Wednesday 10 October 2012

My FPL GW 1-7 Def & Att Points vs. Stats

Following my post earlier today I had a comment on Twitter about doing a similar analysis for Defensive Stats vs. Defensive Points scored.  

Thanks to @talkofthecrowd for the suggestion, and before you read the rest of my post do check out his site and in particular his very insightful analysis of Newcastle's successful tactical switch after going two down against United at the weekend.  http://talkofthecrowd.com/

In my previous post I looked at my FPL points scored to date over the seven gameweeks comparing this to the player's attacking stats - total shots, shots on target, etc.  There is a really strong correlation.  However, whilst I removed GK and Captain points from each week's Point Total I did not remove defensive points, ie. Clean Sheets.  So I have redone this, separating out the results for the attacking and defensive aspects.


FPL attacking points vs. attacking stats.  Points totals do not include GK or Captain points.

With Clean Sheet points removed there is not a great deal of change to this from earlier.  Except to say perhaps that this last gameweek I was a little unfortuante to get so few points, but only a little.

I have also included Shots in Box in this chart (in blue).  More on this below.


Defensive FPL Points (Clean Sheets) vs. defensive stats.  No GK or (C).
The first thing I have to say about this is that the column chart should be read in reverse to the attacking stats - the lower the number of shots conceded the better, so GW5 was my squad's best defensive performance to date, and indeed got the most FPL points with 2 CS and no points deducted.  The second thing to say though is the data in general is all over the place and my points scored does not track the defensive performance at all.  

I think this is due to the binary nature of clean sheets - you either get one or you don't.  And you don't get extra points for colossal defending like those fellas in 300 either, unlike attacking points where the better you do the more goals/assist you score and more points you get.  You also don't get penalised heavily for rotten defending.  You can lose 4-0 and you'll just lose 2 FPL points which is just a tiny bit worse than losing 2-0 or even 1-0.

So what to make of this?  I will continue to monitor through the season.  Chris Glover did a great analysis on his site Premier League Fantasy Blog asking "Do Defences Really Strengthen as the Season Progresses?".  The analysis presented some mixed results at first but Chris skillfully concluded that there is little change in a clean sheet performance through the season on average but that the elite defensive teams do improve through the season, to a peak point during mid season.  

I venture that the reason for this is that at the start of the season teams have fully fit squads and perhaps new managers and/or new styles of play.  Through the season teams are able to adjust and counter these new tactics and, more importantly perhaps, the weaker teams suffer injury and suspensions and are unable to put out as strong a squad, whereas the best teams are able to call on squad players and maintain their level of performance. 

OVERALL CONCLUSIONS


Ipso Facto
I continue to be stoked that attacking points, and indeed overall FPL points, correlate superbly well with attacking stats.  See chart.  

In particular shots on target and shots in the box.  These two metrics are of course very closely related - more shots in the box are on target, and most shots on target are from in the box.  I'm working behind the scenes at full pace to bring these key aspect to fruiton in both my F.SCORE and Point Projections.  
 
Defensively, it's a bit all over the place and Chris' conclusions to his post are likely pretty spot on with regards to a defensive strategy in the early to midseason.










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