Gameweek 19 Preview

Gonna take a holiday over next few days with it being Christmas and all so in this post I'll go over my Select XI and Team Captain Rankings.  I wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Select XI

This is the statistically optimised team for Gameweek 19.  It's a bit of a tricky week overall with a lot of highly owned players away from home and against teams who like to defend, with City at Sunderland, Michu and Swansea at Reading, and Chelsea visiting Norwich.  This leaves United's home clash with Newcastle as the stand out fixture and I am sure we'll see a lot of RVP captains.  Everton versus Wigan is a decent shout too, plus there will be a fair few people buying Berbatov a drink in the Last Chance Saloon for Fulham's home game with Southampton.  The above team is actually over budget by almost £4 (£104m).  The next best cheaper alternatives would be Distin for Baines and Rooney for Van Persie.

Captain Rankings
 

The captain rankings are explained fully here but just to let you know I have reduced the influence of P90 of the rankings by 50%.  Previously it felt like it was adding too little value to the ranking by influencing it as much as I was by points scored.   The P90 portion still provides a valuable indicator though.  Compare Tevez to Le Fondre for example. Le Fondre has the statistically higher projection for GW19 but, being a Reading player and not a Man City player, he's not actually scoring as many points as Tevez is.

It's hard to look past Van Persie again this week and I will be one of those million or so managers that will be hoping for him to just get an assist and my own captain choice to do anything.  I am so  tempted by Berbatov but will have to think long and hard about this before I do.  Else, it'll be Rooney I suppose, unless I use a transfer specifically.  Despite a lack of presence in these ratings Everton's Jelavic, Baines and Pienaar could all be a good punt.


Team Ratings
 
One thing to note is that the model is based on season long performances and Sunderland's  recent form will not be taken into accout.

The chart below does though and you can see that Sunderland have picked things it up since the Fulham game so it won't be such an easy game for Mancini's men as the rankings may suggest.