Turd Ferguson - It's a funny squad

[Turd Ferguson]

Alright, after two seasons in the top 100K, I was hoping to break into the top 10 or 5K this season, but I'm languishing around a million overall after a poor start. I'm on wildcard and need to make it count. Here are the two drafts I'm working on. The main difference is that I go cheap with Murray as my third striker and put a little more money in defence, or I go cheap in defence and take King as third striker. The plan is to do Lukaku > Morata in GW14, and then decide how to use that extra 1.0 after seeing what happens in the next few weeks.

Murray.png

King.png

[baganboy]

I prefer your first team to your second, assuming Jones' injury is not long-term.
I suppose you are considering King because of the Bournemouth fixtures. In that case, Callum Wilson approximates King.
Glenn Murray is 34 and a fairly injury-prone 34, and you have 11 gameweeks from now to the new year. There will be rotations at that spot.

[Albert_ini]

Eddie Howe: “There will be a late call on Josh King. He missed international duty and hasn’t trained this week”. (FFS)

[Ruth_NZ]

First of all, I'd 100% take King if wildcarding now, assuming nothing negative in today's presser. His potential over the next 5 games in particular is very good and the holiday schedule is nice for Bournemouth too. I completely disagree with the idea that Wilson approximates King; one is nailed if fit and the other isn't. So the 2nd version would be my start point for some general thoughts.

The forwards with King would be fine but you should know that Lukaku has a good record against Watford; if he does well in the next 2 games you aren't going to want to switch him out for Morata in GW14. Could there maybe be a case for taking Morata, Lukaku and King as the forwards on wildcard and switching Lukaku Kane in GW15? Especially as Pochettino wasn't 100% clear that Kane would be fit to start this weekend?

In the midfield, having Sterling & Sané makes some kind of sense as it's hard to imagine neither starting in any one game. But both will get rests/cameos; do you want to be doing that with 2 players? With Zaha available at £2m less than Sané it's a question to at least consider. Salah is more clear for me; I'd take Coutinho instead and use the £0.5m saved to upgrade Speroni to Pope. With Kane/Morata as your long-term striker pair you will never captain Salah and I'm confident that Coutinho/Pope out-performs Salah/Speroni between now and January. Coutinho is too cheap at £8.8m.

The defence looks OK for a 3-4-3 structure but my preference would be Duffy & Dann rather than Dunk and Daniels, that's the same price. Dann can be started in each of the next 8 GWs and after that there would be a simple switch to (for example) a Huddersfield defender. Whereas Daniels only has 5 games before he'd need benching or transferring out. And I think Dann's points potential is as good or better than Daniels' anyway, he has distinct goal threat and Palace are likely to be a more solid team under Hodgson than Bournemouth under Howe. Duffy seems worth the £0.1m for the added goal threat.

Those would be my thoughts, anyway. Good luck! Oh, and don't sweat about the OR. Get into the top 200k by January and you should make the top 10k with ease.

Edit: Just saw the King news, such as it is. That makes it a little more awkward. Maybe Gray could stand in pending King's fitness, though I suspect King will play, he was also a "late call" 2 weeks ago and played 90 with no ill-effects. My understanding is that he has had a lingering back problem which they have been trying to resolve with physiotherapy and rest, which would explain why he hasn't trained. The problem is that if you structure your squad differently you won't easily be able to get King in and I'd definitely see him as a low-owned player that could help a team up the rankings.

[baganboy]

I completely disagree with the idea that Wilson approximates King; one is nailed if fit and the other isn't. So the 2nd version would be my start point for some general thoughts.

As a fan of King I ask, Ruth, what's your basis for Wilson not being (at least reasonably) nailed?
I think Wilson approximates King (will be within ~1-1.5 ppm of King with similar gametimes), and Wilson has penalties too....

BOurnemouth fans can verify, but the first two AFCB forums I found on the internet seem to have a general feel that a) Howe's preferred forward two are King and Wilson; and b) Josh King has been playing in the red zone.

And if there's anything we know about both King and Wilson, it's that they are both seriously injury-prone.

[Ruth_NZ]

Howe generally prefers to play with 1 striker and 1 behind (4-4-1-1). Occasionally 1 striker and none behind (4-3-3). He has 3 strikers - Wilson, Afobe, Defoe - none of whom can play the #10/SS role. They are competing for 1 spot. Wilson wasn't started in every game when fit last season and they didn't have Defoe then. He's not nailed.

