FPL Gameweek 10: Where do we go from here? Wildcard awaits.
By: Tom Thomas
Tags: Premier League, Analytics, Soccer, Fantasy Football, R

Final Decisions

Before sealing the fate of the rest of the players, let’s take a look at the schedule opportunities we mentioned before and see when might be good idea to bring in which players.

I have decided to apply a combination of both the best teams to choose from and the schedule. Based on this strategy, we need to have a split within the 15 man roster for diversification.

One error we faced over the past few Gameweeks was in losses - Multiple players from the same team losing causing us massive drops in points. While the past strategy was valuable to gain points as well, we have to be more strict with our decision making, we can only apply it to the teams that have a combination of the best form and results.

(Putting this here again for easier readability)

|6|Aston Villa|

|5|Liverpool|Manchester City|West Ham|Arsenal|Tottenham|

|4|Chelsea|

|3|Southampton|Leicester|

|2|Manchester United|Wolves|

|1|Everton|Leeds United|

When we take a look at both the best options for us in terms of teams and schedule - there are different ways we could approach this.

Approach #1- Two players each from the top 3 teams. One player from each of the rest of the teams.

Approach #2 - Split the schedule into 4 categories. Initial Team Selection/Gameweek 12 Selection/Gameweek 14 Selection/Gameweek 16 Selection. Pick the best players for each category based on opponents.

What we can do is combine these two approaches for a more robust team.

Initial Team Selection - We can see that Leicester, Southampton and Tottenham have an easier start in the next two Gameweeks.

Gameweek 12 Selection - Multiple teams with easier schedules open up such as Aston Villa, Manchester City, West Ham and Manchester United.

Gameweek 14 Selection - Better schedules for Liverpool, West Ham and Arsenal.

Gameweek 16 Selection - Better schedules for Liverpool, West Ham and Arsenal. Similar to the week before so it would be more valuable to have players from these teams.

Earlier, we also mentioned that we want to split our roster into defensive and offensive choices. We want our defense to be more from the most compact of teams and the offense to be from the ones with the most goals.

Defensive Advantage - Tottenham, Manchester City, Chelsea, West Ham & Arsenal.

Offensive Advantage- Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham, Southampton and Leicester City.

FPL Data Team Wildcard; source: FPL

Taking out Kane, Son and Chilwell (Given that we still see Tottenham and Chelsea as valuable teams), we have 12 remaining spots.

Diogo Jota and Timo Werner remain valuable picks as well but let’s evaluate all our options before we bring them back in as well.

Taking out 12 players leaves us with £72.6, an average of £6.05 given to us to play with for our Initial Team Selection. It’s not much but if we can find some value picks that align with both the data and the schedule, we could make it work.

Goalkeeping

Clean Sheet Percentage vs Save Percentage (Clean Sheets>1); source: FPL

First of all, we have some great keepers but given the fact that Kasper Schmeichel hasn’t performed well so far and that the next few Gameweeks look like tough matchups for Rui Patricio, we have decided to not keep either of them. When we take a look at the keepers that have kept atleast one clean sheet and combine that with their overall clean sheet to save percentage, one name sticks out from the rest. Edouard Mendy. The Senegalese shot-stopper has been head and shoulders (literally) above the rest after his recent move from Rennes. Add the fact that he is £0.3 cheaper than both our current keepers, this is a definite buy.

However, Chelsea don’t seem to have an easy schedule when compared to some other teams. Not that they still won’t do well in defense for they have covered that as well. To account for this, we want to bring in someone else with an easier schedule but still an excellent output.

Lukas Fabianski seems to fit this bill. He too is £0.4 cheaper than our current goalkeeper lineup and currently leads FPL in all goalkeepers with 53 points.

BUY: Edouard Mendy (£5.2) | Lukas Fabianksi (£5.1) | Remaining £62.3

Defense

Our defense has cost us a lot of points this season. From sudden drops to 2019 regulars such as Toby Alderweireld, César Azpilicueta to injuries for Virgil Van Dijk and Çaglar Söyüncü, it hasn’t been an easy road. We need a massive shift in defense with a more consistent output.

We have Ben Chilwell. The question is who to add next. Keep in mind that for all these selections, they will be based on both schedule and best team players available.

Players Dribbled Past by (player) vs. Blocks(>20); source: FPL

Here we have the players that take on the most opposing players from the defensive end of the field, but also who rush back to their area when under threat to make great blocks. We’ve often seen players like Walker-Peters and Ayling rush forward.

An interesting pick Gabriel Dos Santos (45 pts.), Héctor Bellerín (43 pts.) or Vladmir Coufal (33 pts.)

