Mathemategy - A Little Bit Of Analysis

So in the last post I listed the top 15 players in FPL, in each of the four categories. Complete with their points tally for this season and their final price. To do a little bit of analysis.

So what did I discover?

Below is the average price and points tally for the top 5 players in each position.

[For example, for goalkeepers I added up the total points of Alisson, Ederson, Pickford, Etheridge and Lloris (the 5 keepers with the highest points tallies this season), then divided by 5. Doing likewise for their respective prices. On so on for defenders, etc.]

Goalkeepers.          Average Price £5.3m.                Average Points 161.
Defenders.              Average Price £6.3m.                Average Points 189.
Midfielders.           Average Price £10.7m.               Average Points 229.
Forwards.               Average Price £9.1m.                 Average Points 186.

I also did the same for the top 15 players in each position to get a wider sample.

Goalkeepers.          Average Price £5.0m.                Average Points 134.
Defenders.              Average Price £5.8m.                Average Points 159.
Midfielders.           Average Price £8.8m.                Average Points 183.
Forwards.               Average Price £8.1m.                 Average Points 159.
                                   
So no real surprises there. The midfielders being the highest scoring. The goalkeepers being the lowest. However, what's interesting is when you look at the points in relation to the price it becomes apparent that the defenders and goalkeepers tend to be better value.

Below is the points per million. So that's the average points divided by the average price.

Top 5 players.

Goalkeepers.          Pts/m. 30.4
Defenders.             Pts/m. 30.0
Midfielders.           Pts/m. 21.4
Forwards.              Pts/m. 20.4

Top 15 players.

Goalkeepers.          Pts/m. 26.8
Defenders.             Pts/m. 27.4
Midfielders.           Pts/m. 20.8
Forwards.              Pts/m. 19.6

So looking at the points per million for the top end players. A £5m defender would get 5 x 30.4 points over the course of a season - 152 points. A £5m midfielder would get 5 x 21.4 points - 107. Quite a difference!

Now this is a bit of a crude way of looking at it I'm sure, and it's only looking at the season just gone, but it does seem worthy of note nevertheless. In fact, it's quite odd that the averages for the defenders and goalkeepers are so similar. As are the averages for the midfielders and forwards. There must be some reason for this that currently eludes me. Perhaps it has something to do with the algorithms used to calculate the prices.

Obviously the people who run FPL, and no doubt the various experts who have been playing the game much longer than me, will have all the mathematics completely mapped out in depth. So again, perhaps there's something obvious that I haven't quite latched onto yet.

Going forward...

Looking at the numbers it makes me even more attracted to the idea of spending big at the back. I was just going to do it for the start of next season, what with the defensive players being a little easier to predict in the Premier League starting line-ups. However, perhaps it should be a season long plan.

The numbers also show that the strikers aren't great value at all. So even more reason to go cheap up top. Though the problem is of course finding cheap strikers who actually play.

As for the midfielders. Though they seem to be less value, they do tend to score the most points over the season - so perhaps they are good value after all in that regard? Plus they're great captain options.

It seems that there are always a few midfielders who go really big. This season Mané, Sterling, Salah and Hazard have all been head and shoulders above the rest as far as overall points go. Averaging 241 points for the season between them! If I recall correctly from last season both Salah and Sterling were out in front then too.

So maybe a good strategy would be to spend big on defence (and keeper). Try to get the two or three big scoring midfielders. Then cheap everywhere else. Seems like a plan.

It's also worth mentioning that some defenders have had unbelievable seasons this year. Robertson, Alexander-Arnold and van Dijk in particular. So perhaps they're skewing the results somewhat?

Percentage from top 6 teams...

I should also make note of something else that stood out. In the top 15 defenders this season 8 out of 15 were from top six sides (I included Man Utd xD - I perhaps should have made it top 5). Amongst the midfielders it was 10 out of 15, and amongst the forwards it was just 5 out of 15. So perhaps it's worth looking at lower placed clubs for the striker options. Again though, it could simply be another random anomaly for just this past season.

Finally, I looked at my goalkeeping record this season. For most of it I had a rotation between Crystal Palace and Newcastle, only changing after the wildcard towards the end of the season. This worked out reasonably well - 155 points over the season. Only Alisson, Ederson and Pickford alone scored higher. So I'll have to think about that one for the coming season. Rotation or big name? Tough decision.

