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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Interesting article there. Is this saying that West Brom were in the bottom 6 of clean sheets last season? That seems wrong but I do recall they were not as tight last year as previous years. I understand the rest of the analysis and its tip top.
Just wondering I guess on what basis the top 6, next 8 and bottom 6 are calculated as a starting point?
@Dreamers, I will let Taka answer that bottom question, but West Brom were awful last season at Clean sheets, I do remember tweeting about it, here it was.
Wish Kyle Walker-Peters was in the game already. Have a feeling the injury will push him up to £5.0m when they add him.
Really AT? Nobody knew who he was before this game
Depends how bad the injury is and if they believe Spurs will sign another – £4.5m into their back line for months would be cheap!
my really comment was re a 5m price point. Surely he be 4.5?
Hey AT who are we talking about here still out has someone got injured 😉
Poch has said he’s not ready to start
Hey everyone, please RMT. Struggling to decide what is best; fairly happy with this team.
Nice team Lewis.
Is Willian a definite starter?
Hey Lewis. Its got a lot of the players I have seen posted on here.
Taking a negative view:
– Cedric came back from Federations cup. Has he played pre season? Southampton also got murdered 4:0 at home of late
– Trippier may be injured
– Is Hegazi a temp player while others are injured ?
– Willian is good enough for any premier league team but will he play ?
– Redmond frustrates a bit and they have a new manager. 2 from Southampton is one too many
DDG/Salah/KDB/Kane/Lukaku are great picks
Its a good squad – and to go as is wouldnt be a problem – just sharing an alternative view
Thanks for the comments. I think Willian will start whilst hazard is out and Pedro is slightly doubtful. Long term I think he’s a rotation risk.
I agree dreamers, both Cedric & trippier are on my watch list. These could become lindelof and yosh (de gea to courtios).
Hegazi has played pre- season and looked okay. Not 100% he will start but he was more of an enabler and rotates well with leic (Simpson).
Agree with Redmond. He could become tadic or maybe even Ritchie/Ince and use the 0.5m elsewhere?
Id prefer a punt on Ince over redmond. Good preseason which I know doesnt count for much but
Do we think firmino is nailed on to take pens?
He might be, let’s see what Kop says. My concern would be if he take them with Hendo and Milner on the pitch and one was with Henderson on it and today was with Milner on it.
So as of now it appears yes
It certainly appears that for now at least he’s our penalty taker. I’ve just had a quick look and he took 5 penalties while at Hoffenheim, scoring 3 of them.
Didn’t he take the one earlier in the week with hendo on the pitch?
That’s what Mito said
Lol sorry! Dam San Miguel!! 😉
“Asked if there’d been dressing room conversations about changing designated takers, the vice captain replied Not really. He won it and had scored a couple in midweek. I asked him if he was feeling confident and he said yes. We all practice them and I am very confident when he steps up. As long as the ball ends up in the back of the net, thats the most important think”.
What do we then about Walcott? When plays makes points ? quite cheap way to arsenals attack..
Walcott won’t play mate
Rather start*
One to keep an eye on…..
What do we think about this Trent Alexander-Arnold guy from Liverpool? (TAA from now on lol)
Seems like he will play until Clyne comes back?
How long do you think Clyne is out for?