Fixture Tracker – Fantasy Premier League 2014-15
We’ve all seen a few different ways of viewing upcoming fixtures, and the one that has become increasingly popular over the last couple of years is the colour-coded one. With this, you can instantly see each team’s approaching fixtures with an accompanying colour that corresponds to the difficulty of each match. This is very useful for both identifying teams that are potentially about to have a great run due to a kind set of fixtures, and also identifying weaker teams that can rotate well, i.e. when one team has a bad fixture the other will have a decent one, so you swap between the two players. For more info on rotation, check out Mito’s somewhat exceptional article on it 😉 Rotation Analysis Home and Away and Favourable fixtures
Many of these colour-coded tickers only show a few weeks in advance, which is very helpful for short-term plans, but not if you’re planning transfers for the long-term. It is understandable that these tickers are short-term, as teams’ form tends to fluctuate as the season progresses, so if you made a season-long ticker now, it may well not be a good reflection of how difficult a match is come Christmas or Easter. Who knows, maybe Villa will get off to a blinder and win 10 out of 15 (hahaha!), in which case a game against them would no longer be considered easy. Also, sometimes we may even disagree with the colour a certain match has been assigned by the fantasy football gurus that make the tickers! The ticker I have made is designed with both of these points in mind, and can be updated throughout the season as and when you see fit.
Customisable Tracker
Some of you may already have seen my earlier prototype after I posted it on the boards last week (much to init’s dismay :p ) – I have since added all 38 GWs to the tracker, modified the colours used and added a new custom search for individual teams, so even if you had the original please do use this updated version instead.
And it works like this: I have split up all 20 teams into four groups of similar ability, and then given every possible combination (of which there are 32) a difficulty rating of between A and E (5 difficulties as opposed to 3 for greater accuracy). Both of these factors are the variables that you can change, and doing so will automatically update the colours in your fixtures tab. Simply click on the ‘Variables’ tab as shown in fig.1, change any of the values in the cyan-coloured columns shown in fig. 2,
and you will be able to view your very own customised 38 GW fixture tracker as shown in the main image above. This is all explained in more detail in the ‘How It Works’ tab. Finally, I have made a ‘Compare Fixtures’ tab as well – this allows you to select only the teams you wish in order to see just how well they compare and/or rotate, without having the distraction of all 20 teams’ colours present. If you wish to use this tool then select the ‘Compare Fixtures’ tab and then click on the ‘Add Team’ drop-down menu as shown in fig. 3 and choose the team you want. You can do this with as many or as few teams as you wish. Though it seems rather simple, I found this last feature very tricky and would not have been able to make it work as well as it does without the help of Dreamers, so a huge thanks to him!
I have made the link read-only, so as to preserve the template in its original format for everyone in case the formulas stop working. Just save your own version of the file, and you will be able to customise it entirely as you see fit. Please bear in mind that this was made with Google Sheets and is intended to be used in that format so it can be saved in favourites for easy access; if you download it with Excel then the margins and borders will probably be off so will need adjusting. I am always open to suggestions for ways to improve it, so feel free to send me a message or post a comment below to that effect if you have any ideas. And finally, I have double- and triple-checked the fixtures, but there are a lot of them and after a point they all tend to blur together, so if you spot any mistakes please let me know as soon as possible!
Click the link below for the file. Hope it helps a few of you, happy customising.
Fixture Tracker – Fantasy Premier League 2014-15
Tweaked my team a bit :
Have 0.5 in the bank incase my defender doesn’t start.
FDMS – Big ?’s over the game time of Anichebe, Bruce, Upson and maybe Duff too. It remains to be seen whether Young gets starts too so i’d keep an eye on all of those. If all, or all but one, get game time then i think it’s a solid 3-5-2.
What do you think
silva–>coutinho and anichebe–>bojan
Or
Silva–>nasri/Sterling and anichebe–>bent
and spending the extra money on upgrading 4.0 defs to 4.5 defs ,is it better?
FDMS – How about Eriksen or Silva out for Sigurdsson? I know he’s a very popular pick but at 6m we really cant go wrong with him. You could then bring in Bojan and use the rest to upgrade in defence a bit, depending on which of the two you dropped would determine what sort of upgrades you could make. I’m not convinced that City will start the season all guns blazing.
Somewhat of a risky team. Risks are Upson, Duff, Bruce, Young and Anichibe. Rest is pure class.
Calvin, this is an amazing bit of work- thank you so much for putting it together (and thanks to your girlfriend and Dreamers for helping too!).
So what are people’s opinions on Nasri vs Silva? I reshuffled things a bit and switched Sanchez to Ramsey which allowed me to upgrade Siggy to Nasri. Should I find an extra .5 million someplace to get Silva in? I think he’s great when he’s on the pitch, but he’s fragile like Aguero and frustrated me more often than not last season. Nasri had the same number of goals last year (7) and only one less assist (11), and would be a differential of sorts as well. Any thoughts on how I could improve this group? I’d plan to play Barton over Bojan some weeks depending on fixtures.
