Bobby Fetta - charting my failures

[Bobby Fetta]

Here goes at a RMT, interspersed with form charts. Three weeks late to this but thought I’d start at the beginning still. Not expecting anyone to read these initial posts – just felt right to do the whole season.

General approach

I don’t get to see much football on TV – just MOTD – so my team selection is largely data driven. My main sources:

- xG / actual goals (hence the charts)
- FFS RMT projections
- FPL Review projections (first time using it this year)
- Mikkel Tokvam’s Transfer Algorithm

Trying to focus on players that come out well in all four sources.

[Bobby Fetta]

Initial squad (trying to give my thoughts at the time but inevitably some hindsight creeping in)

McCarthy – not convinced by saints defensively but fixtures were good, negative choice as everyone else seemed to have him
Martinez – wanted to go with two £4.5m keepers. Partly due to Covid – possibility of fixtures being cancelled or players missing out. When I tried to look at the data, the benefit of two keepers was marginal. But I thought going with two gave a better chance of getting the right one. Obviously Martinez was a gamble as he was still at Arsenal. But the chance of a transfer to Villa seemed quite high.

TAA – never in doubt, best value reliable option in the game. Set and forget
Doherty – I think spurs will get enough clean sheets to still make him a good option, even if not as good as at Wolves. Aiming to keep him all season, unless he gets injured.
Boly – chosen for security of starts and BP potential. For a cheap / mid-priced defender I prefer bonus to goal/assist threat as it seems more predictable
Vinagre – agonised over this. Wanted the Wolves defensive double-up. Only put him in at the last minute after the Nuno presser when he talked about Marcal needing time to get up to speed and my impression that maybe Saiss was at equal risk from Marcal anyway.
Ayling – Leeds defensive stats from last few seasons were alluring

Salah – I’ve owned Salah about 95% of the time since he joined Liverpool – he’s in my team unless injured or short-term around dgws
Aubameyang – good option for the first 2 gws, slightly defensive to cover as knew he’d be a popular captain
Havertz – have never seen him play but had great stats from Germany and good early fixtures
Soucek – intend to play him every week, think he’s underpriced by £1m. Not expecting many goals but he will chip in and frees funds for elsewhere.
Bissouma – seemed the most reliable starter at £4.5m – just want 2pts off the bench to cover no-shows

Werner – great pedigree in Germany, good early fixtures, very highly owned
Mitrovic – wasn’t keen on him at all but options at that price were so limited
Brewster – like Martinez a risky pick (especially as blocks a Liverpool slot) but seemed to have more upside than other £4.5m strikers

£1.0m in the bank for flexibility

Intention is to play 4-4-2 most weeks with rotating 4.5m defenders, Bissouma first sub and Brewster last

[Bobby Fetta]

Transfers so far

GW2 – Havertz to Rashford. I had this in mind as a potential move (hence the 1m ITB). Thought Havertz looked totally lost in gw1 so decided to act.

GW3 – Aubameyang to Son. Wasn’t sure about Son or KDB but decided on Son for the money saved with the idea of upgrading the squad elsewhere.

GW4 – Son to KDB. Very unusually for me I made an early transfer as I was worried about price changes. Subsequently seems Son wasn’t as badly injured as the first reports suggested. Still feel more comfortable owning KDB (he basically ruined last season for me!) I'm normally a Sterling over KDB man but with the number of penalties so far I was even more worried about KDB

[Bobby Fetta]

Other contenders

I still have the piece of paper where I wrote my ‘short’ list of the players I was considering. These first 3 gws it has felt like all the players who’ve done well were right on the brink of my team. So let’s see.

[Bobby Fetta]

GKs

Martinez – in my squad – 19pts
Meslier – 13pts
McCarthy – in my squad – 8pts
Ryan – 8pts
Johnstone – 5pts

I’m going to keep a record of how my rotating keepers fare compared to playing the popular choice (McCarthy) every week.
So far it is:
Rotating = 21pts, McCarthy = 8pts Rotating = +13pts

Verdict so far - a rare success

[Bobby Fetta]

DFs

Robertson – 20pts
Justin – 17pts
VvD – 16pts
Saiss – 16pts
TAA – in my squad – 15pts
Mitchell – 12pts
Lamptey – 11pts
KWP – 10pts
Ayling – in my squad – 8pts
Tierney – 7pts
Boly – in my squad – 7pts
Taylor – 5pts
Doherty – 4pts
Egan – minus 2pts
AWB – 1pt
Vinagre – in my squad – 1pt
Saliba – 0pts

Verdict so far - not great
- Vinagre has been a disaster. I had Justin in my team through the summer until the last night before gw1. Then decided on going for Wolves and was 50-50 between Vinagre and Saiss. Need to sort it out but have used my transfers on other things.
- Doherty has been a bit unlucky I think so far.
- The others have been ok and I remain confident for the next few gws

[Spinynorman]

For starters it's interesting to note that your selections are stat driven where I don't really do stats at all probably much to my detriment. You did however have many initial picks that were similar to mine so it will be intriguing to see how things go.

