In anticipation of the fixtures tomorrow here’s my rating home and away of the fantasy premier league defences using a series of defensive stats from last year. This is what I will use to put together my first fixture ease schedule of the new season over the coming week or so. It doesnt include the newly promoed sides at the moment but I will attempt to integrate them in to the fixture ease schedule. The fixture ease schedule will be adjusted as signings change the rankings.
Rankings
Heres the list then:
1. Liverpool home
2. Manchester City home
3. Chelsea Home
4 Arsenal Away
5. Manchester Utd home
6. Manchester City away
7. Everton Home
8. Stoke Home
9. Norwich Home
10. Spurs Home
11. West Ham Home
12. Manchester United Away
13. Chelsea Away
14. Arsenal Home
15. Sunderland Home
16. Liverpool Away
17. Swansea Home
18. WBA Home
19. Spurs Away
20. Stoke Away
21. Southampton Away
22. QPR Home
23. Everton Away
24. Fulham Home
25. Swansea Away
26. Aston Villa Home
27. Wigan Away
28. Newcastle Home
29. West Ham Away
30. Southampton Away
31. Fulham Away
32. QPR Away
33. Reading Home
34. Sunderland Away
35. WBA Away
36. Wigan Home
37. Norwich Away
38. Newcastle Away
39. Aston Villa Away
40. Reading Away
Commentary
The 2 things that stand out are the Arsenal away defence and the Norwich home defence. The commonly held myth that the Arsenal defence is a soft touch is a total myth. Away from home they only conceded 14 goals in 19 games and recorded 9 clean sheets. Both of those stats were the best of any team. The key this year will be keeping Koscielny and Mertesacker together. Buying a quality screening midfielder such as a deep lying Fellaini would give it extra strength. At home they weren’t so strong, conceding far more with less clean sheets but they were far more open and attacking at home and this was an inevitable consequence
Norwich at home had a great start which tailed off. It should be noted they kept United and Arsenal scoreless and recored 8 clean sheets at home. Only Liverpool and Man City had more at home.
The third point was the dominance of Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool were on the stats. 10 of the top 16 rankngs were held by these teams home and away defences. Finding value players in these teams (Sagna was £4.6m at one stage) is a key to fantasy premier league success.
Thats it, I like eveyone cant wait until the fixtures are released tomorrow