Form Player Rater - Top Forwards Over the Last 10 Gameweeks

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Forwards

Suarez is essential, I don't need to say any more. Aguero might as well be (he's hidden under Eto'o in case anyone was wondering). With that done, we only have 1 forward slot left to consider, and the PR model throws up an odd name for this slot: Dimitar Berbatov.

Berbatov?

Bare with me on this one, Berbatov has some great stats. 11 shots on target in 6 appearances gives him a better SoT/game than all but Suarez and Sturridge, higher than Aguero, Eto'o and Negredo. In the same number of games he has 4 more shots on target than Adebayor does. Yes, he's not in form, and yes Fulham are one of the worst teams in the league. But don't let the absence of goals fool you that he's not been attacking. Puncheon for example hadn't scored up until 3 games ago, but his shooting stats were brilliant. Since then he's scored 2, and would have had a third if he didn't sky a penalty. Similar story with Cazorla. I want to emphasise that past shooting stats are a better predictor of future goal scoring, than past goal scoring is. And Berbatov's shooting numbers make him a good consideration.

However, I think this shows a flaw in the model I need to address. Berbatov is here by virtue of a brilliant shot accuracy, otherwise he'd be much lower down the list, and I think this is something the model overvalues. To give you a quick insight into the model, shots off target really hurt a players goal expectations. My theory behind this is that a shot off target has no chance of becoming a goal, but it also means a player gives up an opportunity to have a shot ON target, which may go in. A shot off target is a wasted opportunity, so players who waste a lot of opportunities should score fewer than those who don't. Berbatov is pretty efficient with his opportunities. Having said that, Berbatov is may not be the 2nd best choice in FPL, but he may well be in the top 10. His performances last year showed he can be a true fantasy asset as well.

Using the Per Minute adjustment rather than the Per Appearance one might also be more fair here, since many top strikers are returning from injury and have made sub appearances as a result. Aguero and Sturridge are two noticeable examples of this. When we do this, a top 4 stand out: Suarez, Aguero, Sturridge and Eto'o, the last of whom would make a very nice punt if you think he'll start more games with Torres out. Long term PR model favourite Lukaku really has sunk away recently and is one to ditch at the moment.

My Watchlist

Assuming you have Suarez and Aguero, here's how I'd rank the contenders for the 3rd forward slot:

Top Tier: Sturridge, Negredo
Next Tier: Adebayor, Rooney, Eto'o, Berbatov
Cheap (but good) options: Rodriguez, Dzeko, Bony
Lagging Behind: Welbeck, Lukaku, Remy, Benteke, Giroud

If your on your WC and debating the 3rd forward slot, I'd go for Sturridge or Negredo first. If you understandably don't want to get two strikers from the same team, then I'd go for Adebayor or Rooney, and if you fancy a punt then Eto'o or Berbatov could be lucrative differentials. If you want to save money to upgrade elsewhere then I think Jay Rodriguez is your man, he has stat lines to compete with 7-8m priced forwards and is a great budget pick. Finally, the likes of Lukaku, Giroud and Remy are old favourites, but haven't quite matched their competitors recently. They make reliable picks and have the potential to increase their fortunes soon, but they wouldn't be top of my list right now.

Form Player Rater - Top Performers Over the Last 10 Gameweeks?

Back in December I used the Player Rater model to have a look at who the best recent performers had been and it proved a popular post so I'm doing another one! This time I'm looking at the last 10 gameweeks instead, by including more games we get a slightly better representation of the players medium-long term performance, so we don't just look at who's had 1 or 2 great games (like Adam Johnson)

Below are the two PR model graphics, but they only include data from the last 10 gameweeks (13-22), over the next few days I'll have an article for each position, starting with the forward position tomorrow.

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The format should be familiar, but the filters on the side now apply to both the scatter diagram and bar chart, which should make things a bit easier. If anyone has any questions on this, and how the PR model works, don't hesitate to ask me. Best place to get ahold of me is on Twitter @The_First_Touch.

Over/Under-Performers

I also created an updated diagram for over/under-performers according to the model. You can find an explanation of what these show here, but the general idea is that if someone is way above the trendline shown, then they have been fortunate to get as many goals/assists as they have and we can expect them to regress soon. If they are way under the line then they have been unlucky in their efforts so far, and we might expect more points from them in future.

