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Chelsea Fans' Most Popular Starting 11 for Aug.-Dec. 2013

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Garyalanlawro
Kevin and Perry
Posts: 33
Joined: 31 Mar 2012, 23:57

Chelsea Fans' Most Popular Starting 11 for Aug.-Dec. 2013

Post by Garyalanlawro »

Chelsea’s most popular stating 11 for the 1st half of the season consisted of Petr Cech in goal, five defenders (John Terry, Branislav Ivanovic, David Luiz, Gary Cahill and Ashley Cole), four midfielders (Frank Lampard, Oscar, Ramires and Juan Mata) and only one forward (Eden Hazard) making the cut.

Beat Your Manager! Fantasy Football is similar to “Football Manager for live football”, where you manage your favourite Club and pick lineups, bench, formations and substitutions, all in real-time. By playing the game, we can get a picture of the fan popularity of different players, by looking at how frequently they are selected for the lineup.

The data table is available for download at our blog (http://www.beatyourmanager.ie/blog) and lists the fan lineup choices for Chelsea for the first half of this season (Aug.-Dec. 2013); organised by Week number, Date, Opposition Team and Home/Away fixture across the top. The rest of the table is taken up by percentages – these are the percentage of Chelsea fans playing Beat Your Manager! Fantasy Football who selected that player for their lineup for that match. The players are sorted by median popularity, rather than average - we could have used the average, but as some players register a zero percentage (0%: highlighted on data table) rating for some games (due to injury or suspension), we felt the median was a more reliable estimate.

We have ignored the ratings for Romelu Lukaku and Victor Moses as they were sold after just three games and those results may not be an accurate estimate of their popularity. We also forgot to record the scores for two matches (Wed. 21st Aug. Home to Aston Villa and Sun. 27th Oct. Home to Man City) – sorry about that!

So, what does the data tell us? Straight off, Petr Cech was the clear fan favourite in goal, with an inclusion rating of 89%, dwarfing the lineup selection percentage of Mark Schwarzer (8%).

Secondly, although Chelsea fans’ most popular formation was not a 5-4-1 (more on that in a future post), the most popular starting 11 consisted of five defenders (John Terry, Branislav Ivanovic, David Luiz, Gary Cahill and Ashley Cole), four midfielders (Frank Lampard, Oscar, Ramires and Juan Mata) and only one forward (Eden Hazard). This is more likely a reflection that Chelsea’s defenders are fairly popular and that fans aren’t confined to a clear back four – they have additional options that they are (pretty) equally happy to include in their lineups. The inclusion of only one forward in the most popular starting 11 is also probably due to unease among Chelsea fans as to the standard of their forwards, an issue that has been raised recently by Mourinho.

John Terry was Chelsea’s most popular defender (and 4th-most popular player) with 89% of fans picking him for the lineup, followed by Branislav Ivanovic (83%) and David Luiz (73%), with Gary Cahill (64%) and Ashley Cole (63%) on pretty similar approval ratings. After Cole, César Azpilicueta was the only other defender to register any substantial score, with a median rating of 21% with Chelsea fans.

Frank Lampard was Chelsea’s most popular midfielder (and most popular player), with 91% approval for the lineup, followed by Oscar (83%) and Ramires (81%).

Juan Mata, Mourinho’s high-profile sale to Man Utd during the Jan. transfer window, easily made it into the average Chelsea fan’s lineup with a 77% approval rating, clearly beating both Willian (22%) and Mikel (21%) in the popularity stakes. What's also interesting about Mata is that his popularity increased dramatically over the last 6 games; up to the Sun. 1 Dec. game Home to Southampton, his median popularity was 63% - after that he jumps to 83%. Was this a reflection of Chelsea fans being concerned that he was going to be sold? Its also interesting to note that he was available for selection (i.e. wasn't injured or suspended) throughout that whole period.

Upfront, Eden Hazard was the only forward to make the top 11, with a popularity rating of 90%. The next three forward options for Chelsea all ranked very similarly with fans, with Torres selected for the lineup 44% of the time and Eto'o and Schürrle chosen for 42% of lineups.

All 11 players and their average popularity ratings are displayed in a pitch-view on our blog. If you’d like to see Chelsea players’ ratings on a game-by-game basis, you can follow us on twitter (https://twitter.com/beatyourmanager) or become a fan at http://www.facebook.com/beatyourmanager. You can play the game by searching for “Beat Your Manager” in the Appstore/Google Playstore or by following the link for Android (http://goo.gl/WlNfJX) or iPhone (http://tinyurl.com/BeatYourManageriOS).

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