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
Thought I would throw my team up again RMT please any suggestions welcome bad or good 😉
Looks good to go mate
3-4-3, Ticks all the boxes.
Any changes Id pick out I can only see as marginal personal opinion.
Cheers Mad & Tiger still a wk to do a bit of tinkering 😉
Need 1 more player to join our draft FPL league! We have 7, need 8. Draft is today, 5th Aug at 19:00 (UK time)! Code is: 33055-10574
Hello everyone, How had your summer been? was silently going through the articles & comments. Really missing Raz”s presence and Mitro’s RMT’s. So, Will it be possible for me to join the doubles league given that I may find a partner?
P.S.- I have no intention to get hooked up in threesome 😉
Raz is around but not in full Raz mode yet! Mitro has through up a few RMTs but he’s def a little more restrained pre-season!
The Calm before the storm 😉
Okay then. will be prepared for the upcoming storms. or will the be any dragon flair (clue- GOT S07E04) SPOILER ALERT
P.S.- I think the gooners will be good in the 1st few weeks this season.
Vaskar, you certainly can join the doubles. C’mon folks Vaskar was a partner.
Was ? Wants.
I am not in a doubles yet
Long as a cowboy doesn’t mind teaming up with a refugee
Hey Tiger, are you in the regulars league yet ? Drop me a mail if not. elleffcee@fantasyfotball247.co.uk
Vaskar can you mail me and i’ll pass on Tigers address.
Cowboy and Refugee would be a hell of a team. vaskarchakraborty23@gmail.com is my mail address.
and elle.. my mail to you cant be delivered as it says the following..
I see you’ve put up your address for Tiger. :thumbup:
try elleffcee@gmail.com
Vaskar, GP has spotted i’ve only put 1 o in football. Doh !
elleffcee@fantasyfootball247.co.uk
Thats better.
How does this look? Thanks
Seems to tick all the right boxes and looks like a very well balanced team. I’m holding back from any Arsenal players at the moment as they seem to (inevitably) have quite a few injuries, but if he’s fit Ramsey might turn out to be one of the bargains this season.
I’m sure you’ll tinker some more but this is a pretty solid base to start from Ripcurl.
Hey hey hey another year another brainstorm..
What You guys think about this stuff? Any suggestions? Not really sure about Southampton def.. Is begovic 1st pick?
I would be very surprised if Begovic wasn’t first pick given how much they paid for him, plus he’s in what should be his peak years and I imagine has gone to BOU to get a regular game. Should be safe enough.
Soton were pretty solid last season even without VVD so I would rate a SOU defender as a must have given their opening fixtures.
Double NEW in attack might be overkill – I would probably swap one of Ritchie & Gayle. There are plenty of options in both positions at that price.
Hmm gayle was always allright when trusted with minutes and ritchie is on set pieces.. Any good option for 6mln mid?
Fraser BOU seems to be getting overlooked
Ince, Phillips, Chadli, Knockeart, Shaqiri could all be good choices. Have a look at the set pieces takers table on this site as quite a few are within your price range.
Hey Szatan good team this although I wouldn’t double up on New look at changing one of them good stuff 😉
No Spurs attacking cover.
Yeah this year is called eat an apple and have an apple.. Sooo hard to mix everything to be 100% happy.. Spurs I would consider only kane and alli since our Asian machine monster is still out and that’s waaay out of budget..
What do you think? Not sure about Monreal or the rest of def. other than Trippier…
Thanks!