Cheers for posting.

[Bobby Fetta]

MFs

Salah – in my squad – 28pts
Son – transferred in for gw3 – 27pts (only 1 for me)
Auba – in my gw1+2 squad – 14pts
Trossard – 15pts
Podence – 11pts
Soucek – in my squad – 10pts (but I benched his 6pts, against my initial plan)
Rashford – transferred in for gw2 – 9pts
Havertz – in gw1, sold for gw2 – 8pts (2 for me)
Jota – 6pts
ASM – 4pts
Saka – 2pts
Alli – 1pt
Pulisic – 0pts

£4.5m mids (benched anyway so who cares)
Stephens, Alzate, Bissouma, Smallbone, Gordon, Zambo Anguissa, Reed

Verdict so far:
- Salah = very good
- I changed from Son to Havertz the night before gw1, which didn't work out, although I may well have sold Son after gw1 anyway so maybe I just avoided that agony...
- I'll take the positive viewpoint that I identified the potential of Trossard and Podence. And it could have been worse if I'd picked Alli and Pulisic

[Bobby Fetta]

FWs

Vardy – 32pts
Calvert-Lewin – 31pts
Kane – 28pts
Maupay – 26pts
Wilson – 18pts
Mitrovic – in my squad – 15pts
Nketiah – 10pts
Antonio – 10pts
Werner – in my squad – 9pts
Wood – 8pts
Jesus – 6pts
Martial – 4pts
Batshuayi – 2pts
Rodriguez – 1pt
Davis – 1pt
Brewster – in my squad – 0pts

Verdict so far - Maybe everyone had these players on their shortlist but its frustrating seeing them all there scoring except Werner. Only playing two strikers has been sub-optimal so far but Brewster’s prospects now looking up.

[Bobby Fetta]

Captains

Gw1 – Salah 20pts – this is why I play the game…
Gw2 – Auba 5pts – not so good but at least not a blank
Gw3 – Salah 5pts – ditto

[Bobby Fetta]

For starters it's interesting to note that your selections are stat driven where I don't really do stats at all probably much to my detriment. You did however have many initial picks that were similar to mine so it will be intriguing to see how things go.

Cheers for posting.

Yeah, not claiming stats are better than the eye test at all. For me its necessity as I don't have Sky/BT; and also I love numbers. So more fun to do it like that.

I think probably almost all of us had the same sort of shortlists pre-season. It just felt like all the players I considered have done brilliantly apart from those in my team. Going through the lists, its not so clear cut. I guess I just remember the ones who've done well and ignore the failures.

[Bobby Fetta]

So now for the charts. First repeating the ones I posted in STC:

[Bobby Fetta]

And next, here are the individual player ones. The data I pull out is not comprehensive so its always possible if a player is missing that I just haven't got their data, rather than they're way down the list. Or the earlier data is missing because I can't be bothered to go back and fill in the gaps. The players are ranked by total xG over the last 10 gws:

[Fuzzy]

Good on you for posting here BF!

It's interesting you shrugged the stats (and a number of the projections models) when going for KdB over Sterling.

Watching on, with interest.

[Bobby Fetta]

Good on you for posting here BF!

It's interesting you shrugged the stats (and a number of the projections models) when going for KdB over Sterling.

Watching on, with interest.

Cheers Fuzzy

Regarding KdB vs Sterling and my own stated considerations for selecting players:
-Sterling definitely wins on xG (but of course that ignores that a large part of De Bruyne's attraction is for assists)
- FFS RMT favours Sterling
- FPL Review favours KdB
- Mikkel's algorithm has KdB fractionally ahead

So not clearcut either way. It was the penalty situation that swung me in the end. I did the transfer before they said they were going to loosen the handball rule.

It's things like this where I worry about compounding previous bad luck / bad decisions. As I said, KdB basically ruined last season for me. That makes me more hesitant to go without him. Possible I then catch the regression to the mean having missed his over performance. Equally I don't want to be so stupid to make the same mistake twice.

[Fuzzy]

We all have our insecurities, no matter how analytical and balanced we strive to be!

As one who kept tossing that coin until it came up KDB, I am backing you in.

[Aldershot Rejects]

Good to have you on board Bobby. Amazing how often those last minute tweaks before GW1 turn out to be bad ideas. Next season, I am determined to go nowhere near my team for 48 hours before the deadline.