King has no serious competition for the #10/SS slot and will be selected if fit. In a 4-3-3 he's likely be the #9 if fit. He is nailed. Very simple really.

The idea that King is in the red zone is nonsensical. He has played 840 minutes all season. Aké, as a comparison, has played 1267 minutes. The only problem with King has been a lingering back problem that they have been trying to resolve with rest and physiotherapy.

As for who has penalties, that has proven an unpredictable business at Bournemouth. King, Stanislas, Defoe, Wilson... any of those could take a penalty when on the pitch.

[TheBigLewandowski]

From Ben Dinnery. Just bear in mind..

"Benik Afobe is back in contention after an injury, but there will be a late call on Joshua King. He missed international duty and hasn’t trained this week so it will be a late decision for him."

[baganboy]

From (what seems like) one of the more well-renowned AFCB blogs
http://afcbchimes.blogspot.in/2017/11/h ... -king.html

How fit is Josh King?
The demands of the Premier League may be pushing Eddie Howe into playing Josh King more often than really would be wise. In the last week we have seen that Josh has been withdrawn from the Norwegian squad from the international friendlies with Macedonia an Slovakia. He did play against Newcastle Utd, but keeping him playing just might be essential for AFCB.

I don't like to hear it when players say they played even though they were not quite right. We heard it earlier this season with Ryan Fraser and he almost immediately became injured almost immediately in the game against Arsenal. We know that players have to carry knocks some times, but it has already been said that King's original back complaint goes back to last March and it still hasn't really sorted itself out.

King has been the workhorse up front in what he achieved last season and a lot is being asked of him again this time around. While I think he is a natural first pick with his ability to pair with any of the other Bournemouth strikers, it will be a shame if he is not fully fit to play the important games in these next three weeks. At least by missing the international games, King will have had some time to ease his way through the training at Bournemouth and not travel.

At present it looks like Defoe, Wilson and Mousset are the fully fit strikers at the club, but even if Josh is at 80 per cent then he would still be an asset to the Cherries. That is the worrying thing, as I don't want to see him breakdown completely and be out for a few months. The staff at AFCB are used to knowing how much they can push players though and if King is not right I hope he gets the rest he needs

[Ruth_NZ]

Well, a hat-trick changes things so I guess baganboy can tell me "told you so" if he likes. Wilson is a striker that tends to score his goals in bunches and Howe doesn't tend to drop in-form players so he doubtless more than "approximates" King now.

In the long run I still believe that King is more nailed than Wilson but if you had Wilson's 17 points yesterday why would you care?

[baganboy]

Ruth_NZ You know me well enough to know that I will never I-told-you-so you, nor anyone else.
Opinions are all that I have to offer (and data points), not absolutes- and only to facilitate discussion. I am frequently wrong.

As for the topic- King is definitely nailed. But Wilson is nailed too I think, especially after the hattrick. And is also more than a million cheaper (not that it matters to me. I have the money). An injury changes everything, and both of these guys are very injury prone.

[Turd Ferguson]

Well my plans went out the window immediately. Very annoyed that Jones’ injury turned out to be more serious. I never would have kept him on wildcard if I’d known he’d miss the Brighton game. My final team after wildcard:

Pope, elliot
Azpi, Jones, Dann, Moreno, Dummett
Salah, sane, sterling, Richarlison, RLC,
Kane, lukaku, murray

I think murray was a mistake and Wilson immediately presented himself as a better alternative at that price point. I was agonizingly .1 short of murray to Wilson, so I did Jones > Daniels for a hit to make the murray > Wilson possible. I was willing to ship Jones because United’s next three after Brighton are tough and i don’t trust him to be healthy/immune to rotation now that he’s clearly carrying a nagging injury and United have a lot of options with bailly and rojo healthy.

The big question the next few weeks is which Chelsea assets to bring in. This hinges around the forwards imo. Head to head I’d take hazard over morata but the mid priced options are much better in midfield.

The simplest option is lukaku > morata (c) with no hit and a million in the bank.

The hazard option would be lukaku > vardy/firmino, sterling > hazard (c) (-4).

A bigger move would be lukaku > niasse, sterling > hazard (-4). This would also leave enough funds to do dann/Daniels > alonso in a week or two and a switch to 4-4-2 with an azpi/alonso double up.

