GW31 Captain Rankings

 

Here we go then.  Most of the names you've become accustomed to are here, perhaps Michu and Cazorla's omission being a talking point.  Michu's absence is likely genuine, and in main down to Tottenham's defensive strengths this season.  They're probably still in people's minds an all-expansive attacking side but under Villas-Boas this year they have steadily improved to a team with a lot of tactical nous.  

Cazorla's absence is more interesting to me and I think is not genuine.  He's the next player on this list, 11th after Rooney, actually with the same predicted score 59, or 5.9 FPL pts.  Tevez is on the same points too.   the model will not take account for Walcott's absence in the team and the assumed greater role Cazorla will take up in the attack. As you can be seen on the InsideFPL Player Database image below Cazorla is on a good run right now. 

Never mind who is not in the Captain Rankings, who's in it?  It's Bale and Van Persie once again leading the way.  Looking at both players numbers and form from the images below it's my opinion that the pair's lack of form is overblown, perhaps sensationalist, if you excuse the normally aggressive use of that word.  When the best players have a wobble we like to make something of it.  Gareth Bale has averaged 10 pts per 90 mins in his last 6 fixtures with a F.SCORE average of 9.3 to back that up.  I think we can forgive him for not scoring in one match.  He'll captain my team this week (unless I make a sneaky and ill-advised last minute change!).

Super Player Database

I've been working with clever folks over at InsideFPL.com who have been able to help out and do useful things with the data I have.

This actually cuts the workload for me down a huge amount, rather than update 25 odd datasources and update 20+ pages with images and manually coding it I'll be able to get back to spending my time on analysis and focusing on what the data means rather than just presenting it.

Also on InsideFPL the data can made to update in real time (e.g. price) The database can be used to look at teams, player or by position and is fully sortable on every column (click the column headers.

In the next week or two I'll be updating the table structure to include basic perforamnce data for each player (e.g. S, SoT) and Projection Data.

One thing that would really help me is to let me know in the comments section what kind of data you want at your fingertips (e.g. points per last 6 games, average F.SCore last 6 games??) and what data is better tucked away a little, in a second tab. List everything, nothing is impossible :)

I've provided a quick glimpse below for just a few players and I've had to make it smaller to fit it in. Head over to InsideFPL.com/fpldata to check out the full database and please leave any comments here and suggsted data or improvements!

								Last 6 GW										Full Season
		Pos	Team		£m	%O		P	S	G	A	PTS	PTS/GW	P90	F.SCORE/GW	F90		P	S	G	A	PTS	P90	F.SCORE
	Robin Van Persie	FWD	Man Utd		13.7	38		4	(1)	1	2	28	5, 12, 4, 5, null, 2	6.7	6.6, 5.6, 2.8, 5.4, null, 5.7	5.2		25	(4)	19	8	194	7.1	5.9
	Theo Walcott	MID	Arsenal		9	17		5	(0)	0	2	23	6, 7, 2, 5, null, 3	4.8	5.1, 10, 8.2, 3.4, null, 3.2	6		18	(7)	11	9	152	7.4	5.2
	Dimitar Berbatov	FWD	Fulham		6.9	7		4	(0)	3	0	28	0, 2, 9, 8, null, 9	7	null, 2.3, 7, 7.5, null, 3.8	5.2		24	(0)	11	3	125	5.1	5.1
	Marouane Fellaini	MID	Everton		7.5	27		5	(0)	3	2	37	15, 1, 2, 12, null, 7	7.3	11, 3, 2.4, 7.6, null, 4.5	5.7		24	(0)	11	5	150	6	6.3
	Pablo Zabaleta	DEF	Man City		6.2	12		5	(0)	0	1	17	1, 4, 5, 6, null, 1	3.3	3, 3.2, 5.3, 9.8, null, 6.1	5.5		24	(0)	2	2	103	4.2	5.2
	Daniel Sturridge	FWD	Liverpool		7.4	6		4	(0)	1	1	22	5, 10, 0, 0, 2, 5	5.8	6.5, null, 11.9, null, 4.9, 5.3	7.2		7	(0)	3	1	50	8.2	6.7
	Luis Suárez	FWD	Liverpool		11.2	41		6	(0)	4	1	47	2, 15, 0, 17, 12, 1	8	6.6, 5.8, 8.7, 8.6, 4.6, 4.1	6.4		29	(0)	21	4	191	6.3	7.5

Football Trader - Live on Facebook

A little while back I brought you news of an all new style Fantasy Football game called Football Trader - a football player trading game akin to the stock market.  Buy shares in your favourite players, earn divedends for their on-pitch performances, and then sell them for a profit when the time is right.  