Interesting to see the individual charts - always feel sorry for McGoldrick. Trossard, who I am watching, was interesting absolutely following his expected path. If Harvey Barnes can get his act together he could be gold.

[SirMattBugsby]

Good to have you on board Bobby. Amazing how often those last minute tweaks before GW1 turn out to be bad ideas. Next season, I am determined to go nowhere near my team for 48 hours before the deadline.

Interesting to see the individual charts - always feel sorry for McGoldrick. Trossard, who I am watching, was interesting absolutely following his expected path. If Harvey Barnes can get his act together he could be gold.

Not sure if this happens every year, but the prices being released before fixtures helped me compare my initial draft vs the final (corrupted) one. The initial one had DCL and Kane as forwards, so I decided to keep one.

It's an interesting experiment, and I definitely think I should put my own idea of a GW on record before allowing all the 'popular opinions' and last-minute fears/ideas into my thinking.

[Bobby Fetta]

Good to have you on board Bobby. Amazing how often those last minute tweaks before GW1 turn out to be bad ideas. Next season, I am determined to go nowhere near my team for 48 hours before the deadline.

Interesting to see the individual charts - always feel sorry for McGoldrick. Trossard, who I am watching, was interesting absolutely following his expected path. If Harvey Barnes can get his act together he could be gold.

Yes, I keep an eye on McGoldrick as an ex Ipswich player. He had an amazingly bad finishing run last year but I'm sure part of that was the pressure of scoring his first PL goal. Hopefully he's got that off his back now but no guarantee he gets as many minutes this year.
Trossard is interesting but I'm considering Werner to Maupay. I had a feeling Maupay would do well this season - he had good stats last year despite being down on minutes.

[Bobby Fetta]

GW4 review

64pts, surprising green arrow up to rank of about 1m
The Son to KdB transfer . First time in years I made an early transfer and it went very badly. I think I panicked over price changes (which didn't materialise), the supposed quote that Son would be out for a long time, and the penalty situation.

Successes - Salah (c), McCarthy, Boly and flukey Bissouma bench points

Problems in team - Vinagre (no show again and now sold), Werner (leaking value and not looking like scoring), Doherty (surprisingly to me benched, price likely to fall)

GK rotation season summay - rotating = 30pts, McCarthy = 17pts Rotating = +13pts (McCarthy 6pts more than Martinez this week so I've got it right every time so far, sure this won't last!)

[Bobby Fetta]

GW5 plan

I did think about Werner to DCL or Maupay on Sunday but reflected on the Son disaster and thought I should wait out the international break, even at considerable cost to my team value. I think Werner has to go, even with the nice fixtures. Wouldn't surprise me at all if he goes on a scoring run now but so be it. Think I'll take a hit to get rid of Vinagre - with hindsight I should have prioritised that with one of my early transfers, which have just cost me points so far.

Werner replacement
- RMT tool (with my own value adjustment) suggests Jimenez or Maupay (or McGoldrick but I'm ignoring that)
- FPL Review (with my own value adjustment) suggests keep Werner! But if not DCL, Jimenez, Ings, Antonio, Wilson, Maupay and Watkins are similar value.
- Transfer algorithm suggest Maupay but the others listed above aren't far behind
- xG data - Antonio still has great numbers but again the other strikers listed seem pretty good too

So that's not really clear cut. Its between DCL, Maupay and Watkins with plan to get Antonio for Mitrovic at some point later. From this feels like playing 3 strikers would be a good idea this season as there seem to be several in form. I'll give Brewster a chance first before making that change.

Vinagre replacement
- I was thinking of Robertson but no way I want to double-up with TAA now that Allison is out
- Probably just the simple move to Saiss. He is the favourite from RMT. Castagne or Chilwell also favoured by that model but I don't trust those defences as much. FPL Review says Chilwell but Saiss not far behind.

[Bobby Fetta]

Expanding on my Werner replacement options

Calvert-Lewin
- The form player, looking very confident, playing in a team doing well with creative players
- Not on pens - makes his stats even better but penalties seem such a reliable points income at the moment
- I guess I'm scarred from owning him at the end of last season but Everton have looked a totally different team now they've got something to play for
- I feel like I've missed out on the price rises but that's a pointless viewpoint as he's still a very good price for the shot/chance production he's been achieving for quite a while
- Basically I've convinced myself now....but I'll continue with the other options for the sake of it

Maupay
- Owned him for a while last year, which was frustrating as he did pretty well but underperformed his stats and was subject to random benchings
- Had my eye on him in pre-season, as I thought second season in the PL he was liable to start to deliver on his underlying stats
- My impression is that Brighton will look good but still struggle
- His points/goals are bolstered by pens at the moment. Crazy handball interpretations notwithstanding, I don't see Brighton maintaining this rate of penalties

Watkins
- Had heard good things about him on the Statsbomb podcast (Brentford get frequent mentions)
- Obviously the gw1 blank and uncertainty about starting position I was never going to start with him
- Very impressive so far and Villa also look like a team on the up since they sorted their defence out over the lockdown, although more from a defensive viewpoint until the last game.
- Will probably wait a bit longer to see if he's this season's Pukki. Switch from Mitro in gw9 a possibility.

