Strategic Thinking Cavern (18/19)

[Zimmerman]

Sutter, maybe i over simplified my point, and yes there will always be conversation about vfm (that’s undoubtedly part of the consideration). By having Kane, Aguero and Salah I end up with a really imbalanced side etc.

Whilst ‘how do you get the most bang for your buck’ is definitely a viable proposition - I’d suggest it’s impossible to pick the best vfm players whereas you can identify the players that will score the most points.

If I’m not captain Kane I’d still prefer his points than two 7m players’ points.

Maybe this is easier for my little brain to compute and hence why I go that way.

[blahblah]

I don't understand it either, tbh.

I accept that Big Hitters are needed for the Band, as opposed to a squad of 6-7m players, so 2 or 3 have to be in the squad to cover injuries\suspension\fixtures etc; but Salah as a must have to Capt is a tad premature, imho.

[Mav3rick]

Salah, with a repeat of last season, would be a must I think, having 300 captaincy points would win you a lot of leagues so I guess it all comes down to firstly how likely you think it is that Salah will get close to last season's mark.

For value, for me it's more important on the cheaper players, so the players maybe up to 9m, and especially anyone severely underpriced as they are the bedrock of the team that allows you to be frivolous with the super premiums. Anyone over about 9m can't ever be good value unless they have a Salah type of season, so it's about max points (and maybe a value league between the super premiums, but never compared to a 5.5 defender or something) and flexible captain options.

In FPL I've generally liked to have an ability to keep players in reach (this is perhaps a weakness not a strength in my game as I don't like to make too many "calls"), so a Salah in midfield and an 11.0 striker gives that balance. As always in FPL though its a bit more tricky once you start thinking about formations and options, because two 11.0 strikers with the budget forward moved into midfield looks a lot more efficient in a points scoring sense, even if less flexible in a captaincy sense.

Having said that, I could well imagine Aubameyang being a very decent captaincy call for the whole season, especially so if he's on pens and at 2.0 less than Salah that's a decent upgrade to use elsewhere. Perhaps a sensible starting strategy would be to start with Sane in Salah's place in midfield and see how things pan out for the first few games. Salah with 50% ownership and a hefty price tag is unlikely to run away in value anyway.

[blahblah]

Strictly speaking it is Salah x2 + 7m bod vs 10m x2 +10m though? (Or with another player or 2 thrown in, before things equal out ie the 2x10 manager may have that 7m player too.....)

[Mav3rick]

Also, as it's the weekend, I thought it would be interesting to consider some of the understat statistics from last season for the strikers. I'm only examining forwards that played over 1,000 minutes, but I think there's some interesting numbers here.

Super Premiums
Starting at the top end of the market, Aguero was top of the pile overall with an xG90 of 0.84, that's slightly ahead of his city team mate Jesus and underlines the quality that we know he has. If you look at combined xG90+xA90 then Aguero is also top (1.14), this time from Salah, with the next best striker (Jesus) 0.2 behind.

I think that really shows how crucial a starting Aguero is to an FPL team, he would be my first pick I think in any system, with the downside of course being his minutes and how much rotation he is likely to suffer.

On that note, if you look at Aguero alternatives, the player that stands out stats-wise is Aubameyang. Now, he only just qualified for the round-up (with 1056 mins played) but his xG90 is equal to Kane, as is his xA90. He looks a real stand-out option for 11.0 and there looks to be little reason to pick Kane ahead of him, based on the 1.5m price saving.

If Aubameyang and Aguero were both picked, then where do you go for similar performance if either is injured? Well, Kane, obviously, with the same stats as Auba (but the 1.5 price difference would be a problem).

On a pure stats basis, Jesus is the obvious fail over for an Aguero injury, indeed that would be a default position for many managers I would imagine. He lags Aguero marginally in xG but is slightly above Auba and Kane. I think I'd be perfectly happy with Jesus as the Aguero fall back.