It's Harry Redknapp meets Gordon Gecko and I could not resist this little joke..

Since then and through a period of testing a number of substantial change have beem made to the game, it's performance and feature set.  I'll allow the creators of the game @realtime_sports to share the rest with you but it's looking like a really involving, fun and feature rich game. 

The Beta game is now open Live for users to play till the end of the season at http://www.footballtraderapp.com

 

New Features

• Faster: we’ve completely re-designed the game from the ground up for a much faster experience.
• Social: follow other traders to keep a track of what trades they are making and see what they are up to.
• Banter: comment on players and fellow traders, adding your views and banter.
• Game Levels: work your way up the leaderboard from Rookie Trader to become a Pro Trader.
• Brag: share your portfolio with the world. Invite your Facebook friends to compete against and brag your scores to.

 

Football Trader is a new type of Fantasy Football game where you Buy & Sell shares in players on a live stock market. Unlike most fantasy football games, this is played in Real-time, meaning the price of players is changing constantly based on users trading on the market and also player performances. Every user starts with £100M budget and the goal of the game is to Grow the Value of your Players, and therefore your Team, as much as you can. You also get Match Dividend Bonus's awarded right after matches, based on how players performed, which are sort of like how you would get Fantasy Points, but in cash!

We have had some great success, 500 users from over 20 countries so far in 5 weeks. However, we realised that the performance of the game on mobile was not great, it struggled on some browsers and 3G networks. Also, we were restricted on what changes we could make to the game. For this reason, we have just built a new Facebook web-version of the game which works much faster and cleaner! We still plan to make our mobile app's for the new season as we see this as a mobile game. 

As it's made for Facebook so it's a lot more Social! You can invite friends to compete against and also brag about your Team Value. Beyond that though you can now follow other users and players like a Twitter feed, which gets included in your news feed. So you can now watch other users and see how they play the game. You can also comment on players and put your view of why their prices are changing. Lastly, all users start off as a Rookie Trader and need to work their way up as a Pro Trader for bragging rights. This will be the start of making the game much more Social we hope.

GW30 Match Centre

Stats from all the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) GW30 matches.  Apologies that I do not have the time right now to do an individual review of each game so this week I'll just pick out a few of my highlights.  You can see the Top Ranked players from this week, the last 6, and full season on the Top Players page.    GW30 was so last week anyway.

THE HIGHS

Eden Hazard & Chelsea
The top ranked player overall  Hazaard created 4 chances and had 4 shots from within West Ham's penalty box, all on target, scoring 14 points from a goal, assist, clean sheet and 3BP. 


Aston Villa & QPR
Despite the defeat for Rangers both teams went for it, the stats will tell you registered decent shot numbers and goals were deserved.  Weimann and Benteke Villa's main output, Remy and Jenas looked likely for the away team.

Southampton
 The Saints made Liverpool look very oridnary indeed and will have deflated a lot of the mounting hyperbole around the visitor's form.    Rodriguez is starting to look a nice alternative to Lambert at £5.1m but truth be told it's probably a little late to go for a player like him, especially with upcoming fixtures.  Lallana is back in his stride after injury.

Arsenal and Monreal (15pts) deserves a quick nod of appreciation too. 


THE LOWS 

Swansea  Failing to register a single SoT at home is something I am always keen to castigate.  Fair enough Reading didn't manage to hit the target away at United but even against a top club like Arsenal you'd expect a team to make the 'keeper work, at least a little. It's bad news for Michu owners whose had 9 shots in his last 3 games without any on target.  A blank GW33 has people selling already.

Also worth a mention:  The Stoke attack, but what's new. 

Mr T. - Don't Pity the Fool [Guest Post by Dennis McRoss]

Welcome to a guest post by part-time gonzo journalist Dennis McRoss... 
 

I'm writing this on St.Patrick's Day, when everyone pretends to be Irish and gets drunk. It's also the last day of my free 2 week MUTV trial. Didn't ask for it but Sky insisted so who was I to refuse? And it's actually good, just not worth paying for (a bit like Michael Owen...). Obviously if you don't like United and can't stomach Paddy Crerrard then it's a non-starter, but even as a United fan I was dubious. Amongst the usual "Classic games" and "all the goals by..." there was a great programme about one of my first football heroes - Norman Whiteside. A touching show (at times anyway) and also very insightful (he nearly went to Ipswich instead of United) it did a lot to debunk the drinking culture myth that surrounded the club in the 80's.

