his 9 goals plus N’Zogbia were the reasons Wigan stayed up.  While this season showed an improved per minute ratio,  it was frustrating season of being left on the bench so its hard to call it a success.  Im not convinced in fantasy premier league terms there was any improvement. Especially due to the uncertainty of selection.

Summary:  No verdict

So no help there then with an overall verdict on fantasy premier league performance.

Here’s the list of players not used for various factors

Aguero – came in new last season so no fantasy premier league stats to compare.  Has 20 easy games a season in Spain prior to coming to the fantasy premier league as well to lessen the fatigue factor.  Lets not forget what a huge success he was last year though and if he was affected then look  out fantasy premier league defences this year.

Tevez –  was playing golf.

Zabaleta –  selection was patchy both seasons no definitice answer.  Finished this year strong though which suggests no affect.

Luiz – new last season no comparison. Have to think it affected his brain.  Have you ever seen a fantasy premier league centre back wander around so much and be so impulsive?

Leiva – injured last season. Maybe an answer in itself?

Sandro, Santos, Beausejor – didn’t play enough fantasy premier league games to claim affect.

World Cup 2010

So no help there then. Lets look a a few examples from the World Cup in South Africa 2010.  We will be  looking at players from England, France, Holland plus  Dempsey and Pienaar.  We will show the World Cup games played (WC games) and comparing their fantasy premier league  performance in the season before the World Cup 2010 and the season after it.  The last column gives my verdict as to whether they were affected or not. I’ve included defenders as well, although its difficult to make an assessment as there’s so much of a collective effort involved in fantasy premier league points.  I’ve therefore just looked at the minutes played and events (ie goals and assists) per minute to judge their fantasy premier league attacking effort

Player        WC Games   BPL Minutes         Goals      Assists     Events per Min    Season   Affected?

 

Evra            2                   3286                     0              7              469 per min      2009/10

2962                     1              1            1481 per min      2010/11        YES

 

G Johnson   3                   2140                    3               5              268 per min        2009/10

2438                    2               2              610 per min        2010/11       YES

 

Malouda      3                   2301                   12             9            110 per min          2009/10

2808                   13              5            156 per min          2010/11    NO

 

Lampard      4                   3220                    22            18            81 per min           2009/10

2026                    10             4           145 per min           2010/11  YES

 

Kuyt             7                    3015                    9               0           335 per min         2009/10

2821                  13               0            217 per min        2010/11   NO

 

Dempsey       4                    2395                    7               3             240 per min        2009/10

3098                  12             3            206 per min          2010/11   NO

 

Pienaar         3                    2662                   4              0           666 per min            2009/10

1575                   1              0           1575 per min          2010/11   YES

 

RVP             7                   1254                     9                  7           78 per min            2009/10

1766                   18                  7           71 per min            2010/11     NO

 

Rooney         4                   2721                   26                 5             88 per min            2009/10

2228                   11                 11           101 per min          2010/11   YES

Conclusion

So what is the overall verdict on tournaments and the fantasy premier league performance affect.

The Copa America affect was inconclusive and the 2010 World Cup affected 5/9 players sampled.  Hardly conclusive proof that picking a player after Euro 2012 will see his fantasy premier league returns significantly diminish.  The one thing that does stand out though is that when a player is affected, they are massively affected.  The fantasy premier league players that were affected saw that events per minute on average half compared to what they did that season.  That figure looks better as Rooney on an events per minute basis didn’t look too affected due to the assists that season but his goals in total and per minute plummeted.

Therefore the answer is be careful, your Euro 2012 player may not have his fantasy premier league returns affected by playing in the summer but if he does then watch out.  It will definitely be a factor in my choice of player this season undoubtedly

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