If you read my team of the season 2 players in particular you would not have expected to be there at the beginning of the season were YYT and Ramsey. However on FPL points per minute they were miles ahead of any other midfielders, yet position and history wise they had no right to be there. So is now precdent turned up side down and how should we deal with it next season. One way would be to purchase players with an ownership threshold above a certain point to avoid massive hits to your ranking everytime they scored
fantasy premier league – thoughts on all players with over 30% ownership being in your team?
The case study of YYT
Personally I would never looked at ownership as a factor in deciding whether to put a player in my team prior to last year. However last year 2 high ownership players in Ramsey and YYT had the best per minute FPL scoring for midfielders. To me the best midfielders were those like Mata, Hazard, Walcott and Michu. Those that consistently played in attacking positions and had little defensive responsibility. Certainly not box to box midfielders like Ramsey and YYT.
Before I purchased YYT, with his ownership often around 40%, I experienced the frustration of whenever he scored, no matter how the rest of my team did, my ranking would remain static at best. If the rest of my team didn’t do so well, my ranking would plummett. At that point I purchased YYT even though I was very sceptical that his returns would continue. At least it stopped me getting hammered everytime he scored. Never before last season had I purchased a player I didn’t believe in purely for these defensive reasons to prevent getting killed in the rankings. In the end, much to my amazement, he did continue scoring eventually ending up with 20 goals. 20 goals after never scoring more than 6 in the premier league. By the way he scored 6 goals in 118 games for Barca although he did play even more defensively for them.
The other factor was there being little precedent for a box to box midfielder scoring so many goals. Also he didn’t have the supplemnet of Pens. Aguero was the designated penalty taker. However, YYT was the penalty taker when Aguero was subbed or injured. He scored 6 pens in the end and 4 direct free kicks.
In the end buying him purely because of his 40% ownership irrespective of whether I believed in him or not was the best thing I did.
Interestingly I read alot of stuff on the internet about other fantasy managers retrospectively congratulating themselves saying if you watched the games then you would have known he would score alot of goals. I don’t agree with that. I watched virtually all of Man City’s televised games. Man Citys defensive problems at the early parts of the season meant he was regularly sitting even deeper than normal. Also Fernandinho went forward far more than say Javi Garcia in the previous season meaning he had to be even more defensively minded.
Another factor was YYT’s underlying stats. The very large proportion of goals are scored from shots in the box. On a per minute basis YYT never got into the top 15 of shots in the box. Penalty box touches also can be a pointer although there is less correlation. YYT never got into the the top 15.
In summary, to me watching or not it was difficult to predict that his scoring would continue without any historical precedent, a position whcih involved defending and attacking and a lack of underlying stats. Buying him due to his high ownership players was the solution.
Who would that have involved last season?
By the way the ownership principle wouldn’t have involved a GK. They can’t really hurt you as the maximum they can get is pretty much a clean sheet.
Ive chosen 30% on a bit of an arbitary basis but it seemed a good cut off point. The players last year who were regularly over 30% were Coleman, YYT, Ramsey, Hazard, Suarez and Sturridge. Allowing for some injuries that would mean the core 5 of your team coming from there. Thats a pretty good core 5. It still gives you 6 additional players to work with for you to make the difference between your rivals without getting hit every time the high ownership players score.
You do have to be a bit careful over the % owned as after a while there are a number of players being owned in teams that are no longer being managed. This can distort the effect of the ownership. Generally these will be related to high ownership players at the beginning of the season.
How will this affect my GW1 team?
It will be a case of looking at the players available and the ownership and making a decision then. It will depend on how many are at that threshold and the effect on the rest of my team.
Any comments or thoughts for debate leave below. Would be interested to see what people think
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fantasy premier league
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