on a easier fixture rotation , not ideal but makes it a bit more interested and saves loads a cash, and considering niemi was behind a crap defense i think he did quite well last year including that broken neck thing

anyone else having to take this route? i wanted given but had to free up funds

i initially had kirkland but have gone off him as i think there's better choices for cheapie keeper rotation. the idea itself shouldn't be too bad as long as who you select will play and that they have a decent enough looking schedule. i was quite suprised when doing my goalie research to find just how many keepers are around or over 35 years of age which for most outfield players is over the hill.

of course, they don't have to run around, but still.

Sort of. I've got Niemi, who's paired with Cech - when one's home, the other's away - but I don't think I'll be doing much rotation.

Wigan are paired with Bolton

and speaking of bolton, i know they lost big sam and ben haim but i quite like the look of their opening fixtures and reckon they have been overlooked in defensive discussions.

I wondered when someone would notice
I think that of all the 'new' managers Little Sammy might do a decent job of stepping into Big Sam's shoes - metaphorically of course, as literally they'd be way too big - like a kid dressing up in his dad's clothes, which is not what I mean
Anyone like to guess the most likely BW starting back four?

http://www.4thegame.com/club/bolton-wan ... all-squad/

enough said

Ditto. Niemi's there in case Cech's leg falls off, that's about it.

Other than manually counting home/away games for any given pair of teams/players, is there a way of determining which pairs of teams have alternating home and away fixtures? I did a manual analysis to choose my best reserve keeper, but wouldn't want to do it again every time I change my mind.

you're familiar with romynpg's marvelous spreadys i trust?

Why, are they all under six foot?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

as long as they're not all six foot under by wildcard week.

resistance is futile.

You just have to check five gameweeks. 1, 5, 10, 14 and 16 do the trick this season. The pairs are:

ars-tot
avl-bir
bla-der
bol-wig
che-ful
eve-liv
mcy-mun
mid-por
new-sun
rdg-whm

Reds, that is pure genius! How did you find that out?

It's to do with how the fixture list is compiled and structured. To help explain I'll show you this chart:



Each number represents a gameweek. The pairs side-by-side represent 'reverse gameweeks', ie. the fixtures in GW23 are the reverse fixtures of GW1.

Within each block (ie between each line space), all the gameweeks in the left column have the same set of 10 clubs at home, with the opposite 10 at home for the GWs in the right-hand column of that block. So if you go and check GWs 1, 4, 22, 24 and 26 - you will find the ten home clubs in each of those gameweeks are the same, and the other ten are all at home in GWs 2, 3, 23, 25, 27.

To get a unique look at combinations of home/away fixtures you only need to look at one GW from each block (1, 5, 10, 14, 16 satisfy this).


Each season the chart will look slightly different, but only in that the numbers will be arranged differently. There will always be five blocks (because the first power of 2 above 20 is 2^5. If you really want, I'll go into detail and explain why that is).

[/nerd]

FPL rotational gold dust. I just thought a lot of them rotate based on not having 2 games in the one city. But having seen the maths behind it I tip my hat to you reds.

Excellent stuff, reds. You can see the fingerprints of regional police divisions all over it, can't you?

They do. I'd say seven of the pairings are police-based (the other three just randomly matching up the odd teams out).

The pairings would be determined first, and then be fitted into that fixture grid. Just that we (I) have to work out the pairings from the grid.

I do really want!

Is it inevitable that these pairings will emerge from any valid fixture list, or is it deliberate? I feel that I ought to be able to work out the answer to this, and also the "5 groups" situation, but I just can't get a handle on how to approach it

Interesting stuff reds - thanks.

Is this something unique to how EPL fixtures work or is the same principle behind any league set-up. For instance I've recently had need to create a fixture schedule for home/away games in a 20 team league and I used this site (using their cyclic method) to generate the pairings (which I then did a reverse of and spliced in to give me home & away).

While it works I can't avoid having teams playing some consecutive home (or away) games on the bounce. Is there a better method of generating a schedule that you know of?

edit: ..and everything fkb said

edit2: Just realised I've got this seasons fixtures in a db so I'll just use that to give me the match-ups.

I now believe that these pairings are deliberate and that it is perfectly possible to have a fixture list that only has one pair of alternating teams. (don't think you can have zero pairs)

Back to the original topic and yeah, I think Niemi and Kirkland is a good way to go and have just signed up to it.

At least with two cheap keepers who play you should be able to sideline whoever is playing a big team, thus minimising the damage.

Cech is great n all, but £6.5m is a lot of money...

Yes - a system like the Premier League's.

I don't know if it is how ALL leagues are set up, but I imagine most professional leagues would use something like this, as it gives a pretty well-balanced fixture list. It manages to guarantee alternate home/away games for the most part by placing alternate numbers on alternate sides of each block (occasionally other reasons override this: note that 2 and 3 are together as are 19 and 20).

But between blocks (eg GWs 4-5) the sets of ten home/away teams change, so some teams have to be at home two weeks in a row, others have to have two consecutive away matches. Think, if the sets of ten teams never changed, none of those ten would ever be able to play each other if they were always either home or away on the same day.

Are those the only specific unique combos? i.e. could I pick someone from the left hand side to pair with someone from the right? i.e. avl and ful for example?

If so, maybe ful and wig arent matched correctly all the way ...

thanks

That´s great reds!

Now considering a Given/Ward-combo for the first half of the season.

So when Big Sam has a fit about the fixtures computer sending Newcastle to Wigan on 26th Dec and Chelsea on the 29th we can point him towards this thread

I think I need to be awake etc for this.

Only added comment so it appears in posts, sorry.

I'm afraid that something is wrong with your theory, Reds

Take Mid-Por, a "pairing" according to one of your posts. In GW5: Mid (H), Por (A), which should mean that in GW9 (in the same block), they should be H & A again, but they are both A.

you sure can. the combos change at the gw's mentioned. so my initial pairing is good for the first 5 gw's which is all i want before my wildcard play. i'll choose a new combo after that. this 'binary' system is also possible for captaincy choice consideration.