Another interesting but very punty option would be bony which would leave me with two bargain strikers in a 3-4-3 but enough money to do Alonso plus a little extra in the bank to upgrade one of my strikers to King or Chicharito without a hit.

I simply don’t trust any of the forwards under 10 so it comes down to how much i think hazard will outperform morata.

Current squad:
Pope, elliot
Azpi, Daniels, dann, Moreno, dummett
Salah, sane, sterling, Richarlison, RLC
Kane, lukaku, wilson

.1 ITB

[Turd Ferguson]

I've taken a couple of hits since my GW12 wildcard, but I finally feel good about my squad for the long term. The big question for the next few weeks is what to do about my Burnley assets and whether to hold Kane for GW18-21. I'm also banking on more Chelsea clean sheets than goal fests, as I think people who've doubled up on Morata and Hazard have overinvested. Morata vs Azpi/Alonso will be a big determinant of my rank for the next several weeks.

GW16.png

[blahblah]

Time to dump Daniels? His fixtures turn BAD after this GW.....

[Turd Ferguson]

Time to dump Daniels? His fixtures turn BAD after this GW.....

Yes, meant to say Bournemouth assets rather than burnley assets in my post above. I’m looking at potentially doing kane > lacazette, Daniels > kolasinac in gw18. We’ll see how things go this week first.

[Turd Ferguson]

With no midweek games this week, I've given a lot of thought to some FPL theory and the general direction of this season. I'm going to write some notes here simply because I don't want them stuffed up in my head.

On a personal note, I think this may be my last season doing FPL. It's too much of a time suck. I started doing it four years back when a friend created a cash ML. I've won it twice with finishes just outside the top 10K, but when you prorate my winnings over the time spent on my squad, it must be less than minimum wage . My girlfriend complains about it to no end . I don't pay for the members section at FFS or anything, so I don't think I analyze the game closely enough to crack the top 1k without a great deal of luck. I stand at 11K overall rank right now, so I'm hoping to push on and crack the top 5k or so and then pat myself on the back and ride off into the sunset.

In some sense, this will be the overview of how I've come to view the game, much of it learned from the RMT section here at FISO. Then there will be some analysis of this season and a specific tactic that I've used this season.

Feel free to critique or add to it. Much of this will be for my own edification of getting it all written down somewhere. Hopefully it will help some of you clarify your own thinking.

[Turd Ferguson]

The Template vs a Season Long Team

There's a topic on the board about how you could have picked a certain team at the beginning of last season, made no transfers, and you would have won FPL.

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=127622

Now, hindsight is 20/20. It would have been difficult to pick that team a priori. Additionally, Salah would have been a great perma-captain and that's not true every year. But it raises an important point. For all our transfers and crunching of numbers during the season and chasing fixture swings, we still couldn't outperform a team that simply picks the best players.

Quite often the "template" that we discuss on FISO is heavily influenced in the short term. It's the players "in form." The template includes players who've had a genuine uptick in form and are good picks, but there's also a heavy dash of points chasing (in the bad sense of the term). The template is rounded out by a few season keepers. There's also not a perfect consensus of 15 players. Usually there's 20-25 players who are "template" at any time. E.g., right now Fraser, Richarlison, Felipe Anderson, Son and Snodgrass are all mid-priced template picks, but nobody owns them all. They fill a price slot.

The broader point is that "the template" quite often strays from the players who will score best over the entire season. The evidence (both from the results of a buy-and-hold team and from the moaning on the board about ill-timed transfers) is that the constantly shifting template doesn't work that well. It works well enough to beat casuals, but it's far from optimal.

I come from a finance background, so I often analogize an FPL team in my head to a portfolio of stocks. Imagine we had to pick ten stocks and we knew which ten would have the greatest price rise a year from now. We could select those ten and be done with it.

FPL is slightly complicated by the budget and different players having different prices, but if we knew the ending score for each player, we could allocate our budget according to which players give us the best total score given the cost. Value for money (VFM) is the term often used here. Ruth_NZ and Patrician's have discussed value and squad structure in depth, along with I'm sure other threads at various points in the past. If you're a newbie, those are simply mechanics of the game you have to learn to master alongside the more straightforward matter of picking which players will score goals and keep clean sheets. I don't want to cover old territory here.

There's two issues for a buy-and-hold strategy:

1. We don't know the ending scores for the players

2. We may be able to achieve an even better score if we hop off some players at the right time. (Imagine you knew one of your ten stocks would plunge in the first half of the year. You could buy another stock in its place and then buy your preferred stock later and outperform your buy and hold strategy.)