Lukaku is an outlier in this category, with an xG90 of just 0.49, there are multiple better cheaper options based on the stats alone. He would score highly in terms of gametime security but unless Man Utd put on some better attacking displays, he really looks inferior to the other super premiums. I think the only reason to pick him is if you think Mourinho will do the somewhat typical faster start followed by a later tightening up - letting the horses run.

Personally though, I'd take Aubameyang's better finishing stats.

Premiums
The first premium player on the list in xG90 order is Morata, but the scoring rate here drops off from the Kane, Aubameyang, Aguero, Jesus class, and we're looking at 0.6 xG90 rather than 0.8. I would not at all mind an 8.0 Giroud (who went at the same 0.6 xG90 rate as Morata when at Chelsea) but there's likely a wait and see in there with a new manager etc to see how they line up and when Giroud returns from the World Cup. In draft, Giroud is one I have my eye on for sure.

The other premiums are the safe, steady options of Vardy and Firmino. There was nothing between them points-wise last year, although Firmino played significantly less minutes and this is built into his price. On the stats front between those two, Vardy has the greater goal threat (0.42 vs 0.34) but Firmino makes up points with his 0.25 xA90 (of strikers, only Aguero beats Firmino in this regard).

I find it interesting that Vardy and Firmino are two of the most over-performing forwards from last season in terms of actual goals scored vs xG. They both scored nearly 5 more goals than "expected", so were either lucky, or are clinical. Firmino was a lot less clinical over the previous 3 seasons (averaging 0.46 extra goals above his "expected" score), while Vardy averaged 0.8 extra goals above his average. So you could argue, both over performed based on their 4 year history.

For Vardy in particular, the loss of Mahrez could be a problematic change in circumstance, and I think I'd chose to avoid if I could, and would probably favour Firmino (our of the two) or a secure Giroud/Morata should that emerge from pre-season (which seems unlikely given Giroud's long run into the World Cup). Perhaps Morata though, if guaranteed some early game time, could do enough to win the starting spot for a while at least. I'd be tempted to start him as a 3rd striker in a traditional Super Premium, Premium, Cheapie setup.

Lacazette is also in the premium category. His stats are decent, slightly below Morata and significatly better than Vardy/Firmino but I'm assuming a fair degree of gametime risk here. If him and Aubameyang are playing, there would be an interesting discussion to be had about taking one or both of them.

6.0-7.0 Range
This is where we hit some of the more affordable third striker options, so Zaha, Tosun, Arnautovic, King, Wood, Murray, Wilson, Austin, players like that. It's the largest group and there's interesting figures in there.

So, the main surprise (or maybe not) is that the leader of this group in terms of xG90 is good old pub player Charlie Austin. What's quite astounding though is that not only is he the leader on xG90 in this category, but in fact he beats ALL the premium strikers too as well as Lukaku. It's only the super premiums I talked about above that better him on the stats front (0.68 xG90).

Now, to be fair, he did only just scrape into this round-up (1023 minutes) so there is a small sample warning but he didn't over achieve last season (in fact he under-performed by 0.72 goals scored, but this is consistent with his 4 year history). He did rely a little on pens to boost his xG90, but only by around 10% and players like Vardy also had that pen boost.

He does look a strong contender for a budget striker spot, given his FPL history and stats combination (even his 18 goal season at QPR came without any over performance on xG), if he's fit and starting, he looks a tough player to overlook.

It wouldn't be fair to do this category without a closer look at the 7.0 guys, so Arnie comes in at 0.38 xG90 and Zaha at 0.34. These are Firmino numbers, but for a 2.5 saving, so not to be dismissed. Both Zaha and Arnie's combined xG90+xA90 numbers also rival the Liverpool forward. I think there's a strong case to consider these two instead of the 9.0 rated forwards personally, last year they both scored about 40 points less than Firmino, the positional change may increase the gap a bit too, but if you allow for minutes played (Zaha and Arnie played 8% and 20% less than Firmino) and the 2.5m saving then there's definite competitive value here. Arnie and Zaha's deployment or not as a striker will be crucial of course.

