Aha, well spotted, I should have mentioned that. That is the one anomaly to the whole theory above: MID and MCY switched their two fixtures around from how they came out of the computer. Originally they were due to play at the Riverside in GW9 and at Eastlands GW38, but these were switched because MCY needed to finish on an away fixture because they're hosting the UEFA Cup final.

That is the definitive list of pairs that work for the whole season. There will be many other pairings that will work for various parts of the season, the most useful of which being:

avl-por
bir-mid
bla-sun
bol-mcy
der-new
mun-wig
which work for all GWs except 14,15,28,29

and

ars-por
che-new
eve-rdg
ful-sun
liv-whm
mid-tot
which work for all GWs except 16,17,30,31

There may be many more that work for the first 13 GWs, I've not checked for them though.

Ars-Bir
Avl-Tot
Bla-Che
Der-Ful

Are the only ones, unless my amazing pen-and-paper analysis is flawed (it correctly predicted the pairings in your last post, so it should be ok!) Cheers for explaining the Mcy-Mid situation above, it was pure chance that I spotted it while I was looking at possible keeper pairings.

Interesting that some teams "alternate" better than others - the four teams that appear twice in your above post (Mid, New, Por, Sun) have the most options, the eight that appear at the top of this post have slightly fewer, and the remaining 8 (Bol, Mun, Mcy, Wig, Eve, Whm, Liv, Rdg) have least options.

Well, that killed a bit of time!

Thing is, if you're picking Cech, pairs are largely irrelevant - you're going to play him in 99% of the games. In this instance, the sub is very much just that.

A second option is to pick a cheapish keeper with a reliable defence and his team's 2nd choice keeper, where the 2nd is 4.0 (base price).
E.g. EV - Howard (5.0) & Turner (4.0).

While you forego the choice of rota-ing, you maintain the (hopefully) reliable defensive back line rather than hoping, say, FU at home will perform well.
However, you are unlikely to make a profit on the No.2 keeper unless he gets a run.

(An (expensive) example of this from last season would be Cech/Cudicini, where, after Cech's injury, Cudicini conceded only 3 goals in 716 minutes, before he, too, was injured.)

I really dislike this picking two keepers from the same club thing. You're guaranteed to lose at least 0.1 on the keeper who isn't playing, you lose all flexibility, forcing yourself to pick him at Old Trafford and leave yourself vunerable to rearranged/postponed fixtures costing extra transfer penalties.

The only case for it I think I'd consider might be when Cech was out and everyone was guessing if Hilario and Cudicini would be in nets each week. It might make sense to pick them both up relatively cheaply if the rest of your team is pretty settled.

i think folks are saying pick keepers from 2 different clubs, mate.

Oh okay.

In defense of my stupidity I was distracted by the scariest looking strawberries I've ever seen. They look like giant dandelions or a huge pile of thin spiders and I'm refusing to throw them away until th girlfriend gets back so she can see what happens when she spends all our money on fruit and then only gets round to eating a couple of cherries and leaving the rest to rot.

No, Sarky was right, weird strawberries or not.
I just put the notion of two from one club on the table as it is a legitimate strategy.
Doesn't appeal to Sarky, rarely appeals to me, but it's a possible choice, nevertheless.

She's only just walked in the front door with a sodding blender!

Oh and sorry if my first post was a bit ranty Flyman, wasn't meant to be, but all that wasted fruit just got me so angry. Besides like you say, it's not a philosophy you were promoting.

Cudicini let in very few goals after Cech's injury, primarily due to him applying the "I can't conceed whilst sat on my ass in the stands" theory.

oh yes, it's a legitimate strategy of course, but not one i think anyone would benefit from pushing.

were the strawberries printed on little squares of paper, perchance?

Like this you mean

Hmmm, not sure I agree ....
Anyone remember who CP's pyjama'd wonder Kiraly replace a couple of seasons ago? At 4.0 & 3.5 they would have been a fair combo to open with, selling the 4.0 once Kiraly had become 1st choice.
I don't understand Merielle's point .... as I said, Cudicini conceded only 3 goals in 716 minutes, before he, too, was injured. During none of the 716 minutes he played was he 'in the stands'. Unless he's refering to the time he was injured, in which case Hilario comes into the equation as Cech was out long-term.

I guess one major difference in the Base Price of keepers being upped to 4.0 will be that, with more of them who play available and no one cheaper, the old 3.5 back-ups can't get bought to release an extra 0.5m for the men up front.

should i be concerned that you knew about that link so quickly, romyn?

oh yes, who could forget the pyjamas?
but that was more of a drop in the ocean of fpl time when it comes to keeper strategy. only a benefit of unorthodox circumstance.

No.

I had a clue what you were hinting at and saw this site a few years ago - there's some really cool stuff on there. Just hoped they'd be a strawberry one (seemed like a good candidate) and there it was. The whole thing around these blotters I find really interesting.

Sorry dude, wasn't having a crack at you or your (good) point, more having a go about bloody Cudicini and reliving the frustration of having picked the twerp when Cech went down, only for the turd to hardly ever show.

Ah! Gotcha!
Yeah, I remember that, too! I should have followed my own advice and bought both then, but kept dancing the Hokey Cokey with them, buying the wrong one at least twice!
Live & learn, live & learn .....

I can't believe I don't look at every thread for a few days and when I do I find I've been slandered as a crazy drug fiend whacked off his face on lsd!

So here's my proof that the fluffy strawberries weren't all in my mind.

I wonder if anyone who has last season's complete player stats could knock up a quick table showing the %age of points scored home and away for each of the first-choice keepers? If there isn't a huge difference, then we can forget about this rotation theory. If there is, knowing which teams are skewed towards scoring more at home will help a lot

Do what you will with it
(anyone starting 8 games or more - most regular in top half)

Romyn, that's fantastic! I think it puts an end to any consideration of rotation tactics though - there's plenty of keepers doing better away from home! The only ones that look to have any significant difference in their home and away forms are Reina (homeboy) and Friedel (likes to play away).

Although if you print off Romyns Excel fixture list, and place Wigan and Bolton side by side theres a nice hot/cold, H/A switch right up till GW7, Jussi/Kirkland, for me till then

I would have thought the home/away difference was greater. Is it the same for all positions?

Indeed it is, the H/A aspect effects the hot/cold fixture difficulty feature directly of course.

It just seemed to enhance the theory when I looked at it that way, although UEMs review has left me slightly unsure again

As far as other positions are concerned, I suppose to some extent it would be, although I generally don't rotate outfield players that way, perhaps I should.

Now where did I put that drawing board