Raw Data For My Mathemategy

My mathematics based strategy, geddit. Truly awful stuff. Anyway this post is just somewhere to put the raw data I'm using to do a tiny bit of analysis. I say raw data, it's basically a list of the top 15 players from each FPL category. Showing their price (at the end of the season) and their final points tally.

I mainly just want to see which group is the best value for money. I've always suspected that defenders are much better value, and that strikers are awful value. However, most people seem to favour attacking players over defensive ones.

I chose the top 15 just because it seemed like a reasonable number. Plus more would've meant more work. I'll show my results in the next post.

GK.

Alisson                         £5.9          176
Ederson                       £5.7           169
Pickford                       £4.9          161
Etheridge                     £4.6          154
Lloris                           £5.4           145

Fabianski                    £4.7           143
Kepa                            £5.4           142
Dubravka                    £5.0           131
Foster                          £4.6           129
Schmeichel                 £5.0           120

De Gea                        £5.7           120
Patricio                       £4.5           118
Leno                            £4.9           106
Ryan                            £4.4           104
Lossl                            £4.4           99

DF.

Robertson                    £6.7           213
Van Dijk                      £6.7           208
Alexander-Arnold       £5.8           185
Laporte                        £6.3           177
David Luiz                   £5.8           164

Alonso                          £6.2          161
Azpilicueta                   £6.4          158
Digne                           £5.4           158
Walker                          £6.4          150
Pereira                         £5.3           146

Doherty                        £5.3           144
Van Aanholt                £5.5           140
Keane                           £4.8           129
Coleman                      £5.2            125
Ake                               £5.1           120

MD.

Salah                            £13.2          259
Hazard                         £11.0          238
Sterling                        £11.7          234
Mane                            £10.3          231
Sigurdsson                   £7.4           182

Fraser                           £6.4           181
Pogba                           £8.6            179
Milivojevic                   £6.5            166
Eriken                          £9.2            161
Son                               £8.6            159

Sane                              £9.3           156
Anderson F                  £6.8            155
Bernardo Silva             £7.8            154
Richarlison                  £6.4            153
David Silva                   £8.5            143

FW.

Aubameyang               £10.8            205
Aguero                         £12.0           201
Jimenez                        £6.9             181
Vardy                            £9.0             174
Wilson                          £6.9             168

Lacazette                      £9.4             166
Firmino                        £9.3             160
Kane                             £12.6           160
Rondon                         £5.9             148
Zaha                             £7.0             143

King                               £6.4            141
Perez                             £6.1             141
Mitrovic                        £6.3             134
Wood                             £6.3             131
Murray                          £6.1             129

GW38 Review

Really great final week. I think I got very lucky.

Gameweek Points: 85 (-4)

Gameweek Rank: 133,265

Overall Rank: 30,785

(Last points of the season)

I'm over the moon with my final rank. 30,785 is superb. A huge improvements on last year's 109,229. I felt my rank last season was a little lucky too. I had no idea what I was doing and just enjoyed the benefit of captaining Salah for most of the season. This season I feel I earned my rank a bit more. Conversely I also went the whole season without Salah. Which didn't damage me too much. Though to be fair he once again finished the season with the highest points tally. So perhaps my decision not to own him has to go down as a bit of a mistake. Either way though very pleased!

Seems a little prosaic just going through who got me the points this week now. I should perhaps mention my transfers though as it was a tale of two extremes. Both being equally fortunate. Gündogan grabbed a goal and a few bonus points. Very nice. Shaqiri never even came on. So an awful decision. However, his absence meant that Glenn Murray came off the bench with six points. I never saw that one coming. Massive bonus.

Finally, Sokratis got a zero. So the decision to bring him in brought me just a single point over the two games 😅😅 Boly came in with a one point for me. Some poor judgement on my part. Though to be fair to him he was rested for the Europa League final. So no shame on his part. Great to see four English teams in the finals this year.