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Again, if any disagrees with the model then I'd love to hear your thoughts and how I could improve the model and graphics.

GW22 Player Rater Update and News

Player Rater Update

The graphics have been updated to include GW22's data, you can find them here as always. No comments, but later today I'll have a post up looking at stats from the last 10 gameweeks, just to get a sense of who's done well over the medium term. This should give an idea of who's putting in good performances, but give a slightly longer time frame for allow for peaks and troughs in performances.

News

I'm going to be writing some articles over at insideFPL. I've mentioned the site on here many times so you should all know it by now, it's basically a bigger better version of what I try and do here. I'll post a link to articles I write on insideFPL here, so if anyone follows this blog specifically they can see my articles over there as well.

The Player Raters Team of the (Half) Season

The end is nigh for player rater model, I'm hoping to replace it with a more refined model soon so there won't be any more updates to the current model. As a send off for the model, I thought I'd have a looked at what it thinks the best team so far would have been, it might serve as help for those on wildcards as well. Remember that the model only looks at points from goals and assist, it ignores clean sheets, appearance points, most bonus points and yellow/red cards. This is most noticeable with defenders, the choices are the most attacking defenders, not the ones I'd expect to get most points.

To select the team I modified the superb spreadsheet produced over at insideFPL, go check it out because it's a great tool to play around with. I pulled the ratings from the PR model and run the solver to find the best attacking 10. I decided to find two teams, the first was the perfect team found with an unlimited budget, the second a cheaper option which includes some differential options. Remember the players are selected for best attacking potential on a per appearance basis!

The Player Raters Perfect Team

Here's how the team breaks down:

Player	Current Price	Expected Points from Goals and Assists (Per Appearance)
Coleman	£6.7m	1.5
Debuchy	£5.2m	1.3
Kolarov	£5.3m	1.1
Walcott	£9.6m	3.1
Ozil	£10.0	3
Ramsey	£7.2m	3
Eriksen	£7.2m	3
Suarez	£13.3m	6.2
Aguero	£11.9m	4.3
Sturridge	£9.1m	3.1
Sum	£85.5m	29.6

Not a bad looking team, and all for a very modest £85.5m. It's not quite affordable, but downgrade one of the heavy hitters and your left with a realistic team. (Thanks to @SoccerSaber for pointing this out). This team has an expected points total of 29.6 each gameweek, so that's roughly 5 goals and 2 assists. Not bad from 10 players.

First thing to note is three Arsenal midfielders, which shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. What might is that Ramsey is one of them, his points are no fluke at all (unlike a certain Ivorian), they are fully backed up by his stats. The second thing to note is that Sturridge is the 3rd striker, with a return this past gameweek many will be debating whether to double up on Liverpool strikers. The stats certainly back that idea up, but Sturridge's injury record has always blighted his fantasy prospects. Third, the inclusion of Eriksen will almost certainly come as a surprise, unless of course you've been following this blog, since I tipped Eriksen to be a big name 2 months ago. His stats really put him among the elite midfielders and at £7.3m, he's about £2m under his real value, making him a tremendous pick up on your wildcard.

I also want to highlight the defence. The three chosen are the three with the best attacking potential (subject to budget) but all are viable picks. Coleman is obviously a great pick and leading all defenders for points, Debuchy's value is harmed by his propensity to a yellow card, while Kolarov could be a steal for the second half of the season. Incredibly attacking and now seemingly first choice LB for one of the best defences in the league, all for £5.4m.

The 'almost made it' list of players who just missed out on being included in this team:
Defence: Walker, Ivanovic
Midfield: Hazard, Silva, Coutinho
Forwards: Rooney, Lukaku

The Player Raters Budget Team

Here's how the team breaks down:

Player	Current Price	Expected Points from Goals and Assists (Per Appearance)
Bardsley	£4.5m	1.0
Shaw	£4.8m	0.9
Delaney	£4.4m	0.6
Shelvey	£5.4m	1.9
Redmond	£4.6m	1.7
Dyer	£5.2m	1.7
Puncheon	£4.9m	1.7
Rodriguez	£6.3m	1.9
Berbatov	£7.0m	2.4
Crouch	£5.5m	1.8
Sum	£52.6m	15.6

First, let me state that when I was running the solver to find a budget team, Suarez, Ramsey and Eriksen were included in almost every team. Not only are they big point getters, but they also offer tremendous value. I've manually excluded them from consideration for this team.