But that's not the show that spurred me to write this...err...rant(?!)

A couple of years ago John Terry was filmed on Sky or BBC Sport giving an interview at his home. Part of the show included him taking the presenter around his "Trophy Room", a lavish, specially constructed part of the house made up to look like an exhibition or museum. Having gone through all the trophies and England caps on display (no newspaper cuttings surprisingly) he then pointed to a Chelsea shirt framed on the wall. It was his 2008 Champions league final shirt and, as he says himself, it's "...the shirt I wore when I missed that penalty. It's there as a daily reminder to me of what I'm striving for".  As I recall the presenter seemed bemused by this OTT act of martyrdom. Terry, as always, was lost in his own self-obsessed ignorance.

What reminded me of that was a documentary about Nicky Butt on MUTV the other night, including a bit where he shows the presenter around his home. After answering some questions about his playing days he is badgered in to taking the presenter to see his collection of memorabilia from his career.

Now Nicky did alright financially as a player, so you can imagine his home is a fair old size. But the collection was housed, not in a giant extension but in a tiny room in his loft. His shirts all hang up inside a small wardrobe (save for the treble shirts which are framed and leaning against the arm of a sofa). And he didn't even mention the medals. After picking out one or two shirts of significance (first FA Cup win, World Cup 2002 shirt) they reconvened downstairs. He then started to talk about his wife and 2 kids, how much they meant to him and how proud he was of them. This was when he really sounded the most enthusiastic, to be fair.

Two players, two England Internationals and yet a gulf of difference.

There is a banner at Stamford Bridge which reads "John Terry: leader captain legend"
I have a better one:
"John Terry - missed a penalty that cost his team the European Cup in 2008 then swore to keep the shirt as a reminder to never let his team or fans down again. Then got himself needlessly sent off in the 2012 European Cup semi-final and let his team and fans down again. Then celebrated like a "full kit wanker" when they won it without him. Fucks his team mate's missus, taunts Americans about 9/11, banned for racially abusing the brother of his international team mate and even once got done for parking his car in a disabled bay"
You have to work hard to earn trophies but you also have to work hard to earn respect, Terry only has it half right*.


Hwyl,
Dennis.McRoss

* - for the record Butt has twice as many league titles winners medals and also the small matter of 1 Champions league medal over Terry.

GW30 Captain Rankings - The Usual Suspects

DGW Updates

Quite a complicated fudge to the model was required, these DGW are quite a headache, but the data and all pages are updated to reflect latest fixture changes, remembering that the CHEvsFUL game is still to be scheduled and the STOvs MAN game in GW33 may well get postponed if United beat Chelsea in the FA Cup replay on April 1st.  If you look at the Projections Page raw data you'll find an "extra" GW39 for teams like Chelsea who have as yet unscheduled fixtures

Let me know if spot any errors as like I said it was a bit tricky! 

I also want to take this opportunity to plug the free newsletter I contribute to that's publlished by InsideFPL.com.

It's going well.  This week there's an End of Season Transfer Strategy guide, valuable insights to the BTTS betting market.  Along wuthe usual selection and gameweek picks you can get a first peak at my weekly Captain Rankings and there'll be a summary to the teams affected by DGW.

InsideFPL have this week released a Price Tracker app on their website.  If you sign up you'll receive a daily digest email informing you of all the price rises and changes before they happen.  Sign up at insideFPL.com/PriceTracker.

 

GW30 First Thoughts

Midway through the week it's nigh on time to start thinking about Fantasy Premier League GW30.  

First up a quick note about site updates following GW29. 

Fixture Strength
Team Form
Player Form  
Projections 

Where there is still uncertainty over date of missed fixtures for a number of teams you'll see that the forecast for this fixture has been added to GW38.  Only Arsenal and Everton have a confirmed DGW (GW33).  UPDATE:  MCIvsWIG has been rescheduled for GW33 and MCIvsWBA postponed.  I will update data as soon as I can.

Below is then is a quick look though each fixtures, the model's predicted scores, and my initial pick of FPL players to watch out for.

