I've highlighted the obvious picks for the first 10 GWs of the Jaaskelainen/Foster combo. GW7 is a toss-up, IMO.

Jaask: (1)FUL, (2)whm, (3)BIR, (4)ars, (5)ast, (6)MNU, (7)wba, (8)STK, (9)wig, (10) LIV

Foster: (1)sun, (2)BLA, (3)bol, (4)LIV , (5)wba, (6)WIG, (7)EVE, (8)ars, (9)BPL, (10)ast

Just how tricky is Liverpool at home? If you think the Reds will struggle to travel well (and Hodgson is nortorious for that failing)

Sorry mate, but I don't see any logic in assuming that FU's poor away record last season will in any way be reflected in how LI perform away from home. If you could show some stats to support the idea that any team that Roy Hodgson manages statistically perform badly away from home, then I might be interested.

If Schwarzer gets his move then I am looking at Stockdale with Robinson or Jaaskeleinen

If Schwarzer gets his move then I am looking at Stockdale with Robinson or Jaaskeleinen

Rotation Rating Explained:

When rotating players it is important that when they have a tricky fixture a certain week there is a backup player to come in who has a much more favourable match that could bring in a decent points haul, this much is obvious, but putting it into a comparable numerical figure is slightly more difficult.

The basis of the Rotation Rating was to give each fixture a Fixture Rating from 1 to 5 (1 – Very Easy, 2 – Easy, 3 – 50/50, 4 – Hard, 5 – Very Hard), using this it would be possible to pinpoint which two teams fixtures alternate best with one another to find the best budget keeper combo for the 2010/11 season.

To start with I cut to one side all the difficult fixtures of rating 4 or 5 (ie. matches that you would want to rotate your player) for a certain team, lets say Team A, for the whole season and placed them alongside all the other teams in the league to check how they well matched against them for those specific gameweek’s. If they correlated well, then these would be mostly easy fixtures (ie rated 1 or 2), if they didn’t then they would more 4 or 5 rated fixtures. Using this principle I took an average of each teams Fixture Ratings during the gameweek’s in which Team A have difficult fixtures to see which have the easiest run of games. The teams that came out with the lowest values are that of which have the most consistent run of favourable fixtures throughout the season and therefore best candidates to rotate your player from Team A with.

A rough figure that came out being a good ‘fixture rating’ value was around 2.5 , meaning somewhere in between Easy and a 50/50 was the average value of the other team whilst Team A was having a hard or very game that gameweek and therefore an obvious option to rotate.

Budget Keepers Combo’s: The Candidates
Below is a list of goalkeeping combinations that have been found to rotate well together and are 9.5m or below in value:

Foster & Hahnemann (£9m/2.65)
After falling out of favour with SAF last season, former England number 1 Ben Foster has moved to a Birmingham side that will be looking to build on their 9th place finish in their first season back in the Premier League. Playing alongside the experience Marcus Hahnemann of Wolves, the two goalkeepers have a decent Rotation Rating of 2.65. Although there are better Rotation Ratings between other budget teams, the fact that both Birmingham and Wolves both alternate home and away fixtures for 34 of the 38 games in the season, the highest of any budget combo, they could well be the pick of the bunch.

Foster & Harper (£9m/2.66)
There isn’t much difference between having Hahnemann and Harper of Newcastle as a partner to Ben Foster. The Rotation Ratings are virtually the same and there is only a slight difference in the number of home and away games that alternate between the two, with Newcastle having 27 as opposed to Wolves’ 34. So I’ve listed them as an alternative, take your pick.

Green & Gilks (£9m/2.25)
The highest Rotation Rating of all the budget keeper combos, but the real question is are West Ham and Blackpool capable of keeping enough clean sheets to warrant investment? Looking at the fixtures both the teams never play a hard or very hard (ie. fixture rating of 4 or 5) at the same time in the same gameweek, not once. They also play alternate home and away 33 times out of the 38 fixtures. Nevertheless it would still take a brave man to back the defence of the favourites to finish rock bottom and Rob ‘Hand of Clod‘ Green.

Sorensen & Jaaskelainen (£9.5m/2.69)
If your feeling nostalgic then one half of the standout goalkeeping partnership of last season is available with a new pairing. With a decent rotation ratio of 2.69 and 30 alternating home and away fixtures, Sorensen and Jaaskelinen could be a decent pick. Tony Pulis’ men will hope to build on their 14 clean sheets of last season (5th highest in the league) and Bolton will look to build on their impressive defensive displays in the back end of last season after Owen Coyles appointment.

Schwarzer & Robinson (£9.5m/2.44)
If Schwarzer is to stay at Fulham this season then he could be paired up with Blackburn’s Paul Robinson. With a very healthy Rotation Rating of 2.44, these two proven Premiership goalkeepers could be a strong partnership for the season. A slight drawback however is that only 20 of their 38 fixtures alternate between home and away.

Schwarzer & Gordon (£9.5/2.59)
Another handy partnership could be between Schwarzer and Sunderland’s Craig Gordon, who will be looking to improve on last seasons disappointment where they spent large periods of the season around the lower half of the table and only 7 clean sheets to go with it. Although Fulham and Sunderland’s Rotation Rating of 2.59 is lower than the pairing with Blackburn, the home advantage of 30 out of 38 fixtures alternating between home and away could favour this selection.

Schwarzer & Jaaskelainen (£9.5/2.20)
But are Schwarzer and Fulham such a sound investment? With the club undergoing a transitional phase of a change in management and rumours linking players away, including the Australian keeper with a move to Arsenal. If that move did indeed go through then it would set up a dream pairing of Schwarzer and Jaaskelainen with a Rotation Ratio of 2.20, along with the fact of having a top 4 goalkeeper for a measly price of £5m. Although their alternating home/away fixtures only stands at 16. But its all theoretical for now anyway…

im going for robinson and foster, their fixtures are opposite home and away for the first 10 gameweeks. can then always swap one of them out from week 11 onwards.

Was thinking about this, but I think Wolves are probably better at keeping clean sheets than Blackburn, from the way McCarthy's been coaching. Also, I see Blackburn as sinking hard if they don't buy some good players this season.

That said,, I may be wrong and have hedged my bets slightly by getting Nelsen.

... an interesting stat though is hahnemann averaged 4.1 PPG which is the highest for keepers at that price, not quite sure how he managed this with so few clean sheets and not that many saves either, only 8th highest last season for saves.

Given how useful they were last season in determing how to allocate defenders/keepers, here's the home-away pairings for the upcoming season:

Arsenal - Tottenham
Aston Villa - Birmingham
Blackburn - West Ham
Blackpool - Stoke
Bolton - Wigan
Chelsea - Fulham
Everton - Liverpool
Man City - Man Utd
Newcastle - Sunderland
West Brom - Wolves

In order to quickly determine these pairings, I created a grid (attached) that shows the number of home/away pairings for each team. I've highlighted the teams in yellow that have the fewest overlaps and in fusia those teams with the most overlaps. So for example, if you don't want to pair a Blackburn & West Ham keeper/defender, you might consider a Blackburn & Stoke City pairing as there will only be four weeks where they overlap. Conversely, a Blackburn & Blackpool pairing might be a bad idea as they are almost always home and away the same week.

Note: Clearly this was done on the quick and may be full of errors. Verify any pairings you intend to use.

Is Foster as good as Hart? I know we've all jumped on the Foster BW, but looking closer at the numbers, Birmingham's defense forced Hart to make a lot of saves. Can Foster make those same saves?

For that reason and also the serpents offline fixture tool, im going for Foster and Hahnemann.

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