[Turd Ferguson]

The "Fundamental" Team

Issue 1: we don't know the total scores for each player a priori

Continuing with the analogy, there's a term in finance called fundamental analysis. Fundamental analysis looks at the company itself: what are its cash flows, how much debt does it have, what's the outlook for its industry, how much has it grown year over year, etc. Funamental analysis essentially tries to determine the tangible value of the company. It ignores the short term trends and price movements.

Fundamental analysis is a great analogy for FPL, in my opinion. Stat nerds are constantly gauging the fundamental analysis of a player: What is his role in the team? How many shots? How many shots/touches in the box? How many key passes? Set pieces? Pens? How are their fixtures? How many goals will the team score? What's their goal involvement percentage?

Over a time span of 2-3 games, there's too much volatility for us to predict FPL points with much accuracy from these stats. Over the course of a season, we can come pretty close.

There was an interesting article about Kenneth Tang, and he mentioned how easy he found it to predict basketball.

viewtopic.php?f=99&t=118963&start=2850#p3276657

Lebron James takes 20 shots per game. There's 100 points to be shared for each team, along with dozens of rebounds. These high sample sizes mean that the results are often much more predictable and closer to the mean (average or expected result). Can you imagine how rare blanks would be in FPL if the likes of Kane and Salah took 10+ shots every game?

Because football is a low sample-size sport, short terms results often distract us from the long term fundamental value of a player. And I mean this even with respect to underlying stats.

Say Hazard goes back to back games where he has 0 shots and 1 key pass in the first and then 1 shot and 1 key pass in the second. Does this mean he's suddenly not captain material? Maybe. Or maybe he's just been carrying a knock, or he and Chelsea had an off day, or Willian had a blinder so he didn't need to get as involved.

Quite often on the forum you'll see players fleeing a proven FPL asset after a couple of bad performances only to see those FPL managers moaning when the player scores an unanticipated brace. This is because they ignored the fundemantal value of a player and chased something shiny and new.

This is a long-winded way of explaining my term for the "season-long template." I call it the fundamental team. Given the data that we know, it's our best guess as to what the best season-long scorers will be.

The template is simply the popular picks at any given time. The fundamental team is a team picked based on the underlying data with the rest of the season in mind.

[Pirlo's Beard]

It's a funny squad

Yeah well that's your opinion.

[Turd Ferguson]

Transfers

Issue 2: improving total points by swapping players in and out at the right time

A big problem with "the template" is that it's a moving target and hence invites transfers, probably too many for most players.

As a thought experiment, you have 15 players. If you want to change every player it takes 15 transfers. To avoid hits, it would take 15 gameweeks to do that.

Let's say that you will hold your backup keeper for the season. Hell, we'll say that both of your keepers will never change. Let's say you have three rotters on your bench, as well. You have AWB, Bennett and Success/Hojberg.

That leaves you with 10 players who are actively selected each week. That means it takes 10 gameweeks to turn over your entire team to a new template without hits.

Put another way, every time you bring in a new player, you need to hold that player an average of 10 gameweeks in order to avoid hits. And this is generously assuming you have 5 players who you'll never, ever change.

If you're doing hop-on, hop-off with a few premiums, that means that your holding period for the fringe players must go up. You have to hold the rest of your team for longer than 10 straight weeks because you're using multiple transfers on the super premium slots in your squad.

To put it yet another way, if you want flexibility with your premium players, it means that there needs to be players in your team who you hold for 15, 20, 25 weeks straight in order to keep your transfers available for your other moves.

Those of you paying attention probably recognize that this is where the "fundamental team" comes back into play. If you can correctly identify the fundamental team, then you have 6 or 7 players who you trust to simply stay in your team for much, if not all, of the season.

This is what I believe Ville does. He lets players rot through patches of bad form or tough fixtures, and then people call him lucky when a defender pops up with a set piece goal against a tough opponent.

He's not lucky in my opinion, he just prioritizes well, and he recognizes that there's too much volatility over a stretch of two or three games to jump between marginal players. He makes the one transfer that matters most and doesn't fret over sub-optimal players in the short term.

Even when a player might not actually be a part of the "fundamental team" and there's a better pick out there, the player you currently hold might be close enough that you should just live with them. How much is one 4.5 defender going to outscore another 4.5?