Then, some mentions for the less fahisonable strikers -

Murray (0.51) is high up in the ratings, but did significantly rely on penalties.
Wood (0.42) matched Vardy in stats terms, was a little better than Arnie and in xG90 terms was better than Firmino. I'm not sure how a potential European campaign would affect Burnley, though the start of the season looks relatively kind, GW4 apart.
Wilson (0.34) does not trouble the best strikers but his overall season perhaps wasn't as bad as I thought. He certainly out-stated teammate and man of 2016/17 Josh King.

Tosun is an interesting one. he techincally missed the round up by playing 998 minutes (2 mins short of the 1,000 minute cut off) and his stats were so-so, roughly equivalent to Wilson. We'd expect something more progressive from Everton this season though and he's surely one to watch in pre-season.

[Mav3rick]

Strictly speaking it is Salah x2 + 7m bod vs 10m x2 +10m though? (Or with another player or 2 thrown in, before things equal out ie the 2x10 manager may have that 7m player too.....)

Broadly yes, but I don't think it helps to think of it that way too much. You basically have a value decision to make on the captain, just like you do for other players, so it's Salah or some other captain and (assuming you think Salah will outscore your other captain) if you can invest the 2m somewhere else to gain those (doubled) points back. The difference is that you don't really care about overall value, you want maximium points for the captain so are willing to pay for it, it's just whether or not the second/third captaincy pick can get close enough to make a 2m saving worthwhile.

A 300 point Salah will not be recoverable IMO by any other captain plus saving, but is a 300 (or close to it) season repeatable? Given that I was looking at the stats for strikers, I also ran an eye over Salah's numbers from last year and the xG is way over, his expected goals "should" have been 25, but he looked a very calm and assured finisher, and even a 25 goal season would still have left him top FPL scorer by some margin (still some 40-50 more than Kane).

So how well do we think Salah will do? Will his level drop (or other teams defences improve) so that his overall score drops to closer to 220?

I feel that the safest default position is Salah plus one of the 11.0 strikers, Aubameyang or Aguero, so the next question becomes "If I sell Salah, captain Aubameyang and take on Aguero, what do I lose/gain?". There's the question of the lost/gained captaincy points to ponder first, then any changes in points based on being able to upgrade another spot in the squad by 2.0 (so maybe you get an 8.0 mid rather than a 6.0 striker).

[blahblah]

Well yes, tbh I think last season was a bit of a flash in the pan and 300 was a Record?

re his finishing: he missed some sitters from memory, but then got another chance and.....

[Mav3rick]

Well yes, tbh I think last season was a bit of a flash in the pan and 300 was a Record?

re his finishing: he missed some sitters from memory, but then got another chance and.....

True, but all players miss chances, even sitters, but Salah always looked supremely composed as a finisher to me. That was perhaps partly a confidence thing given the season he had, even so a drop off to "just" 25 goals would still be a high FPL score, perhaps around 250+

[blahblah]

a confidence thing

Without a doubt, he didn't care about missing.... and more importantly nor did the other players care about his miss(es) they still fed him chances.

[trampie]

What is xG90 & xA90 ?, is it goals and assists per 90 mins or something ?

[blahblah]

https://www.reddit.com/r/FantasyPL/comm ... =FantasyPL

[trampie]

What site are these stats on blah ?

[blahblah]

That link explains it? Failing that Google, lol

I don't really understand them, or their relevance tbh

[Mav3rick]

What is xG90 & xA90 ?, is it goals and assists per 90 mins or something ?

It's expected goals/assists per 90 mins.

What site are these stats on blah ?

One of the best resources is Understat, but there are others (including paid for resources such as Fantasy Football Scout and free but less flexible sources elsewhere).

Each site is only as good as their algorithm, probably built on top of OPTA data, but for the most part you're looking for patterns and comparative performances between players rather than definitive guides to how many goals someone should have scored. Ideally you want to compare a few data sources if you can.

[Gambit]

Also, as it's the weekend, I thought it would be interesting to consider some of the understat statistics from last season for the strikers. I'm only examining forwards that played over 1,000 minutes, but I think there's some interesting numbers here.

