A Look at Keeper Options in FPL

With just 2 clean sheets in today's games and Mignolet's owners who make up 39.2% of the game looking to move on the Belgian ahead of a nightmareish run of 4 fixtures I thought I'd have a look at goalkeeping options from now till the January wildcard. Below is the table I'll be using, the filters below it will help you decide who you want in your team. An explanation of the criteria is given below.

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Criteria Explanations

1. Backup Keepers - First up I looked at which keeper might soon lose his place and to who. Pantillimon seems first choice at the moment, but were not sure if it'll last. Boruc will come straight in when fit, as will Foster. Westwood and Vorm have both been first choice, but Mannone and Tremmel have rotated with them at times this year.

2. Defender Options - I've picked out some defenders that come with some attacking potential that might be a better way to cover clean sheets for that team. Evra and Walker are perfect examples of players who carry significant attacking threat to make them worth the extra money, and thus making De Gea and Lloris less attractive as keeper options. (Note, there may also be defenders worth considering that have a potential for bonus points, such as Jagielka at Everton or Chico Flores at Swansea)

3. Next 6 Fixture Ratings - A rating from 5 (high) to 1 (low) that rates the next 6 fixtures for each team for ease. I used the excellent Fantasy Football Scout Season Ticker to judge this, if you're not already a member I highly recommend it!

4. Defensive Stats Rating (Form) - A rating from 5 (high) to 1 (low) that rates the team for strength of their defense over the last 6 games only (excluding today's games). This is judged on underlying defensive stats only, and not actual goals conceded or clean sheet records. It looks at shots and shot position, quality of shot, chances created and the location of those chances, and crosses. Each team is then rated in each category according to every other team. For example, Man City have conceded just 63 shots inside the box all season, the lowest of any team so are assigned the highest rating for shots inside the box. Each category rating is then summed up to give a rating for each team. I then grouped ratings into 5 groups to make it easier to digest.

4. Defensive Stats Rating (Season) - Same as above but for all games over the season instead.

5. Total - The sum of the 3 ratings.

Process of Elimination

You can use the viz in anyway you want, but I think the best way in mind to establish a shortlist is to work by elimination. Here's my thought process, yours may differ.

First Round: Eliminate all teams with a poor defensive record for the season.

• Exclude Marshall, Stekelenberg, Ruddy, Westwood, Guzan, Speroni, McGregor, Begovic.

Second Round: Eliminate all teams with a poor defensive record over the last 6 games.

• Exclude Krul, Myhill

Third Round: Elimiante all teams with poor upcoming fixtures.

• Exclude Szczesny, Pantillimon, Mignolet, Vorm, Gazzaniga

The Shortlist:

• Cech, Howard, De Gea, Lloris, Jaaskelainen.

From there your decision comes down to your time preferences (Jaaskelainen's best fixtures only come after a Man Utd and Arsenal back-to-back), other defenders you already own (if you have Terry you might pass on Cech) and of course the budget you have available.

If you disagree with any of these criteria then let me know! I'm open to change the ratings if you can convince me.

Form Player Rater - Who Have Been the Top Performers Over the Last 6 Gameweeks?

I thought I'd have quick look at the Player Rater model which only includes data from the last 6 gameweeks. The graphics haven't got as many options as usual, and they show totals rather than adjusting for appearances/minutes.

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At the very top and Suarez is a clear run away, he isn't just in a purple patch, the model is expecting him to score just under a goal every game. Aguero is his closest rival, but still some way off. There's no sign of Ramsey's form stopping, he is ranked 3rd from the last 6GWs. Lukaku just edges Rooney, which is something to consider given Rooney's suspension this week.

In midfield, Coutinho, Hazard and Ozil are the clear elite midfielders of choice. Mirallas looks an excellent mid-price option, as does Lallana. While Downing and Shelvey top the cheap midfield options. The best budget option is Redmond, and by some margin.

Yaya Toure, Gerrard, Brunt, Navas, Nasri and Morrison lead a list of players who have scored well, but do not quite have the stats to back it, be very wary of bringing in any of these options off the back of recent points scoring. On the converse the Tottenham duo of Townsend and Paulinho continue to underperform their stats, I suspect this is a problem with the model and will seek to improve it so it doesn't rate the likes of Townsend's long range shots so highly. Downing has also been unlucky to not have more points given his stats and I have no problem backing him as a good pick up.

