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
At martial a bit of a risk. Unsure with him and jose
Yeah massively, but if he starts against Real I think I’m going to risk it. If not – Pogba/Mkhi.
Martial is not worth the risk even if he does play he will be rotated
Who does Mou rotate him with though? Lingard? Lol
More Miki and Rashford and Lingard will still get minutes
Mkhi shouldn’t play on the wing though. Hole player.
I think they will play 4-3-3. If they play wing backs Miki might be in the hole and if they do he’s a better bet
They’ll all be rotated bar Pogba, I think.
Yep Pogba might be the safest
STOP PRESS
Newcastle has made an offer to West Ham for GK Adriane so those who have included Elliot at 4.0 may need to re think
Foster and Myhill it is haha.
Have half been expecting to have to go with Myhill
Do we not think Sturridge will play up top sometimes with Firminho pushed wide?.
It could happen at times. Chances are Sturridge will break down again. Solanke has looked good in pre season as well
Puts me off Firmino really. Back to plan A
But then Salah and Mane will be on the wings
Which puts me back with Salah
Firmino wont always get 90 mins then. Subbed for Sturridge at times I guess
Salah and Mane is the better bet. I’m debating whether to go With both Firmino and Salah
I was toying with that but it means making changes early when fixtures turn bad. I’m gonna stick with Jrod and spend more elsewhere
Morning all.
Got 0.5 money left Duno where to use it.
Trip to Luiz?
Or Trip to Alonso, De Gea to Foster and then you have my exact team lol.
Although it leaves to West Brom at the back!
Hegazi to Dawson ? Got a goal threat and place more assured ?
And that would have been my team at one point !!
Hegazi is a big lad. He may be handy in the box with corners?
Morning lads, was at the Liverpool game yesterday and I noticed something that may be a good thing for people that want Firmino. In the last two games, Liverpool have gotten a penalty with Firmino taking both of them. Against Athletico Madrid I thought nothing of it as Milner wasn’t on the pitch and someone needed to take it but yesterday Milner was and as soon as the penalty was given Firmino was the only one looking to take the penalty. It makes me wonder if Klopp has given the duties to Firmino as Milner may not see as much gametime this season. Just something to think about lads and if any of you want to refute it go right ahead!!
That’s what’s swaying me to Firmino. Liverpool will always get a lot of penalties. Klopp might be challenging him to get more goals
Yeah I think I will go with Salah for now but Firmino is definitely becoming more appealing
I’m toying with both. I’m between Firmino and Cedric vs Gayle and Alonso
That’s a tough one mate.
Does that enable you to still have Alonso and KDB in the mix though? Or are you scrapping KDB and sticking with Aguero as your attacking option?
Hello guys how are you all? I cant believer KO is a week away and im literally changing players every minute but here are three teams that are flawed in there own ways. What do you guys suggest?
the third team
i have 1.0 left for team 3
What’s the bench on the 3rd team? I like that starting XI but I would use the extra mil to upgrade RLC
elliot
carroll
hunameiar
rangel
I would use 0.5 to upgrade RLC to Milijoevic and 0.5 to upgrade one of those 4 mil defenders
so you prefer team 3?
Yeah I do
thanks mate