Walking Off A Cliff

Post-Mortem Examination

The trouble with putting time and energy into spreadsheets is that you can easily become a slave to the algorithms you devise.  GW21 saw me ignore the disclaimer I put in my New Year's Day blog when I stressed "my tables are to be used alongside your own judgement and knowledge, NOT instead of them!"

And so, I took a hit (!) to bring in Daniels of BOU because of WHM's recent poor goalscoring record away from home, despite my advertising to others that there was a potential fly in the algorithmic ointment:

 

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the well known gamechanger that is Dimitri Payet. 

Going into Wednesday night's fixtures I was staring into the abyss having garnered a total of zero points (net) from my 3 Tuesday night players.  Ultimately, 33 points (after -4), and a fall of only 352 places to an overall rank of 16,270 seemed like a lucky escape.  My bench was nearly ideal, in that all 4 subs scored 2 points only, after my calculated risk to bench Ozil (my lowest scoring attacker) and Cresswell.

FPL is apt to make a fool of anyone making rash statements.  And boy, it sure made a fool out of me for some of the things I said in my last blog!

 "Nor would I be supplementing him with Giroud or Ramsey just now."

13 & 11 points respectively!

"..good news for this Hennessey and Ward holder.."

2 & 1 point(s) respectively! 

"The top budget enabler in FPL right now looks to be R Bennett.."

-1 point! 

By way of mitigation, my Ramsey sale was part of a supposedly cunning plan to bring Sanchez in for GW23.  Moreover, he'd only yielded me 7 points total in the 3 games I fielded him prior to GW21.

And it took a (dare I say uncharacteristic?) clanger from Hennessey to transform 11+ points for my double CPL DEF into 3.

On the upside, my spreadsheet was responsible for me getting some decisions right:

"a mass exodus [of Vardy] seems both likely and justifiable"

"the end of the party for Ighalo owners"

"..transferring in of van Dijk rather than a SWA DEF a couple of gameweeks ago, looks much better in this light.." 

- 8 points vs best case scenario 0 points.

"If Arnie comes through unscathed then I might well jump aboard the bandwagon.  I'll also be keeping a close eye on developments with Walters.."

- 5 points from Arnie (C) was most from my attacking players, 

and Walters scored 7.

 Coroner's Report

RULE 43:  There are many valuable lessons learned from these inquests.  The purpose of an inquest is not to apportion blame, but to answer some questions: 

•  Who is dead to us
•  When do they become dead to us

The answer to those questions, as far as I'm concerned, are our attacking assets from STO and BOU, and defensive assets from LIV and BOU.  Now I know STO ATT and BOU DEF assets were bigged up in my last blog, but at the risk of going all Kenny Rogers on you:  

"you've got to know when to hold 'em, 

know when to fold 'em, 

know when to walk away, 

know when to run.."  

I hadn't intended for Arnie to be only a two gameweek stand, but there you go.  Perhaps, at some point in the future, he'll be back.

The value of defensive assets from LIV, BOU, NOR & SOT have taken a serious knock.  Whereas there's no surprise regarding the first 3 named, given they each conceded 3 goals midweek, it might seem strange that SOT should also be included given their clean sheet last night vs WAT.  Thems the vagaries of my spreadsheet I'm afraid.  There is a rational reason for such anomalies, but time and space do not permit an explanation here.


Transfer Business

ATTACK

ARS and EVE trade places at the top of my expected goals chart, and I wouldn't presume to dissuade you from supplementing your Ozil with say a Ramsey or a Giroud!  LIV, WHM & AVL are GW22's new entries, and the likes of Firmino and Payet are going to be deservedly popular.  Especially the latter.  

I've improved this section by adding a column suggesting optimal entry and exit points for each of the teams below.  Of particular note, is the fact that AVL make it onto this list despite being deemed irrelevant for the first half of the 6 GW period under consideration.  Certainly, I'm going to be monitoring them closely in the meantime, on the look out for a killer differential.

As forewarned in my last blog, STO did indeed peak with last week's 3rd place, and not even the slight possibility of a DGW in GW25 should discourage managers inclined to sell Arnautovic, Bojan and Shaqiri. 

As can be seen above, BOU have a much longer period of grace, with which to convince us to give them a stay of execution.

The screenshot below offers a sneak preview of what the scoring chart above is projected to look like for GW23 should the unthinkable happen, and every scoreline predictions offered further below comes true.

DEFENCE

The unexpected goalfest that was GW21 has played havoc with the rankings for defences.  MCI, LEI, AVL AND WAT all enter or reenter the chart for GW22, and from these teams, Sagna and Fuchs will be understandably popular.  

As stated earlier, it's probably advisable to start drawing up plans to offload defensive assets from the four teams immediately highlighted in red above.  LIV are the biggest priority, so I'd not discourage prospective Clyne and Moreno sellers.  Excuses can be made for NOR, however, given O'Neil's moment of madness last night left them with 10 men for a whole hour vs STO.  It was still goalless at that point, and so it's quite possible that they've been prematurely written off.  They have the luxury of 5 GWs to earn a reprieve.  Similarly, SOT have 4 GWs to spare me the hassle of trading van Dijk in.  BOU have but 3 GWs to spare my blushes for my own moment of madness, my -4 points hit to bring in Daniels, the poor man's Leighton Baines.

Below is what GW23 is projected to look like should all things remain equal, which of course, they never do!

O Captain! My Captain!

Seemingly, most managers base their decision on who to captain purely on which players are in form.  My approach is to ask which teams are likely to score the most goals that gameweek, and see if there are any obvious candidates for the armband from those teams.  The 8 teams identified by my spreadsheet as likely to score the most goals in GW22 are shown below:

GW22's most popular captain pick is likely to be Harry Kane and this chart wouldn't put you off.  Payet should prove a popular differential pick, and WHM look good for at least 1 goal.  Anyone looking for a one gameweek punt could do worse than Firmino judging from the number of goals LIV are expected to score versus their arch-rivals MUN.

 

Keeping Clean Sheets

My spreadsheet identifies the 5 teams below as least likely to concede goals in GW22:

Last week, only ONE of the seven teams I nominated as least likely to concede goals kept a clean sheet.  Granted, it took a worldie from Howson to deny me (and STO) another one, but even so, it was a poor showing.  Let's see if my spreadsheet can do better when limited to five nominations.  Maybe less really will be more this GW.

 Predicted Scorelines

Disclaimer:  Betting on correct scores is a mug's game.  These predictions are intended only as indicative of home teams' recent home form and away teams' recent away form.

Lastly, the screenshot below provides an overview of all teams' next 6 fixtures, from which all of the recommendations above are drawn:

 

 

Key:  Dark blue is best and dark red the worst. The top table relate to expected number of goals scored, and the bottom one to expected goals conceded.

As ever, please feel free to comment or ask questions, either below or via my twitter account @barCOLEYna.

Please refer to my 'New Year's season ticker Resolution' blog for further insights into the 'philosophy' underpinning my approach to FPL.

Coley.