(And yes, you can say that Doherty is scoring much better than other 4.5's or some other example, blah blah blah. Please don't get pedantic with me *cough* you know who you are *cough*. At the level we're talking, almost everyone would have Doherty in their team. We're talking about a choice between say, Schindler and Holebas. These are marginal choices, not obvious ones.)

[TheRumourMill]

Great stuff, Turd, thanks for this. Interesting thoughts and reading it certainly made me think about my own squad in a different way.

[Ruth_NZ]

Yes, the importance of 'set and forget' players. People tend to have them in defence but less so with attackers, where a lot of points-chasing and FOMO goes on. It is easy enough to do when an attacker does well immediately after coming into your team but if they have a slow start then not so much.

For example, after Aubameyang scored 2 against Spurs his price rose from 10.9 to 11.5 in around 10 days. But he hasn't scored in the 3 games since then and a lot of managers on FFS and elsewhere are now transferring him out or telling others to do so. His underlying stats are fine - in fact with 1.99 expected goals over the last 2 weeks he leads the PL - but he hasn't been producing points and people now have FOMO with Hazard, Sterling & Sané.

Another reason is unrealistic expectations. My ballpark 'value' target for a 7m midfielder is 50 points over 10 weeks. But if they get off to a poor start - 3, 5, 2, 3 for example - the sense can be that they are under-performing and the twitchiness begins. Trouble is that players don't score their points in a linear fashion, there are relatively extreme peaks and troughs. So it helps when getting a set-and-forget that you have looked at a longer-term fixture run and decided that they will be worth it for that run as long as they don't get injured/dropped.

Managing this area is pretty key I think. And your concept of the fundamental team (or core players) is a good one. Nice posts anyway.

[FBorges]

Amazing read, thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Thats exactly how i feel FPL is supposed to be played but you put it into words much better than i could ever do.
The "Fundamental Team" is probably one of the most overlooked concepts in FPL imo, long term stats are so much better at predicting the future than the usual "Last 4/6 gws" that we see everywhere.

[Stena Bib]

Amazing read, thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Thats exactly how i feel FPL is supposed to be played but you put it into words much better than i could ever do.
The "Fundamental Team" is probably one of the most overlooked concepts in FPL imo, long term stats are so much better at predicting the future than the usual "Last 4/6 gws" that we see everywhere.

I have been a lot more patient this season, and it's currently paying dividends.

[Turd Ferguson]

Another reason is unrealistic expectations. My ballpark 'value' target for a 7m midfielder is 50 points over 10 weeks. But if they get off to a poor start - 3, 5, 2, 3 for example - the sense can be that they are under-performing and the twitchiness begins. Trouble is that players don't score their points in a linear fashion, there are relatively extreme peaks and troughs. So it helps when getting a set-and-forget that you have looked at a longer-term fixture run and decided that they will be worth it for that run as long as they don't get injured/dropped.

Yeah, deciding whether to stick or twist is one of the hardest parts. We face a fog of war in that we don't know if a run of poor results is truly indicative of a downturn in the player's point-scoring capacity, or just a run of bad luck. I'm going to touch on it in my final big post about theory.

[Turd Ferguson]

The Intent of Transfers, Uncertainty, and Points-Chasing

The goal of FPL is to score the most points, so you might say that the intent of all of your transfers is to score you more points. However, we usually have, or at least should have, a justification for bringing in this new player beyond simply, “he’s in form.” It may be about freeing up budget, fixture swings, etc.

I’m going to use the analogy of a roulette wheel to explain what I see as the three motivations for transfers.

One of my favorite cartoons is from xkcd. It’s about thinking about sports in statistical terms. As fans, we consume sports as narrative and drama. It’s what makes sports fun. But there’s numerical realities underlying all the results.




A Messi shot from 18 yards out is not the same as a Shane Long shot from 18 yards out. Different players have different success rates. On any one individual event, you don’t know what will happen. Messi might shank his while Long finds the top corner. However, if Barcelona gets Messi 4 shots a game while Southampton gets Shane Long 4 shots a game, in the long run Barcelona are going to score a lot more goals.

In this sense, each shot a player takes is like a spin from a weighted roulette wheel. If it comes up red, they score; if it’s black, they miss. Some players’ wheels have more red slots than others. The results of a match are the aggregate of each of these roulette spins during the game. (Obviously there’s a lot of tactics and work in the middle of the field that contribute to generating these shots, but ultimately the outcome of the match is decided by how many shots go in. This is also why games like basketball and baseball, with many more discrete events, are more easily analyzed in statistical terms.)