Manonne Krull
Pieters Terry Caulker Duff Taylor
Nasri Ramsey Eriksen Mata Barton
Roonaldo Costa Bojan
Thanks Red, felt obliged to put that in there as she hates how much time I spend on fantasy football and still helped me make it
For me Silva is well worth the extra 0.5. They had very similar stats last season, but that’s with Nasri getting over 5 full games’ extra playing time due to Silva’s injuries. As you said that in itself could be a reason to be wary, but I’d get him while fit at least. Not sure where you could downgrade for the 0.5 though, because as it is you are playing it risky going with Duff and Taylor. I’d say overall you’d have better balance getting Siggy back in and upgrading the bench to definite starters, but if you’re planning on WCing early then a strong 11 ad weak bench shouldn’t be a problem.
I think Nasri has featured more than Silva in pre-season, so he’s probably closer to being match fit. If Silva doesn’t get a considerable amount of minutes in the Community Shield it’s perfectly justified to go with Nasri over him.
Thanks for the replies Calvin and Tekno, I appreciate it. I’ll keep tinkering and see what I can come up with. My impression was that Taylor was a lock to start at Swansea, but if that’s not the case then I’ll have to reconsider things further. Not too bothered about Duff tbh, but I definitely need 3 halfway decent starters to rotate with Terry.
Ah then ignore me, assumed you meant Taylor from Newcastle.
Long time no talk fellow FPL lovers! Hope all is well with everyone!!
Please pick my team apart, I’m building for the season!
Green (Speroni)
Baines Shaw Pieters Dawson (Taylor)
Silva Eriksen Ramsey (Siggy & Albrighton)
Costa (VC) Rooney (C) Bojan
Green & Speroni will rotate based on home keeper / favorable fixture. Baines and Shaw will start every game (counting them as extra midfielders). Pieters and Taylor rotate and Dawson will play as 4th defender when his fixtures has CS potential. Silva, Eriksen and Ramsey to start every game. Siggy to rotate with Bojan and Albrighton to fill up 3rd bench spot. Costa and Rooney to start and rotate captaincy more than likely every week.
Better 4.5m GK to rotate with Speroni?
Dawson or Davies? (Is Davies a guaranteed starter?)
Better 4.5m MF than Albrighton?
Overall thoughts?
Its good to have to make these decisions again!!
Hey Hammer, good to see you mate,
Pretty sold squad there mate, most bases are covered for now. Not sure how much Dawson will play, I thought they were close to selling him in the summer, so best keep a v close eye out on that one – Davies much more potential, hopefully Rose plays Europa and Davies the league.
Good to be back Cookie! Cheers mate, Dawson is club captain and started a lot of pre-season but I’d rather Davies if he was to start without doubt for the attacking potential.
Final squad before next Saturday has been confirmed. Only question is whether to play 3-4-3 with
Bojan (Villa H) or 3-5-2 with Mutch (Hull H), I am swaying towards the latter. Any help guys?
Be a brave man who confirms his team at this stage, I’m probably going to tinker up until deadline time and still sweat to see if I got it right or wrong, Bojan would be my pick from the two though.
A very brave man, especially considering the fact that I expect most teams to plat their strongest teams in their final pre-season friendlies, most of which are being played this weekend.
I’d go with Bojan.
Bojan for me
Bojan for me, but I won’t be rotating him to avoid such headaches and also save money for the rest of the squad.
Calvin, does that mean you plan on playing 3-4-3 with Bojan as your 3rd forward? That thought has crossed my mind…
Just so Kop. At this early stage where every 0.5 is precious I can’t be leaving 5.5 or 6.0 on the bench, and also would be cursing myself every time the benched guy scores or assists. Will be having Barton as a permanent sub (as it stands).
Xabi – Of the two i’d lean towards starting Mutch in gwk 1. Funnily enough, both are in my 11 for gwk 1 but if i had to choose, it’d be Mutch.
Do people seem to be having doubts on Albrighton, looks like it on here. Should I get someone else in?
I wouldn’t say doubts, it’s just when we started making our teams he looked the best option for a fifth mid at 4.5m as he looked guaranteed to start, people are now in two minds as to whether or not they’ll be wanting to play a 3-4-3 or a 3-5-2 formation and I don’t think he fits in well for a 3-5-2 as he probably won’t be returning more than a 2 very often.
Oh right. So he’ll be ok if I play 3-4-3?
He’ll more than likely play so he’d be useful as a backup only, I’ve got him sat on my bench at the minute but admittedly I haven’t researched all the possible 4.5 starting midfielders, I’m not going to hold my breath in looking for a point scoring gem at that price though as it looks very unlikely.
TMW – Yep, shocking fixtures. There’s not a lot in the 4.5m bracket though. Maybe a slight upgrade to a 5m? Davis and Barton could be good shouts. Maybe Rodwell but that’s a bit risky considering his injury record.
Manuel Pellegrini has confirmed the City players who only returned to training this week will not feature in Sunday’s Community Shield game against Arsenal.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference, the Chilean revealed Martin Demichelis, Vincent Kompany, Pablo Zabaleta, Bacary Sagna, Fernandinho and Sergio Aguero will not be fit enough for the clash with the Gunners – nor will new signing Frank Lampard.
“All the players that have arrived on Monday will not be ready to play on Sunday”, he disclosed. “These players have had a special pre-season for this week and it will continue into next week.”
“For the moment, the squad has no injury problems – only Alvaro Negredo. He is recovering well but he has at least two or three months that he will not play.”