Fantasy Premier League 2017/18 Defensive Rotation Potential
Welcome to Fantasy Premier League 2017/18 Defensive Rotation Potential. Choose 1 Goalkeeper and 3 defenders and then stick with them through thick and thin or spread it around and look for rotations that offer to provide better returns? It’s a question that I have previously pondered and tried both ways without any big conclusions. Until I actually had another sit down and thrashed out where clean sheets actually come from…
We do know that more clean sheets happen at home and are more likely against lower clubs. So on the surface home/away & Fixture difficulty seem to offer a good path for rotation, but does it actually hold true? Lets look at the actual math from last season when fully broken down.
FPL generally sets the pricing of the promoted or lower 6 teams at 4.5+. In rotation we usually consider a pairing of two bottom 4.5’s versus a mid @ 5.0 & a 4.0 non player.
I made a chart of clean sheets attained against the top 6, middle 8, and bottom 6 last season for each team; and then put the teams together into sections of best 6 Clean ‘sheeters’, the next 8, and the bottom 6. The extra line at the bottom is for perfect rotation Home / Away of a bottom 6.
The figures are percentage chance of a clean sheet in each fixture. The final column shows how many clean sheets in a season that translates to.
Put like this in a chart we can see straight away that rotation of the bottom 6 is barely better than no rotation of them and costs us 3 expected clean sheets across the season, that is 12 points or 3 emergency 4 point hits if our mid table pick gets red flagged for some reason.
Choosing rotation of the bottom 6 is actually worse than pointless.
Furthermore if we look at the chance of a clean sheet of the bottom 6 against mid teams it is a dismal 10% home & away, no better than a mid against top 6 teams.
So a bottom 6 team with a run of ‘good’ fixtures may be good for the real team winning, but likely pointless for our FPL picks.
Far better to pick a middle team with even a ‘poor’ run of fixtures.
Lets look at this in detail for this season.
Best 6 teams ARS, CHE, MCI, MUN, TOT, SOU
Next 8 teams BOU, BRI, BUR, EVE, LIV, STO, LEI, WHU
Bottom 6 teams CRY, HUD, NEW, SWA, WAT, WBA
WBA have an excellent run of fixtures in the first few weeks, and maybe not surprisingly Foster & Hegazi at 4.5 have been fairly popular picks. But… their clean sheet chances each game are a mere 10%, 10%, 10%, 15%, 10% and 5%.
Compare this to LEI who have a dreadful start yet whose chances are 10%, 40%, 10%, 10%, 25% and 10%, a very good chance of 1 clean sheet.
So Foster and Hegazi are not bargains, but traps. Best to avoid the team with the lowest chance of all in the first 6GW’s. That is the bad news.
The good news is that football is settled not by FPL but on the pitch and those rules state teams get nothing for a clean sheet. So we get anomalies to profit from.
SOU are a mid table team but a best 6 clean ‘sheeter’, we have a choice of 5.0s available and particularly with good fixtures they are often a bargain.
Also among the middle group are some players priced at 4.5m. BUR proved it last season and should again. BRI I put there as the team most likely to emulate MID who got relegated, yet managed 12 clean sheets.
Hiding among the middle teams are two GKP’s, Hart & Begovic, both 4.5 playing for middle teams that have strengthened their defence and either could potentially be this seasons Heaton.
What is more if we buy both to offer coverage they actually offer a fixture rotation that jumps their potential up to best 6 in the first 6GW’s, and a price less than a best 6 without coverage.
Deciding if to spend extra on defence is a personal choice and decision based upon what is available further forward. Some defenders, although they cost extra, do offer excellent points potential either as Wing Backs or regular scorers from set pieces, these tend to be from the higher teams as they spend less time defending their own 18 yard line. Wing backs such as Alonso, Walker, Valencia, Rose and set pieces Milner, Cahill, Daniels, Kompany and the like. Spending budget here does detract from midfield but sometimes offers greater return for the spend.
The good news is that with care in picking under priced bargains we can still do well in achieving clean sheets, and add to that some goal and assist potential with selected players from within those teams.
For the record my own squad currently has Begovic, (Hart); Alonso, Kompany, Bertrand, (Mee, 4.0).
Thanks for reading Fantasy Premier League 2017/18 Defensive Rotation Potential. This article was written by Takasaki Tiger
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Gameweek Tracker GW1-11
Had about 25 different teams tonight, narrowed it down to 2…
Which one, if any, please?
T’other….
Trippier news dependant of course…
Hey Init, I like the Firmino pick and have been thinking about getting him in as my 3rd striker as well. Wish we knew for sure if he was on penos! Unless you think that Rangel really has a chance to play you may want to get a 4.0 with lower ownership. Being the most owned 4.0 defender if he doesn’t start he’s likely to drop when people offload him and then you’d either have to waste a transfer to move him on or eat the .1 loss. Team #1 edges it for me.
That’s good advice on the ownership thing there Red, totally forgot about that, thank you.
The 1st one by a mile and a half Innit and I would change Walters and Trip
Cheers Ron, Trip will probably have to go. I’m keeping Walters though, OOP etc but just have a good feeling about him this season.
I prefer the first one bout you have spent too much in defence/keeper for my liking
I’d have spent more there if I could!
Can you post the 25 drafts lol? It looks worse because Walters is on the bench. First team looks good unsure on the Firmino conundrum
Team 1 for me
1st one
Innit – Team 1 but Firmino I would change may be Rooney for first game only and then see
Having seen him in the flesh I wouldn’t take Rooney if he was 5.5 now mate! That said he’ll probably score against Stoke now on his 2nd ‘debut’!
in both teams i think you need one more stronger mid. remember mids get more points esp for cleansheets
Would dearly love one Victor but it’d mean a major shift elsewhere I think.
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72617-20842.
i need atleast two more teams.
Thoughts gents?
I like it very similar to mine except I have DDG instead of courtois.
Nishant
Nice team mate, Jesus or Kun in that team would be amazing
Cheers guys
App
Zaha, Willian, Fbregas, Wiljanldum, all of them are the same price £7, which one is the best pick?
One of the Chelsea boys for me
Fab
Willian
Zaha
Wilj
Over the season I’d expect one of the first three to score the most, but for the first few GWs I reckon Wiljanldum is worth a punt now that Llalana is out injured, as he could get forward quite a bit – and if I recall he was scoring and assisting more regularly in the second half of last season. I have him in my current draft, but along with Fabregas.
Do you think Charlie Austin will spend most of his time on the bench?.
SOU has good fixtures for the first 11 weeks.
Allan
Until yesterday’s game I thought he would be nailed on to start now I’m not too sure, be interesting to get an opinion from a saints fan!
Saints fixtures do you look really appealing really tempted to double up in defence