I'm going to do some further posts over the next week or so, crunching some numbers. Helping me to set up my stall for next year. Strangely I enjoy the maths, so it should be interesting. At least for me anyway 😄

Overall Points: 2,334

Overall Rank: 30,785

Fantasy Premier League: Gameweek 38 Preview

It looks like Camarasa is almost certainly out, so I think I'll take a minus 4 to take out both him and Son. What an exciting way to end the season.

So, the question then is who do I bring in? I've decided I'm only going to look at two teams - City and Liverpool. The two teams with something very much to play for. The two teams that are very much out in front - and therefore it stands to reason most likely to win their games and score goals.

Brighton vs Man City just doesn't really appeal to me. It feels like a 1-0 to City. Brighton normally frustrate teams, and City haven't been especially free-scoring recently. Saying that though City could easily win this one 6-0 and romp to the title. Bernardo Silva looks like the best option. Pretty much guaranteed to play and with attacking threat. He would probably be the sensible choice for one of my transfers. Again though, I'm just not feeling this one.

The Liverpool vs Wolves game on the other hand looks very promising. Two attacking teams. At Anfield, which should be absolutely bouncing after midweek. Liverpool in good goal-scoring form. I'm really hoping for a goal-fest.

So at the moment I'm looking at bringing in two more Liverpool midfielders. Which would make a triple-up with Mané. Sadly I can't afford Salah, so it'll have to be two lesser options. No one seems really nailed on in the Liverpool midfield positions. So whoever I go for it'll be a bit of a gamble. I'm currently thinking Shaqiri and Wijnaldum. Two players that could easily start on the bench, but the two that seem to offer the most attacking threat.

Wijnaldum tends to be involved in games, if not always from the start. Shaqiri is more of a wildcard. I'm hoping that with Firmino out they'll need his creativity though, even if it's just off the bench. He looked good midweek against Barcelona. His passing was a little sloppy at times, but he played well and had goal involvement. He even looked fired-up as he was subbed late in the game. So hopefully he'll be pumped up for this one.

Wijnaldum came on at half-time midweek so should also be fresh. He should be on a high after his two goals as well. Though it would probably be a little optimistic to expect anything similar this week. He's not a prolific scorer of goals by any stretch of the imagination.

Gündogan would perhaps be a better selection, as he looks almost certain to start with Fernandinho out for City. His price would allow me to also get Shaqiri too. So I could have a safe option and a little flutter. The City game just looks boring though and I already have Sterling and Laporte to cover that one.

So it's instinct versus common sense. I'll wait until tomorrow morning to make up my mind. I'll post my team line-up below when I make the transfers :)


****************

Couldn't wait til Sunday morning. Done 'em now (Saturday evening). Gündogan and Shaqiri in. What swung it for me was the thought of City getting an early goal. No doubt they'll come out the traps flying. If they get an early goal then the floodgates could open. So I've hedged my bets.

Hopefully it's a good decision. I'm inside the top 50k at the moment. So a final good week would be great. Top 100k was my primary target and would be a successful season for me, and an improvement on last year. However, now I'm this high up anything lower than 50k will feel a bit disappointing. So fingers crossed.

(GW38 line-up)

FPL: GW37 Review

I'm gonna call this one a solid week. Two points below the average. Could've been much worse.

Gameweek Points: 46

Gameweek Rank: 3,518,071

Overall Rank: 43,561

(GW37 points)

Oddly I dropped precisely a thousand places;

(click to enlarge)

I was very pleased with Aubameyang picking up points. It was a gamble going that way with the armband, but it turned out to be the correct decision. Pretty much rescued my entire week. Sokratis sadly didn't do so well - a yellow card for diving 😅 One more week for him to redeem himself. Though to be fair he actually didn't play that badly. Plus Wan-Bissaka just got the one point as well so there was no real damage done.

Thanks to Son's red card I'm now going to have to take him out for someone else. I'm really not sure who to go with at the moment, so I'll wait until the weekend to make a decision there. I'm hoping Camarasa will recover from his injury - it was frustrating him coming off so early. If he's back it'll give me some leeway with my transfer as I'm expecting a little bit of rotation in this final round of games.

Reflection

I think a mistake I've made in this final run in came with the wildcard in GW34. I think I put too much hope in players that had double gameweeks and as a consequence dropped some players that I would've otherwise thought of as season keepers.