Our goal in FPL is to pick the players with the biased roulette wheels, the ones who, after accounting for budget, have odds tilted in our favor. They’re going to turn up red more often.

I mentioned three motivations for transfers. Here are the three.

1. There’s a permanent bias in the roulette wheel that works in our favor

2. There’s a bias in the roulette wheel that works in our favor, but it’s short term

3. A certain betting strategy has paid off recently, so we join in assuming that it will continue

Motivation 1 is essentially bringing in a player because they’re a part of the fundamental team. The roulette wheel that represents their performance is biased to red more than the rest of the league, so if we park them in our team and spin the wheel enough times, we’ll profit.

Sometimes the bias in the wheel is obvious. It’s as if we can count the red and black slots and see that there’s more red than black. Players like Mahrez in his player of the year season, or Kane and Alli in their breakout years. I think all those guys were under 6 million starting price and ended up scoring over 200 points or close to it. Usually the first 6-8 weeks are a race to identify these players and get them in your team. To FPL’s credit, they’ve done a pretty good job with pricing this year. I don’t see any glaring examples of this. Doherty is probably the biggest example. I’m also going to argue that Ings will be an example of this, he just hasn’t quite come good yet.

Often, however, noise in the data prevents us from knowing this. We may have to use transfers as we change our mind about who the fundamentally best players are.

I think this has happened to Salah in the last few weeks. He's been doing well all season, but not quite at the level we'd hope for. Finally against Bournemouth he had a performance where the underlying stats were great as well.

Did his form improve? Or was he just due? Not sure, but he's probably established himself as the best captain option this season given Aguero's reduced minutes.

To analogize with the roulette wheel, this is where there’s a bias that isn’t as obvious as simply counting the slots. Perhaps the red slots have slightly deeper grooves, or the croupier has an uncanny ability to land the ball in a red slot more often. We need to observe for a while before we can decide. Even if the player hits red 70% of the time in the long-run, they may go through a stretch where it only comes up red 50% of the time through nothing other than luck. This is the uncertainty we deal with when we decide whether to stick or twist with a player. We don’t know for sure what their underlying odds are, we can only go off what we’ve observed. You can use a projections tool based on underlying data, you can use the eye test, and you can think about the player's context within his team to gauge his potential future performance. This is a judgment that takes skill.

There’s a slightly different version of motivation 1 that also takes skill. This is where something happens during the season that changes a player’s fundamental value and causes them to become a part of the fundamental team.

This happened to Arnautovic last season when he started leading the line for West Ham. This is like the casino swapping in a new roulette wheel for a previously fair one. The sooner you can identify that the new wheel is biased in your favor, the more you can profit. The mid-season emergence of Kane and Alli a few years back would also fall under this.

De Bruyne’s return from injury and United’s attackers post-Mourinho are the best candidates I can see for some kind of transition to the fundamental team in the second half of this season.

Motivation 2 is where we see something that can profit in the short run. This tends to be where we spend a lot of time, and it’s also where the most skill comes in, in my opinion.

These are calculated risks on players we don't expect to hold all season. The fixtures are heavily in the player’s favor, their competition for a starting place is out injured, etc.

There isn't a great roulette analogy here. Maybe you've noticed that there's a little bit of water in one of the slots. As long as the croupier doesn’t notice and clean it up, the ball is more likely to splash down and stay in that slot.

Motivation 3 is when we react to recent results.

Some player isn't in our team, but his roulette wheel has spun a number greater than 25 several times in a row. So instead of sticking with our player who’s turning up red 60% of the time, we go off and try to make more money by betting on a player whose wheel is producing high numbers (in roulette, betting on color pays out 1:1, betting on a dozen pays out 2:1). I’m really flogging the analogy, but I think you’ll get my drift. If you’re only reacting to a recent run of random results without assessing whether there’s a bias in the wheel that might make the pattern hold in the long-run, then you’re points-chasing.

I’ll go out on a limb and say anyone bringing in Snodgrass right now is guilty of this. His assist numbers are good. He should score some points over the course of the season. But he’s had two long range shots fly in recently. His goal scoring is not sustainable. He’s not worth restructuring your team.