					Pick / Punt
SOU	1.12	-	1.32	LIV	Suarez / Sturridge
MUN	2.64	-	0.62	RDG	RVP / Kagawa or Rooney
CHE	2.35	-	0.50	WHM	Hazard / Oscar
SWA	1.37	-	1.67	ARS	Cazorla / Giroud
EVE	1.12	-	1.38	MCI	Silva / Tevez
WIG	1.56	-	1.88	NEW	Kone / Beausajour
STO	1.49	-	0.60	WBA	Walters / Lukaku
TOT	2.06	-	0.95	FUL	Bale / Sigurdsson
AVL	1.07	-	1.04	QPR	Benteke / Remy
SUN	1.56	-	0.92	NOR	Fletcher / Sessegnon

GW29 Match Centre

A much needed and deserved win for Lambert's Villa which unfortunately resulted in McDermott leaving Reading.  I'm not sure what more he could've done for the team really but they have been pretty poor all season long and should probably consider themselves fairly content to not be relegated already.   Villa's fight will go on.  Despite this victory it wasn't an emphatic performance and they have another huge scrap ontheir hands with the visit of QPR this weekend.  In Benteke they have a real player and he's sure to be on the end of a few chances come Saturday.

The Magpies left it late and were generally a little lacklustre than they have been of late, although you could argue Stoke are pulling themselves out of their winter slump a bit too.  Sissoko won the free-kick and hence assist for Cabaye's goal but didn't have a great deal of chances himself.  Although, again, no-one on either side really had a performance worth shouting about. 

Lukaku continued his excellent form with his 7th goal in 8 apperances putting West Brom ahead of Swansea in the league but it could have been much sweeter for the Belgian had he not struck his penalty so badly. James Morrison was the other stand-out performer for the home team although here's another game with very few shots on target.  Michu, going through a barren spell, missed a few decent chances, and failed to find the target with any of his 4 shots.

Norwich's clean sheet record has been as impressive recently as their goal-scoring record has been poor.  I hope you own defender's and not forwards!  Snodgrass was the most involved in the little they did create.  Southampton are also looking a little shorn of belief right now and really rely on Lambert to find the back of the net for them but he didn't have a great deal of joy here.  Puncheon's benching is worrying a fair few managers but it looks like the Saints could do with his goals.

The weekend's top billed game didn't disappoint and saw the most goals and the most chances.  Liverpool showed great character to earn a victory in a game which Spurs were perhaps the better side, Gareth Bale again dominating proceedings and despite not scoring here picked up 2 assists for 2 deliveries that Vertonghen finished with skill.  Sigurdsson came close. For Liverpool Suarez and Sturridge had a very similar number of opportunities but the the young Englishman lacked the geniuine quality of the Uruguayan.  Stewart Downing added another goal and performance to his season.  No-one's mocking him so much nowadays.

QPR have won back to back victories and in Loic Remy that have a player to score them the goals that win games, with two more of Redknapp's January signings chipping in with cracking goals, Townsend and Jenas.  The goal-scorers may grab the headlines but it's an improved defence and returned presence of Park in midfield that may give this team the foundations to survive.  Sunderland's chief goalscorer achieved double digits for the the season to give him 10 in 24 appearances.  Exactly what you'd expect of Steven Fletcher.

Check out my review of GW29's Top Ranked Players and over the Last Six Fixtures

GW29 Top Ranked Players

I followed my own advice and captained Lukaku this weekend and how frustrating was that penalty miss, especially with alternatives Bale and Suarez nudging ahead with cheeky assists.  Cost me a much needed 16 points.  I have lodged a complaint with the United Nations Human Rights department about the cruelly that can be inflicted upon FPL managers. Don't you know it.  Ho hum.  

As can be seen by the Top Ranked players by F.SCORE Lukaku "deserved" his points with the highest aggregate shot data closely followed by Vertonghen and the in-form Benteke.  James Morroson was pretty splendid for West Brom, a performance which saw him bag maximum bonus points.  

No Suarez though, despite 12 fantasy premier league points?  He only had 2 shots, 1 on target, and the goal.  His assist for Gerrard's penalty was from a foul and not a key pass so he doesn't get credit there either. He just missed out the top 15. 

Looking at the last 6 gameweeks then (below) we see Bale head and shoulders above the rest, followed up by the aforementioned Suarez in a group with Arsenal's Walcott and Giroud.  These two are the biggest under performer's right now in terms of lots of chances had and not many goals scored (although Walcott has picked up assists).  With upcoming fixtures on their side though and a Double Gameweek you can plan for (GW33) don't ignore them.

Benteke is another player whose strong points performances are warranted and up against QPR at the weekend and Villa scrapping for their lives he should continue to see plenty of well-deserved attention.