Now, I'm expecting to catch some flack here because it includes some odd names, and excludes some obvious ones like Januzaj, Barkley and Ravel Morrison. Neither of these are rated poorly by the model, but the players chosen just edged them for expected points. While these names are high profile, they're not much better than their unknown rivals. Barkley has grabbed roughly 3.5PPG so far, while Redmond has 3.1PPG, and the model has Barkley as over-performing his underlying stats.

Bardsley and Shaw are clearly worth considering, both are playing in good defences (though Southampton's is much better than Sunderland's) and offer some attacking potential for a kind price. I'd be less keen on Delaney when there are £4.0m alternatives in Palace's backline.

Upfront is where there could be some real value, especially in Berbatov who almost made it into the main team! As the front man for a much improved Fulham attack, Berbatov's fantasy pedigree can't be questioned but there's an element of risk in putting him in your team. More secure but much less glamorous is Crouch, who would be my ultra-budget forward of choice if you wanted funds to invest elsewhere in your team.

The 'almost made it' list of players who just missed out on being included in this team:
Defence: Celustuka, Rangel
Midfield: Mutch, Kasami, Amalfitano
Forwards: Hooper, Berahino, Deulofeu, Long

Wrap-Up

So there you have it, two teams that have been selected to gain most attacking points (goals and assists). They're by no means the 'perfect' teams, but my wildcard team will probably end up with 7 or 8 of the same names as the main team.

*Edit* The latest stats for GW21 haven't been included, so the inclusion of Eriksen and Sturridge comes before their big games the weekend just gone!

GW19 Player Rater Update

I've found a spare half hour so here's an update to the Player Rater model. Nothing special, but I thought I'd update the model so that those wildcarding early and wanting to use the model can do so with the latest data included. I've got a few ideas for articles to help with those tricky wildcard decisions, but I don't want to colour people's interpretations of the model too much.

As for a quick round-up of the last few games, in defence it's all been about Seamus Coleman who has scored 3 times in the last 4 games. Long term readers will know my love for Coleman and I tipped him in the very first player rater update in GW8 as he was coming off the back of 4 pts in 4 weeks! The power of models like this one is it not influenced by recent points and looks at the performance of players, not the results. Coleman is no doubt due to regress, I don't think he'll hit double figures this year, but he still possesses more goal threat than any of defender. Elsewhere and Mertesacker, Ward and Bardsley have had a good few gameweeks, all off of the back of cleansheets and bonus points, while Debuchy has converted his attacking potential into assists.

In the last update in GW16 I highlighted the much anticipated return of Theo Walcott, 2 goals and an assist since then signals his potential as one of the best midfield prospects. He may well have to wrestle that title from Eden Hazard however, he now sits a top of the midfielders in the FPL game thanks in part to Ramsey's recent injury. Two goals and 5 bonus points in the last 3 show that he shouldn't be ignored and has settled the debate over whether Hazard or Oscar is the best Chelsea midfielder to own. Yohan Cabaye has also scored twice in the last 3 GWs, and sits alongside Adam Lallana as brilliant mid-priced prospects that offer reliability of minutes and strong attacking potential. The absence of Gerrard signalled to many a dip in Liverpool's performances but quite the opposite has happened and they have been the victim of poor refereeing decisions in away losses to Man City and Chelsea. Henderson and Sterling have been the fantasy beneficiaries of this, but it remains to be seen what their prospects are when Gerrard returns as expected on New Years Day.

Finally, forwards have been a pretty sorry story. With Aguero and Rooney missing games through injury, Suarez facing tough fixtures and Lukaku not finding the net in 5 games, those that dared to be different and went with Adebayor or Dzeko have reaped the rewards. I'm still not convinced by any of these options, aside from Jay Rodriguez who earned himself 50,000 new owners off the back of a 2 goal and 1 assist display away at Cardiff. With 6 goals prior to that Rodriguez had somewhat flown under the radar, but the model did flag him as a possible Aguero replacement. He's certainly the only cheap forward I would consider for my team.

That's all for this round up, I wish you all a Happy New Year and I can't wait for transfer silly season, FA Cup 3rd Round and the FPL wildcard in January!