One of the biggest mistakes I believe we make is to make a transfer of motivation 3 and try to convince ourselves that it’s motivation 2 or even 1. We think we’re identifying something new, when in reality we’re caving in to the pain of missing out on that player’s recent results or deluding ourselves that there's certainly more of the same to come.

It reminds me of a line from one of Mad Men's best scenes.

"The most important idea in advertising is 'new.' It creates an itch. You simply put your product in as a kind of calamine lotion."

https://youtu.be/bR9yuUl5s_Y

Every week there's a below the radar player who hauls.

If he scores well multiple times within a few weeks, the bandwagon is well and truly on. People start saying "get him in," "he's in form," "he looks great right now."

This is the itch. Every person who's ever brought in Theo Walcott after a haul knows the feeling.

I've been trying to look at the in-form players and ask myself, how long will I really hold them? How much do I really expect them to score relative to a long-term pick?

Now, it is possible to jump between players frequently and score well. Mark Sutherns is probably the most inspiring example of this. He's a more interesting manager than Ville.

However, to play like that requires a lot of analysis and judgement. Only a small percentage of players can do it, and you probably need a tool along the lines of Patrician's to gauge upcoming points expectations.

If you can pull it off successfully, then...well, you'll have a record like Sutherns' with a lot of top 1K finishes. It can also go sideways and you end up 20K overall despite spending countless hours on your team, as Sutherns himself has. It's a higher risk strategy.

Me, personally, I’ve never bothered to pay for the FFS members section or anything like that, so I don’t expect to seriously challenge for a three digit overall rank. I play well enough to win my cash ML, and that probably consumes more time than it should already. This whole treatise above is what I believe are the abstract reasons behind the judgment calls that good managers have to make every week. Hopefully this will help provide a framework for some people to think about their team.

Am I making this move because this player truly has the underlying fundamentals? Or am I doing it because my ML rival owns him and I can't suffer through his hauls anymore? Do I think this player will be a good pick because he scored a highlight reel goal this week? Or because his manager gave him a more attacking role in the team and praised him in post-match remarks?

[Turd Ferguson]

Where the rubber hits the road.

So for all that talk about the theory behind the "fundamental team," we ultimately have to actually pick it. When you're a newbie to FPL, it seems like there's a huge pool of players and a world of potential. Myths like "coverage" come into play, where you say, 'Oh United will score goals, so I'll take one of their attackers and reap the benefits.'

Even high scoring teams usually have one or two players who stand above the rest and a few who are all but worthless. Lukaku, Ozil, Kante are big names from good teams, but they're not worthwhile in FPL this year.

Once you dig into the numbers, you realize there's a pool of only about 30-40 players who should be closely considered, with maybe another couple dozen who can be in the "consideration set" depending on form, injuries, etc.

The "consideration set" are the players who are promising enough that you need to consider them. You're not sure if they're season keepers, but they're good enough that they might be, and they can certainly outperform a member of the fundamental team over a span of several weeks if they have a good run.

Here's who I think is in the fundamental team this year. Let the controversy begin.

Goalkeeper:
Don't know for sure - probably Fabianski

Consideration: Ederson, Allison, Patricio, Hart

Defenders:
Robertson
Doherty
Laporte

Consideration: Alonso, Rudiger, David Luiz, VvD, TAA, Trippier, Alderweireld, Mendy, Stones, Kolasinac, Bellerin, Keane, Digne, Pereira, Chilwell, AWB, Jonny, Bennett, Holebas, Schindler, Balbuena

Midfield:
Salah
Hazard
Sigurdsson
Camarasa (if your structure needs a midfield rotter)

Consideration: Fraser, Richarlison, Anderson, Mane, Son, Erisken, Alli, Sane, KdB, Mahrez, Martial, Snodgrass, Paterson

Forward:
Ings
Arnautovic (when healthy)

Consideration: Jimenez, Wilson, Murray, Mitrovic, Vardy, Rondon, Chicharito

Super Premium consideration: Sterling, Aguero, Kane, Aubameyang

I keep the super premiums separate because they're a bit special. They use so much budget that you're often choosing between them across positions. It's either Kane or Salah, Hazard or Aubameyang, etc. It's a restructuring of your squad rather than simply a judgment that, e.g. Richarlison will outscore Anderson.

You'll notice that my fundamental team is not a full team. This is the dilemma we face. We don't know what players' end of year scores will be. There aren't 11 players who will so outscore the others at their position that they're a clear choice.