There's few attacking defensive options, but Walker's 2 assists have not been unjustified given his stats, while Evra, Vertonghen and Debuchy have been typically attack minded. Zabaleta's points returns are less backed up by his underlying stats though.

Finally, there are 3 huge surprises thrown up by the model: Crouch, Ameobi and Berbatov. All 3 rank above Giroud, Remy and even Negredo for attacking stats over the last 6 gameweeks, but get any of them for your team at your own peril!

Player Rater GW14 Update

Updated graphics can be found here.

Where to start, there's an awful lot to discuss (after I lamented on Monday there wasn't much going on!), but unfortunately I don't have time to cover everything. There were some huge scorers this week, and triple digit FPL scores were common. Suarez, Hazard, Aguero, Ramsey, Ozil and Coutinho all had incredible games in terms of attacking involvement. In terms of differentials, Berbatov seemed a new man following the departure of Jol, and Rodriguez gave use yet another option to consider from a great Southampton side. Shelvey had a brilliant gameweek, he has been highly rated by the player rater model (currently ranked 11th for midfielders when adjusted by appearances) but I've been reluctant to tip him, perhaps I should trust the model more.

Going back again to my midfield differential article, and 3 of the top picks have flopped, Fer has been disappointing, Ward-Prowse was withdrawn early after starting and Tonev has played 20minutes in the last 2 games. Redmond did deliver an assist and is well worth considering until the January wildcard. The player I wanted to highlight most though is Downing, who was the top player in a poor West Ham team in Tuesday. He had a goal wrongly disallowed, created a number of chances, and also has a share of set-pieces. I warned again Ravel Morrison who now sits out the next game serving his suspension, if your looking for a West Ham midfielder at the moment then Downing is the best choice.

That's all for now, my closing remark is a quick tip to keep in mind GW16 fixtures when making transfers this week. Man City play Arsenal and Tottenham play Liverpool, and there is a big fixture swing with Arsenal and Liverpool facing a tough Christmas period, and fixtures easing considerably for Man United and Everton. Keep all that in mind with this weeks transfers!

Which European League Has The Most Shots on Target?

With so little fantasy debates to be had at the moment, with most decisions revolving around getting an XI who will start and some good bench options if needed, I decided to have a quick look at something a little different. To be honest, I mainly just wanted to test out the new box and whisker plots that are available in the new version of tableau 8.1.

I decided to use data from WhoScored and look at attacking stats from the top 5 leagues in Europe (Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1) and since we all know the importance of shots on target as an indicator of attacking performance I choose to look at this.

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A quick explanation for the uninitiated (or those who have erased their memories of high school maths), each column is a league, and each data point is a team from within that league, along the y-axis we have Shots on Target per Game. The box and whisker plot itself is made up of 5 points, the minimum which marks the lowest of the group (in this case each league) and the maximum marking the highest. The median is also marked, which is the midpoint of the data, and the 'box' is constructed from the lower quartile to the upper quartile, such that 50% of the data is within the box. This is very useful for seeing the distribution of teams within a league and for comparing leagues. Graphically, the different points marked are:

Comments on the Box Plot

I don't want to indulge in a huge piece of analysis, and would rather you make up your own mind about what can be taken from the graphic, but here's a few comments:

• The Bundesliga has the highest median shots on target with 4.9. So an average game would see 9.8 shots on target, with an expected number of goals of over 3 per game. Does this make the Bundesliga the best league? Well, we cannot answer that, but it may be the most exciting league if you believe more goals leads to a more exciting game.
• Real Madrid are likely to score the most goals across the top 5 leagues, while Dortmund, Juventus, Manchester City and PSG top the charts in their respective leagues. No surprises here, apart from the fact that Bayern don't top the Bundesliga, their impressive record can be attributed to their defensive strength however.
• Sunderland are the worst attacking team, and by some way. According to my model they might be lucky to score 30 this season in the league, on current form at least. Cardiff, Fulham, Crystal Palace and Hull don't fare much better with only 2.8 shots on target per game. These 5 teams are worse than any team across the 5 leagues with the exception of Ajaccio. The belief that the English league has strength in depth certainly doesn't hold on the offensive side of the game.
• La Liga is positively skewed more than any other league, which we'd expect with 3 brilliant teams in Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid. This is at least in part to the way TV revenue is distributed in the Spanish league. Serie A is similarly skewed, but if we remove Juventus' supreme attack we actually see a cluster of good but not great attacking teams.
• The Bundesliga is also positively skewed by the presence of 3 stand out teams. It's certainly true that there is greater parity in the Bundesliga once you remove these teams though, at least from an attacking standpoint.
• The Premier League seems to be the most evenly distributed league, there are no run away teams and no teams falling far behind. There is also no cluster in the middle like we see with the Bundesliga, or towards the bottom as La Liga shows. Again, TV revenues likely play a part here, with the distribution of them being much more even across all teams than in other leagues. Does this mean the Premier League is more competitive? I'll leave that one open to debate.