Antonio
- Always a player I keep an eye on. Gutted to miss his points at the end of last season. Had him in my gw1 team until the night before deadline - put off by the apparent chaos at West Ham.
- Fixtures are still pretty poor but he's been ticking over.
- Price falls so far are welcome!

Wilson
- Points return so far is very healthy, despite Newcastle's attack looking rotten.
- Even stripping out the penalties he's done well. I just don't trust Newcastle
- Another player who feels always on the brink of another injury

Jimenez
- Great fixtures
- He will score well over the season, supplemented by penalties
- Just don't trust Wolves attack and feel there are better options elsewhere

Ings
- I have a blindspot for Ings having owned him several times two years ago and he instantly got injured each time. Seems to be over that but I still don't trust him
- Clearly a very good finisher playing with a lot of confidence as a focal point for a decent attack
- Think his price is reasonable but maybe others are underpriced

Bamford
- Has done very well so far but don't trust him to keep up the finishing rate.
- Also at risk from Rodrigo so a no go for me

Kane
- Out of reach pricewise so not a real option for me
- Seems to have been much better since the lockdown. Second season Jose?

Vardy
- Only 2 shots other than penalties in 4 games

[Oxford NZ]

Thanks for the charts and summary, it has convinced me that the Vardy money in my squad can be better spent elsewhere unless the penalty numbers continue his shots/90 is not what I was hoping for.
GW6 forward line of DCL, Ings ( Brewster) may be the way to go. Alternately if Chelsea start to perform

[Spinynorman]

So have you talked yourself out of all options except Ings and maybe Antonio or am I missing something?

[Bobby Fetta]

So have you talked yourself out of all options except Ings and maybe Antnio or am I missing something?

Lol. Just rambling to myself really. Still getting the hang of this RMT. But writing it out seemed to help me, even if that didn't come across in what I wrote...

Barring injuries, current plan is Werner to DCL, Vinagre to Saiss this week (for -4 and future benching headaches).

Then Mitrovic to Antonio or Watkins in a few weeks time. Possibly Brewster to one of those two too (for further benching headaches).

[Stevieste]

I feel quite happy with my Wildcard selection now after reading your input here Bobby.

Good luck for the rest of the season and don’t worry about DCL, his form and price will nose dive now ive brought him in

[Bobby Fetta]

I feel quite happy with my Wildcard selection now after reading your input here Bobby.

Good luck for the rest of the season and don’t worry about DCL, his form and price will nose dive now ive brought him in

Oh no, that's the last thing I wanted to hear . Last time I made the same decision as you was Foden captain and we both remember how that turned out.

But seriously, thanks. Hope your wildcard goes well. Do you still have triple Chelsea defence?

[Stevieste]

I feel quite happy with my Wildcard selection now after reading your input here Bobby.

Good luck for the rest of the season and don’t worry about DCL, his form and price will nose dive now ive brought him in

Oh no, that's the last thing I wanted to hear . Last time I made the same decision as you was Foden captain and we both remember how that turned out.

But seriously, thanks. Hope your wildcard goes well. Do you still have triple Chelsea defence?

oh i remember alright and no ive completly changed my team, but i like it now, 3-4-3 all the way.

21168A6F-3BE5-493A-BE8A-79BA3BB3C44D.jpeg

I think KDB will be highest points earner again this season and there for i have made him my set and forgot captain for the season not matter what the fixtures are

[Bobby Fetta]

Yeah, I think I prefer that version. Looks a strong team.

[Bobby Fetta]

Change of plan and a reprieve for Werner due to the De Bruyne news.

Reversing the disastrous move last week: KDB to Son

(as others have noted, looking forward to seeing KDB play and Son's hamstring injury suddenly rematerialise)

So another week to assess Werner and his replacements. My procrastination has been terrible for my team value so far. I'd also like to have removed Vinagre but couldn't justify a hit in the end, as the potential replacements didn't have attractive fixtures. I'm leaning towards the Wolves double-up - either Saiss or perhaps Semedo.