Super Premiums
Starting at the top end of the market, Aguero was top of the pile overall with an xG90 of 0.84, that's slightly ahead of his city team mate Jesus and underlines the quality that we know he has. If you look at combined xG90+xA90 then Aguero is also top (1.14), this time from Salah, with the next best striker (Jesus) 0.2 behind.

I think that really shows how crucial a starting Aguero is to an FPL team, he would be my first pick I think in any system, with the downside of course being his minutes and how much rotation he is likely to suffer.

On that note, if you look at Aguero alternatives, the player that stands out stats-wise is Aubameyang. Now, he only just qualified for the round-up (with 1056 mins played) but his xG90 is equal to Kane, as is his xA90. He looks a real stand-out option for 11.0 and there looks to be little reason to pick Kane ahead of him, based on the 1.5m price saving.

If Aubameyang and Aguero were both picked, then where do you go for similar performance if either is injured? Well, Kane, obviously, with the same stats as Auba (but the 1.5 price difference would be a problem).

On a pure stats basis, Jesus is the obvious fail over for an Aguero injury, indeed that would be a default position for many managers I would imagine. He lags Aguero marginally in xG but is slightly above Auba and Kane. I think I'd be perfectly happy with Jesus as the Aguero fall back.

Lukaku is an outlier in this category, with an xG90 of just 0.49, there are multiple better cheaper options based on the stats alone. He would score highly in terms of gametime security but unless Man Utd put on some better attacking displays, he really looks inferior to the other super premiums. I think the only reason to pick him is if you think Mourinho will do the somewhat typical faster start followed by a later tightening up - letting the horses run.

Personally though, I'd take Aubameyang's better finishing stats.

Premiums
The first premium player on the list in xG90 order is Morata, but the scoring rate here drops off from the Kane, Aubameyang, Aguero, Jesus class, and we're looking at 0.6 xG90 rather than 0.8. I would not at all mind an 8.0 Giroud (who went at the same 0.6 xG90 rate as Morata when at Chelsea) but there's likely a wait and see in there with a new manager etc to see how they line up and when Giroud returns from the World Cup. In draft, Giroud is one I have my eye on for sure.

The other premiums are the safe, steady options of Vardy and Firmino. There was nothing between them points-wise last year, although Firmino played significantly less minutes and this is built into his price. On the stats front between those two, Vardy has the greater goal threat (0.42 vs 0.34) but Firmino makes up points with his 0.25 xA90 (of strikers, only Aguero beats Firmino in this regard).

I find it interesting that Vardy and Firmino are two of the most over-performing forwards from last season in terms of actual goals scored vs xG. They both scored nearly 5 more goals than "expected", so were either lucky, or are clinical. Firmino was a lot less clinical over the previous 3 seasons (averaging 0.46 extra goals above his "expected" score), while Vardy averaged 0.8 extra goals above his average. So you could argue, both over performed based on their 4 year history.

For Vardy in particular, the loss of Mahrez could be a problematic change in circumstance, and I think I'd chose to avoid if I could, and would probably favour Firmino (our of the two) or a secure Giroud/Morata should that emerge from pre-season (which seems unlikely given Giroud's long run into the World Cup). Perhaps Morata though, if guaranteed some early game time, could do enough to win the starting spot for a while at least. I'd be tempted to start him as a 3rd striker in a traditional Super Premium, Premium, Cheapie setup.

Lacazette is also in the premium category. His stats are decent, slightly below Morata and significatly better than Vardy/Firmino but I'm assuming a fair degree of gametime risk here. If him and Aubameyang are playing, there would be an interesting discussion to be had about taking one or both of them.

6.0-7.0 Range
This is where we hit some of the more affordable third striker options, so Zaha, Tosun, Arnautovic, King, Wood, Murray, Wilson, Austin, players like that. It's the largest group and there's interesting figures in there.