So I'm going to look at the points hauls of the players I went with versus the players I maybe should've went with over these past four weeks. (I'll add GW38's points to tally as well to give a complete picture next week).

[Update 14/5/19 - last gameweek points shown in brackets]

The players I brought in on the wildcard primarily because of double games;

Dunk: 0, 1, 6, 2, 2, 1, (0) - Total: 12 (12)

Duffy: 0, 1, 6, 2, 2, 2, (0) - Total: 13 (13)

Murray: 1, 2, 2, 1, 5, 9, (6) - Total: 20 (26)

Camarasa: 1, 6, 2, 3, 1, (0) - Total: 13 (13)

Gunn: 2, 1, 3, 1, 0, (2)- Total: 7 (9)

Valery: 2, 0, 1, 4, 1, (2) - Total: 8 (10)

Deeney: -2, 0, 0, 0, 2, (2) - Total: 0 (2)

Players in the season keeper bracket that didn't have double games that I may have otherwise went with;

Robertson: 6, 6, 14, 1, (6) - Total: 27 (33)

Luiz: 1, 1, 2, 15, (6) - Total: 19 (25)

Alexander-Arnold: 8, 11, 10, 10, (15) - Total: 39 (54)

Salah: 8, 6, 19, 7, (3) - Total: 40 (43)

Mané: 9, 3, 13, 2, (15) - Total: 27 (42)

Hazard: 2, 7, 2, 11, (1) - Total: 22 (23)

Azpilicueta: 0, 4, 2, 6, (6) - Total: 12 (18)

I think those numbers speak for themselves really. Even with the extra game(s) the double game options underscored the top options by quite a mark. Murray was the top option for the first group - and I benched him for his one big tally of 9 points 😑

Obviously there's also a huge price difference between the first and second group so that's worth remembering too. However, I would've easily been able to go with a couple of players from the second group without too much trouble. The players I would've most likely went with were Robertson - who did very nicely, and then either Luiz or Azpilicueta who both fared a little worse. Hazard has been a big favourite of mine this season, so it's perhaps likely I'd have kept him too were it not for my double gameweek hysteria.

So this little analysis suggests that next season it may be wise to keep one or two players if a similar wildcard situation occurs. I'll add it to my list of rules. We still have one final round of games to go though. So I'll take that into consideration too. No doubt it'll just stress the above results even further.

Now I just need to think about my final transfer this season.

Overall Points: 2,253

Overall Rank: 43,561

Fantasy Premier League: Gameweek 37 Preview

I do like a sense of poetry. So I think I'll be bringing Sokratis back in for these last two games. I brought him in earlier in the season, trying to be a little too clever, and it turned out to be a huge mistake.

I transferred him in for GW6 - during which he got a yellow card, then came off injured after 38 minutes. He then sat it out on my bench until GW10 when I took him out for a minus 4.

It's hard to tell just how many points this piece of bad judgement cost me. I'm sure I've made bigger mistakes points wise this season. However, the sheer bad judgement of bringing him in means he's been the bar against which all other bad judgement has been measured this season. It was a pretty left of field move though, and the sort of move I do enjoy making. So it's a mistake I'm somewhat fond of in a weird sort of way.

Perhaps there's something of my own style summed up in the decision.

(A nice differential ..or a dismal end to the season?)

Obviously with Arsenal playing in the Europa League it's a little bit of a risky decision to bring him back. Perhaps even silly. Plus they're fairly leaky at the back. However, they do have a nice game at home to Brighton, then a very winnable looking game away to Burnley. They looked very decent last night in their 3-1 win over Valencia too.

On top of this I also have exactly the right amount of cash to bring him in for Duffy, so it feels like it's fated that he should come in.

As I mentioned in the last article Wan-Bissaka would be the sensible choice given my options. However, that would mean bringing in a player that everybody's owned at some point this season - and one that I've never owned. So it would be going against a season long trend. It also wouldn't be quite as much fun.

I'll be captaining Aubameyang this gameweek too. So I'll be putting even more faith in Arsenal. Having played the full 90 minutes last night there's a reasonable chance he could be benched, but the attractiveness of the game, plus the potential differential gains is something that feels like a good punt.

Plus there are only two gameweeks left now. So why not :)

(click to enlarge)