If this post proves popular there's a few stats that throw up interesting box and whisker plots. There's some interesting stuff on the defensive end as well.

Update to the Player Rater Model

Also, there's a slight change to the expected points table. In selecting teams you now make your selections and click 'Apply' to apply that filter. This should be a lot quicker when you want to select or deselect a group of teams as you no longer have to wait for the viz to update with every single selection made.

Player Rater GW13 Update

Just a quick update today due to the midweek games this week. A reminder here that the deadline is 19:30 on Tuesday 3rd Dec.

The updated graphics can be found here.

Comments Using the Player Rater Expected Points Model

One of the early criticisms of the model was that it rated Deulofeu very highly, well after Saturday's performance it was probably right to. The on-loan Barcelona forward put in a stunning display of his talents, with 5 shots, 3 on target and 1 created chance that led to an assist. It's too early to say he's a fantasy option but he belongs on the 'monitor' list.

The Suarez and Aguero strikeforce finally failed this week, but we can't expect returns from them every week. Suarez managed 5 shots and Aguero 6, no other player managed more shots so strap down those jerky knees! Aguero had an astonishing 18 penalty box touches, so don't consider the Aguero>Negredo move yet.

The ever consistent Rooney scored twice at White Hart Lane and is quickly becoming the standout 3rd forward of choice, it makes for an expensive front-line though, so Remy and Lukaku are great alternatives. Rooney moves into 3rd place in the Expected Attacking Points per Appearance table. Ozil repaid those that showed faith in him with 2 assists and Ramsey continued his form with another 2 goals. Fantasy favourite and blog favourite Seamus Coleman scored his 2nd of the season and is now the top point scoring Everton defender, followers of the model will not be surprised to see him score again. Aside from this group there was little fantasy action of note, with many points coming from unlikely sources such as Oviedo who filled in at LB for the injured Baines, and Hooper who may have to single handedly score all of Norwich's goals this season.

Review of Midfield Differentials

In the interests of accountability I thought I'd look at how the midfield differentials I tipped in my popular article last week performed in this weekends games. The success of the suggestions cannot be judged over one game, but I thought it'd be interesting to see how each got on:

• Leroy Fer (3), Nathan Redmond (3) - A disappointing attacking performance from Fer was a shame, but 3 pointers is not too be sniffed at with the likes of Hazard, Oscar and Coutinho returning less. Redmond was much more impressive with 3 shots and 1 on target. If you can stomach rotation when Snodgrass and Pilkington return then Redmond is a nice and cheap option.
• Ward-Prowse (2) - A quiet performance before being withdrawn on 62 minutes. He now has 2 home games, which I highlighted as the games in which he carries more threat.
• Downing (6) - This is more like it, an assist this week is representative of what you can expect from Downing, 3 shots and 4 chances created show his involvement in West Ham's attack.
• Tonev (1) - The return of Agbonlahor and Weimann saw Tonev drop to the bench, only making a 20 minute bench appearance where his only action of note was a long range effort on target. Villa are struggling for goals at the moment and that might see Lambert mix up his attackers, whether that includes Tonev remains to be seen.
• Walters (1), Adams (1) - Away at Goodison Park was always going to be a tough game, so don't read much into the two poor performances of these two this weekend. Walters did manager a shot on target from within the box, but that was it.
• Barkley (0), Morrison (4), Januzaj (0). Barkley and Januzaj didn't make an appearance this week and that should signal that anyone holding them should look to sell. Morrison was benched as well, but made an impressive impact creating 3 chances in just 14 minute, including an assist for Joe Cole's goal after practically walking through a dejected Fulham defence.

I also overlooked Sissoko who occupies a similar space in the model to Downing, he scored a wordly this week and is a reliable option. Cabaye still provides more threat as coverage for the Newcastle midfield that has somehow sneaked in 6th place.