So, the main surprise (or maybe not) is that the leader of this group in terms of xG90 is good old pub player Charlie Austin. What's quite astounding though is that not only is he the leader on xG90 in this category, but in fact he beats ALL the premium strikers too as well as Lukaku. It's only the super premiums I talked about above that better him on the stats front (0.68 xG90).

Now, to be fair, he did only just scrape into this round-up (1023 minutes) so there is a small sample warning but he didn't over achieve last season (in fact he under-performed by 0.72 goals scored, but this is consistent with his 4 year history). He did rely a little on pens to boost his xG90, but only by around 10% and players like Vardy also had that pen boost.

He does look a strong contender for a budget striker spot, given his FPL history and stats combination (even his 18 goal season at QPR came without any over performance on xG), if he's fit and starting, he looks a tough player to overlook.

It wouldn't be fair to do this category without a closer look at the 7.0 guys, so Arnie comes in at 0.38 xG90 and Zaha at 0.34. These are Firmino numbers, but for a 2.5 saving, so not to be dismissed. Both Zaha and Arnie's combined xG90+xA90 numbers also rival the Liverpool forward. I think there's a strong case to consider these two instead of the 9.0 rated forwards personally, last year they both scored about 40 points less than Firmino, the positional change may increase the gap a bit too, but if you allow for minutes played (Zaha and Arnie played 8% and 20% less than Firmino) and the 2.5m saving then there's definite competitive value here. Arnie and Zaha's deployment or not as a striker will be crucial of course.

Then, some mentions for the less fahisonable strikers -

Murray (0.51) is high up in the ratings, but did significantly rely on penalties.
Wood (0.42) matched Vardy in stats terms, was a little better than Arnie and in xG90 terms was better than Firmino. I'm not sure how a potential European campaign would affect Burnley, though the start of the season looks relatively kind, GW4 apart.
Wilson (0.34) does not trouble the best strikers but his overall season perhaps wasn't as bad as I thought. He certainly out-stated teammate and man of 2016/17 Josh King.

Tosun is an interesting one. he techincally missed the round up by playing 998 minutes (2 mins short of the 1,000 minute cut off) and his stats were so-so, roughly equivalent to Wilson. We'd expect something more progressive from Everton this season though and he's surely one to watch in pre-season.

thanks for that Mav3rick, great info.

Tosun for 7m definitely one to watch in pre season

[Sutter Kane]

A 300 point Salah will not be recoverable IMO by any other captain plus saving, but is a 300 (or close to it) season repeatable? Given that I was looking at the stats for strikers, I also ran an eye over Salah's numbers from last year and the xG is way over, his expected goals "should" have been 25, but he looked a very calm and assured finisher, and even a 25 goal season would still have left him top FPL scorer by some margin (still some 40-50 more than Kane).

So how well do we think Salah will do? Will his level drop (or other teams defences improve) so that his overall score drops to closer to 220?

Salah will get more than 220 imo. How likely is it that Liverpool will suffer a dramatic turn of attacking prowess under Klopp? 250 would be disappointing - I think he can add some pens to last year also. Also need to factor in the power Liverpool have behind him now in that central midfield position. I expect Liverpool to dominate possession vs most teams, the question there being will Liverpool's devastating counter attack suffer because of it? Having now snookered my own argument, I retreat.

Tosun at 3.9ppg is interesting with the Silva factor and the fixtures to begin with. He has the potential to start the season very well indeed.

[blahblah]

Salah will get more than 220 imo. How likely is it that Liverpool will suffer a dramatic turn of attacking prowess under Klopp? 250 would be disappointing - I think he can add some pens to last year also. Also need to factor in the power Liverpool have behind him now in that central midfield position. I expect Liverpool to dominate possession vs most teams, the question there being will Liverpool's devastating counter attack suffer because of it? Having now snookered my own argument, I retreat.

Tosun at 3.9ppg is interesting with the Silva factor and the fixtures to begin with. He has the potential to start the season very well indeed.

I sense more goals from Bobby Mane and obviously Lalla and: https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=ht ... mrc&uact=8

[Zimmerman]

Let Lallana go Blah. Let him go.