FPL GW29 Captain Picks

With so many of the top teams missing out altogether GW29 of Fantsay Premier League see's another cat thrown amongst the pigeons.  FPL managers will be without Van Persie to captain and a lot (a lot!) will be looking to Luis Suarez and Gareth Bale as their go to choice. Suprisngly, or maybe not after another goal and assist last night against Inter, Bale is above Suarez despite the model prediciting more goals for Liverpool. 

Here's a a closer look at both players profiles and something I've been working on in the last week. Charts show points per gameweek and F.SCORE per gameweek.

Gareth Bale 177 pts
Tottenahm
Price: £10.6m Owned by: 32%

P90: 7.2 (177 pts in 2222 mins)	2,2,1,11,8,16,3,0,10,2,2,7,9,10,2,0,0,3,21,1,0,6,2,9,11,15,15,10
F.SCORE: 77	46,77, 51, 64, 107, 72, 64, 0, 69, 66, 55, 45, 92, 77, 56, 0, 0, 67, 130, 52, 0, 83, 47, 86, 105, 116, 133, 84

"He made me feel an inch tall. Took me to pieces. He just doesn’t stop running. It's ridiculous."MICAH RICHARDS

Luis Suarez 178 pts
Liverpool
Price: £10.9m Owned by: 38%

P90: 6.3 (178 pts in 2529 mins)	1,5,2,6,2,20,2,5,8,9,9,11,2,2,1,0,1,8,4,13,16,2,9,6,2,1,14,17
F.SCORE: 77	77,66, 64, 72, 85, 91, 55, 86, 71, 99, 52, 80, 79, 71, 64, 0, 72, 108, 76, 114, 113, 54, 71, 67, 66, 58, 87, 86

"A great forward, an elite player among forwards in the world"OSCAR TABAREZ

>
Anyway, enough about those two, who let's not forget are probably not going to be involved in a high-scoring match on Sunday. Both Sturridge and Lukaku are come out above them in the caotain rankings this week and I for one fancy Lukaku to top score in a weekend where a big points from a captained differential may well be worth the risk. So, final thoughts...?
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Projections Updated for GW29-38

Player Projection have been updated for the rest of the season.  The blank fixture is accounted for this week for those teams affected but as they'll play it eventually before the end of the season it's will accumulate to each players 10 wk forecast.  

A reminder that the darker grey / black the player's bar the more overperforming they are to/he model, blue indicates underperformance (i.e. they haven't scored as many fantasy points as their data would suggest.  At this stage in the season I would say we have enough data on most players that consistent, season long, overperformers have not jsut  'got lucky' for 28 games and are the real deal.

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GW28 Top Ranked Players plus AVL 0-1 MCI

First an update with the GW28's final match to the FPL Match Centre and then a look at the top Fantast Premier League players from this weekend's games and the last 6 matches.

 

A bit of personal first.  I had a stinker of a gameweek and had back-ended all my hope into something from Aguero only to see him not feature at all here due to an injury.  He's been missing a lot of minutes this season with on and off injuries and I'm of mind now that he may be struggling with a niggle and is not going to see out the remainder of the season with the flourish I had been hoping for.  

On to the rest of the team then.  Rodwell's 25th minute injury forced Mancini to play with two orthodox strikers, a role Yaya Toure started off in.  Did no real good though.  Despite all the possession and plenty of chances they could only manage the one.  Admittedly Guzan was in fine form in nets, and the post got in the way too.  Carlos Tevez was the main threat for City and without a fit Aguero to call upon he could see some return to fantasy teams.  Silva created a lot of key chances but not goal threat himself. Villa did a fairly good job of creating chance but not a good job of creating good chances, with none on target.  This seems to be the script for City in the latter half of the season, to maintain their shape and control the game and just threaten enough to win.

GW28 Top Ranked Players

 

Oscar had a cracking game but did not finish off any of his chances.  This was his best F.SCORE performance of the season though, indeed one of the best from any player all season. 3rd highest behind RVP's and Gomez's hatrick performance.  He should count himself unlucky not to have score and if he can get even close to this kind of form again could be real alternative.  Kagawa's and Suarez's hatricks of course warrant them a place in the rankings for this week.

Read the Full Gameweek 28 Review HERE.

Looking at the 6 week form rankings (below) Gareth Bale is way out ahead as he strings world-class performances after world-class performance.  Suarez and Walcott are the two to get closet to the Welshmen.

Check out the Top Players page anytime for the current GW, 6 week and Full Season rankings.

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