[Turd Ferguson]

Some justification for each player.

Fabianski - goalkeepers are a tough call this year. Alisson has been fortunate to keep as many clean sheets as he has. Liverpool's xGA suggest that they're going to concede more in the second half of the season. Fabianski's getting a lot of save points and I expect West Ham to be a bit better for clean sheets as they come into form under Pellegrini.

Robertson - Liverpool, while I expect them to slow down in terms of clean sheets, are still arguably the best defence in the league (xGA is neck and neck with City). Robertson has genuine attacking threat and he's a bps magnet. I've had him from the start at 6.0 so I don't see him going anywhere.

Doherty - huge attacking threat for his price. Wolves look like they'll be in the top 5 for goals against. Solid defensive unit. Even at 5.2 you should probably get him in.

Laporte - The only defender who seems to be nailed for City. Aldershot Rejects pointed out in his RMT that Laporte's attacking threat has been tailing off the last several weeks. This is a serious concern. He doesn't get bps so he needs a few set piece goals to truly be good value.

Also of concern is that City are leaking goals. Ruth_NZ made a comment in Patrician's thread about certain teams valuing a clean sheet. I try to rely on data whenever possible, but it can't tell the whole story. I do think there are certain "clean sheet teams" that keep clean sheets in ways that may not show up in the xG models. For instance, Harry Kane's goal against Chelsea where David Luiz blithely turned his back. This is a low xG shot because of the distance from goal and the proximity of a defender. However, the model doesn't take into account the commitment or skill of a defender in putting in a block. Would John Terry have gotten a piece of that shot and deflected it behind for a corner? Does a team engage physically and try to put off the opposing team every time they take a shot? Or do they take it easy when they have a three goal lead? I'm a bit worried that City are not so committed to keeping clean sheets despite having a fantastic xGA. Laporte is someone I'll be watching closely the next few gameweeks.

Salah - This basically comes down to picking him over other premiums. His combination of xG and xA is unrivaled right now.

Hazard - Scoring very well even though his xG and xA numbers aren't that favorable compared to the likes of Sterling and Kane. However, Hazard has historically outperformed his underlying stats, and he's a bonus magnet. He's just a quality player. He's a bit cheaper than most of the other premiums too. He shades it for value.

Sigurdsson - Richarlison got a lot of attention in the early part of the season, but Sigurdsson actually has a slight edge on him in xG and a far better xA. It was heartening for me to see Ville bring in Sig a few weeks ago, and then disheartening to see him take him out . I'm standing by him though, especially if he remains on penalties. He has FPL pedigree and a good role in the Everton team.

Camarasa - base price and on pens. Decent assist threat too. Great first man off the bench.

Arnautovic - he's been immense in FPL ever since he started playing up top. Good xG and xA. He just needs to get healthy

Ings - Patrician's model and the xG at understat both show a ton of potential in Ings. I'm actually very frustrated that he immediately scored a brace against Arsenal upon his return from injury. I'd taken him out of my team and was waiting to see some form and whether he would start under the new manager. A goal and an assist over the last two games would have been perfect. Enough to be confident in him. Instead he scored three in two games and now everyone will clamor on. These are the vagaries of timing we have to suffer in FPL sometimes.

[Bobby Fetta]

TF - just wanted to say thanks for this blog, some really interesting thoughts here, much of it I wholeheartedly agree with. I was hoping to follow up on some of the points with a proper response but I've been too busy to do justice to it.

[Smurphy Paw]

This is a very good and well thought through read. Thanks

[Turd Ferguson]

GW20.PNG

I'm facing quite a typical dilemma. I'd like to roll this week. The one transfer I'd make is Sane > Pogba. Sane is a temporary pick until Mendy gets back anyway, so perhaps I should get it out of the way.

My hesitation is whether this is a false dawn for United. The two players' stats the last two games:

8 shots, 5 key passes, .31 xG, .65 xA
7 shots, 3 key passes, .32 xG, .74 xA

Pogba on top, Sane on bottom, but not much between them as you can see. Pogba has benefited disproportionately from long shots flying in, both his own and others'.

City have hit a rough patch but they have to react at some point. Does anyone expect them to lose three in a row?

Bournemouth have been awful defensively lately, so if I'm going to bring in Pogba, this is the week to do it.

As I said, a classic dilemma. Am I jumping on a good pick early in Pogba? Or overreacting to a couple of good wins by United?