[blahblah]

Dipsy says he is tinkying and winkying well in potice.

He's not on my FPL radar (honestly, well a watching brief re starts etc) but I sense enough minutes with Pinon to reduce Salah's points.

[Sutter Kane]

Who's Pinon? I'm lost, especially with that link. Is it a lookalike of someone? I'm lost. I'm starting with Salah anyway, and then see what happens!

[blahblah]

Pinon is the the actor in the link, and Shaq looks just like him.....

[Stemania]

Well, that was a mavnificent read. I can't say I'd really played around with two 11m guys in there, but will certainly have a try. The full 3.5m extra for Salah over Firmino/Mane I haven't yet been able to justify. So with Kane likely missing the first few weeks cash will be available for other big guns.

I do think Aguero and Auba both have slight question marks over gametime and position respectively. Emery played a Liverpool-style 433 at PSG, and Auba could well be reverse-OOP in that system (not sure Ozil or Mkhi are really those type of players though, so who knows) - though if he keeps up last seasons xG rate that might not matter. If Lacazette plays centrally in that system and is on pens, I feel I'm going to find it tough to resist the downgrade. One of my biggest concerns is actually still Arsenal's squad - Torreira really needs to turn out well!

As for Kun, Jesus has another year under his belt and is only going to get better (though I thought he was pants at the WC), and he wasn't in Russia for that much longer than Kun. Any City striker who gets adequate minutes will score bagloads, so eyes will be on the friendlies/press conferences/charity shield - Kun currently in my team.

[fred1266]

Last season Aubameyang also played on the LW but he seems to have a knack for getting on the end of goals

[blahblah]

Last season Aubameyang also played on the LW but he seems to have a knack for getting on the end of goals

And Arse have few players missing due to the WC? (Only Ozil and Torr?)

[Mav3rick]

You're gonna bet against Salah (c) then are you stem? You can see a big enough drop off in performance to leave Aguero/11.0 forward a viable captain with fund spread putting you ahead overall?

[Stemania]

You're gonna bet against Salah (c) then are you stem? You can see a big enough drop off in performance to leave Aguero/11.0 forward a viable captain with fund spread putting you ahead overall?

You know me, I'll probably stay on the fence until a week before deadline.

More than any year, it looks like this time round it's going to be final friendlies and press conferences that need waiting for any vague confidence. Aguero and Auba + cash I do like, but if they do end up with slight question marks and Salah doesn't then it'll be tough not just to walk like an Egyptian.

Instinct is that Salah isn't worth 2m more than the best non-Kane or 3.5m more than other Liverpool - the xG90 seems to support this so long as the alternatives play enough minutes (roughly the best 11m+11m > 13m+9m potentially). Obviously 300 points again and he will be, but I doubt he'll achieve quite that. More than anything, he's known now and will be targeted a bit and they have a bigger squad now etc. He might still be good enough to transcend it all though, and all that really matters is that first few weeks till the wildcard I suppose.

[Sutter Kane]

Aguero won't play enough minutes imo. Either through injury or rotation. I think it's transfers waiting to happen. Not saying I won't get Kun as I'm starting with him but that I won't be losing Salah unless, as you point out, he looks like tailing off this season for whatever reason. So it would depend on Aubameyang who will get the required minutes but will he get near enough to Salah to make the 2mn saved count.

Not a lot to ponder for me now until about a week before. But ponder I shall!

[Stemania]

It seems Auba is on pens over Lacaz (my mistake), so I'd perhaps prefer to start with him as the 11m anyway.

I'm reasonably keen to take 3 City if I can, at least two (and Mendy has been locked in since Conte was sacked). Aguero when on the pitch is crazy, and since City have one game per week until after GW4 I'm just thinking Kun will play enough minutes in those first few weeks until a wildcard. Whether this stays true over the course of the season is arguably irrelevant at this point, and I agree there are legitimate concerns.

[blahblah]

Wasn't Mendy at the WC?

[Stemania]

Wasn't Mendy at the WC?

Nope. But Delph was, which makes him even more secure. 352 would be the dream!