Given that Dos Santos is £0.1 cheaper and in better form, we’ll choose him. Coufal has an easier schedule and he is ridiculously cheap at £4.6. He goes into the team.

Goals(>1) vs Clearances(>5); source: FPL

Above, we have the players that have made the most clearances in addition to the most number of goals. Apart from all the attackers displayed, we have a few defenders as well. The ones that stick out are Dos Santos, Ezri Konsa, Jaanik Vestergaard and Kurt Zouma. Additionally, Southampton have an easier schedule. Kurt Zouma is the more attractive option with 3 goals compared to 2 of Jannik Vestergaard. However, he is more expensive and we have a player from Chelsea already in Ben Chilwell. We want to diversify unlike with our previous strategy. Ezri Konsa has two goals as well and is underrated at £4.7 albeit he is in a weaker team.

BUY: Gabriel Dos Santos (£5.1) | Vladmir Coufal (£4.6) | Ezri Konsa(£4.7) | Jaanik Vestergaard (£4.8) | Remaining £43.1

Midfield

Shot-creating Actions per 90 vs Goals; source: FPL

If we look at the most active players on the field from all our current teams alone, we get the following bunch. I was unsure if I wanted to keep Diogo Jota around but he continues to be in great form and in a great team. For £6.9, he is definitely worth keeping. This spread shows far more expensive players such as Salah and Kane. Jack Grealish sticks out with the most amount of shot-creating actions in this group. Aston Villa are off this weekend but they do have some easy games coming up. He is a bit expensive at £7.7 but I do think it’s worth the money. Villa are a risky team to pick but Grealish is worth keeping as a sub atleast when one of the other players have a tougher opponent.

It is tempting to choose Mohammed Salah but given that we have Jota and the fact that they do have a difficult three games coming up in addition to Liverpool’s injury worries, Jota alone maybe sufficient for the moment. Hopefully, we won’t come to regret that decision.

As we said before, Southampton have an easier schedule. This is going to be a risk but I do think it will be quite valuable to have a player who can score two free-kicks in a game. Enter James Ward-Prowse.

Ward-Prowse is not only great at scoring free-kicks. He is also the main corner-kick taker for the Saints.

Corner Kicks vs Goals; source: FPL

This gives us more reassurance to select him. While I was here, I noticed another steal of a pick in addition to Jack Grealish. Jarrod Bowen has been a stellar player for West Ham and it was interesting to see that he too was the main corner-kick taker. From this data and given that it is valuable to consider players from West Ham, we will choose him as well.

KEEP: Diogo Jota ( £6.7)

BUY: Jack Grealish (£7.7) | James Ward-Prowse ( £6.1) | Jarrod Bowen(£6.3) | Remaining (£16.3)

Forwards

We’ve already decided to keep Harry Kane which left us with two choices. We could keep Timo Werner and Patrick Bamford and leave it unchanged. Timo Werner has been a valuable addition to the team. Patrick Bamford has dipped a little in form but Leeds are quite an unpredictable team.

However, when we take a look at the schedule again, it does not favor Chelsea or Leeds. Leicester on the other hand have quite an easy schedule.

If you’ve followed along in this series, you would know of my bias for Jamie Vardy. Especially a Vardy and Kane pairing. Vardy is an excellent player and given that Leicester have two easy games before their schedule becomes tougher, it’s worth to see this pairing happen. As we’ve seen in the charts before, Jamie Vardy is a consistent performer given that he’s healthy and Leicester are performing reasonably well. For that reason alone, I have chosen Jamie Vardy.

However, choosing Jamie Vardy leaves us with having to give up Timo Werner and just £6.0 left. There are very few valuable forwards for that price besides Patrick Bamford who also happen to be exactly worth £6.0.

Fate must have it that we go this pairing for this Gameweek. I’m excited to see how this team performs and the tinkering we’ll attempt over the upcoming Gameweeks. I hope you are too.

Last but not the least, here’s our final wildcard team for Gameweek 11.

Gameweek 11 Wildcard Team; source:FPL

Let the games begin.

Thank you for taking your time to read through this. If you’d like to follow along in this series, here is a timeline of the FPL data analytics project.

1. Introduction

2. Gameweek 1

3. Gameweek 2

4. Gameweek 3

5. Gameweek 4

6. Gameweek 5–8

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

And there we go! Hope you enjoyed reading this piece as much as I did writing it. Feel free to write down any thoughts or suggestions. I’m always working on improving my analysis and my articles as time goes on so I appreciate all comments! Collaborating is fun so if you’ve got any interesting projects in mind, feel free to reach out to me personally. If you would like to follow me to keep up with updates in this series, follow me here or — — @__tomthomas

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —