Top 50 managers from the 2014/2015 season analysis

[loosecannon85]

A few weeks ago I scraped game week data from the top 50 managers, mainly to try and find some clues and see if there was anything that I could emulate I have written it up in a article and I am sure some of you will find interesting!

http://fantasypremierhq.com/top-50-managers

[Ardrageen]

Nice work!

I must have a good read of this later. Your conclusions seem to back up alot of the different theories that are often discussed on this site.

[PleasedToMichu]

Tnx for info!

"To be a top manager you need get your captain choice right 25 times in a season, 65% of the time."
"f you picked Aguero at all times, only changing to Hazard when Aguero was injured and then to the most popular choice on a double game week, you would have scored 592 captain points. You would of scored 10 points (doubled) or more 28 times with this strategy."

This is key to me. Thanks to this, and other strategies mentioned in this forum, i now have a whole new take on captain-choices. Earlyer seasons i've missed out on big points due to rotating captains. Sometimes it did pay off, but i'm sure i've lost a lot of points due to this, instead of choosing the same captain more often.

[Corroded Soul]

Interesting about the wildcard. It is tempting to play it early when you get in a hole but it pays to hold on especially for a potential double GW.

[loosecannon85]

Interesting about the wildcard. It is tempting to play it early when you get in a hole but it pays to hold on especially for a potential double GW.

Dont forget that this season the rules on wildcards have changed. In order to play a wildcard in GW34 last season you had save your any time wildcard. This season you have two wildcards one In the first half and one in the second half of the season. Still a good idea to save your second wildcard for a double game week though.

[Hödi]

What a great article - made me reshuffle (almost) my whole team - not looking at the first 4 GW now but at the first 18...

[PleasedToMichu]

EDIT - nevermind

[Mike James]

Quick comment to say excellent work on pulling this together.

[zerinot]

in hindsight the strategy with captaining the same guys every week would be best if you managed to pick the 2 highest scoring players for the upcoming season, but before this season you might aswell have picked someone like yaya toure to bring in and captain, that being said aguero does look the guy you want to captain every time hes ready to play 90 min simply because he got the best goal/min in prem history over several season.

[loosecannon85]

Yes agreed about hindsight I have tweaked the article slightly. I anayalised the formations of the first 10 weeks only to see what it looked like without Harry Kanes influence. 3-4-3 was used 69% of the time.

[Aldershot Rejects]

Really interesting article, thank you. I am not sure I agree with all your conclusions, particularly your use of averages.

For instance you say, "Around 5 transfer’s hits can pay off but mainly in the early part of the season or when an expensive player gets injured and you need to shuffle the funds around." Well, the winner made no transfer hits and the guy who was second made 9. The average is 5 but the approach is very different. From the data, I think you can say that if you take too many hits (e.g. more than 12 over the course of the season, or one every 3 GWs) you are unlikely to be competitive at the highest level, but I wouldn't want to say too much more than that.

Similarly, I'm not sure that I would agree with you that the data "proves that saving your wildcard for double game weeks is an effective strategy." How many of the top 50 got a substantial lift in ranking after playing their DGW wildcard? I'm not saying that a late double gameweek wildcard isn't an effective strategy, I'm just not convinced that the data proves it. What is perhaps interesting is that many top players don't seem to require wildcards to thrive. It would be interesting to know what rank Simon and Jon were at the end of GW23 (before they played their first wildcard). Of course, as you note - the new wildcard rules change things considerably for this year.

[Neville Wears Prada]

Makes for good reading, bravo!

[Corroded Soul]

Interesting about the wildcard. It is tempting to play it early when you get in a hole but it pays to hold on especially for a potential double GW.

Dont forget that this season the rules on wildcards have changed. In order to play a wildcard in GW34 last season you had save your any time wildcard. This season you have two wildcards one In the first half and one in the second half of the season. Still a good idea to save your second wildcard for a double game week though.

Had not checked that so many thanks for the clarification. I wasn't sure about which was which last year as in how do you know which card it is you are playing? (Sorry if this sounds a daft question but I'm not sure) - are they marked as to which is which?

[Corroded Soul]

@Aldershot Rejects, good to see you here, Farnham was my home town and as a kid I was an East-banker (in the days of silk scarves around the wrist, cringe to think of that now).

[Aldershot Rejects]

@Aldershot Rejects, good to see you here, Farnham was my home town and as a kid I was an East-banker (in the days of silk scarves around the wrist, cringe to think of that now).

Sadly I'm still an East-banker (although the scarf is gone), although I don't get down as much as I used to when I lived locally (Fleet). What era were you around?

Loving my "Red & Blue Braces" rank at the moment on this forum.
"

[ishnid]

Similarly, I'm not sure that I would agree with you that the data "proves that saving your wildcard for double game weeks is an effective strategy." How many of the top 50 got a substantial lift in ranking after playing their DGW wildcard? I'm not saying that a late double gameweek wildcard isn't an effective strategy, I'm just not convinced that the data proves it.

I'd be in agreement on this point too. Does playing a late wildcard help to get a high score? Or is it more the case that somebody that ends the season with a high points tally also scored well early on, and therefore didn't require an early wildcard?

Also, I'm sure the data generally probably isn't available, but it would be interesting to see the difference between when the top players wildcarded versus everyone else. The way it is, we're just seeing the best players' data in isolation.

A very interesting analysis overall though: very pleased to see it!

[Corroded Soul]

@Aldershot Rejects, good to see you here, Farnham was my home town and as a kid I was an East-banker (in the days of silk scarves around the wrist, cringe to think of that now).

Sadly I'm still an East-banker (although the scarf is gone), although I don't get down as much as I used to when I lived locally (Fleet). What era were you around?

Loving my "Red & Blue Braces" rank at the moment on this forum.
"

Well, mid-seventies through mid-eighties, moved to Dorset coast, hardly been back at all to my shame but have never adopted Bournemouth for example or anyone, these days I will watch any team so long as it's a fair contest.

So was there for the Shrewsbury FAC QF (13,000+ wasn't it), but before that are happy memories of match programmes, people huddled around portable radios on the station afterwards for the results on sports report, freezing cold afternoons at home to Rochdale and Hartlepool etc, I did travel away as a teenager sometimes, I remember Feethams and Springfield Park! Names I remember most, Murray Brodie, Joe Jopling, Alex McGregor, Jack Howarth, John Dungworth, Terry Mancini and a Glen Johnson that looked a lot different to the modern one lol

There was also one unforgettable night that stands out, it was midweek so possibly a cup-tie, Wimbledon away so Plough Lane obvs and legend has it that 4000+ Shots travelled up that night, great times!

[Aldershot Rejects]

@Aldershot Rejects, good to see you here, Farnham was my home town and as a kid I was an East-banker (in the days of silk scarves around the wrist, cringe to think of that now).

Sadly I'm still an East-banker (although the scarf is gone), although I don't get down as much as I used to when I lived locally (Fleet). What era were you around?

Loving my "Red & Blue Braces" rank at the moment on this forum.
"

Well, mid-seventies through mid-eighties, moved to Dorset coast, hardly been back at all to my shame but have never adopted Bournemouth for example or anyone, these days I will watch any team so long as it's a fair contest.

So was there for the Shrewsbury FAC QF (13,000+ wasn't it), but before that are happy memories of match programmes, people huddled around portable radios on the station afterwards for the results on sports report, freezing cold afternoons at home to Rochdale and Hartlepool etc, I did travel away as a teenager sometimes, I remember Feethams and Springfield Park! Names I remember most, Murray Brodie, Joe Jopling, Alex McGregor, Jack Howarth, John Dungworth, Terry Mancini and a Glen Johnson that looked a lot different to the modern one lol

There was also one unforgettable night that stands out, it was midweek so possibly a cup-tie, Wimbledon away so Plough Lane obvs and legend has it that 4000+ Shots travelled up that night, great times!

I started in 1969; some great memories there and some painful ones (Shrewsbury). Big Jack was my all time favourite player. I moved to London but carried on going, teenage son now has 10+ years as a fan - Local teams (Arsenal and Spurs) didn't appeal to him.

Drop me a line if ever you fancy a game.

[Corroded Soul]

@Aldershot Rejects, good to see you here, Farnham was my home town and as a kid I was an East-banker (in the days of silk scarves around the wrist, cringe to think of that now).

Sadly I'm still an East-banker (although the scarf is gone), although I don't get down as much as I used to when I lived locally (Fleet). What era were you around?

Loving my "Red & Blue Braces" rank at the moment on this forum.
"

Well, mid-seventies through mid-eighties, moved to Dorset coast, hardly been back at all to my shame but have never adopted Bournemouth for example or anyone, these days I will watch any team so long as it's a fair contest.

So was there for the Shrewsbury FAC QF (13,000+ wasn't it), but before that are happy memories of match programmes, people huddled around portable radios on the station afterwards for the results on sports report, freezing cold afternoons at home to Rochdale and Hartlepool etc, I did travel away as a teenager sometimes, I remember Feethams and Springfield Park! Names I remember most, Murray Brodie, Joe Jopling, Alex McGregor, Jack Howarth, John Dungworth, Terry Mancini and a Glen Johnson that looked a lot different to the modern one lol

There was also one unforgettable night that stands out, it was midweek so possibly a cup-tie, Wimbledon away so Plough Lane obvs and legend has it that 4000+ Shots travelled up that night, great times!

I started in 1969; some great memories there and some painful ones (Shrewsbury). Big Jack was my all time favourite player. I moved to London but carried on going, teenage son now has 10+ years as a fan - Local teams (Arsenal and Spurs) didn't appeal to him.

Drop me a line if ever you fancy a game.

A game of? (specifically lol)

Are you playing just FPL or doing the Ultimate this season?

Also, how did you get your red and blue braces status, is that a posts reward here?

[loosecannon85]

Really interesting article, thank you. I am not sure I agree with all your conclusions, particularly your use of averages.

For instance you say, "Around 5 transfer’s hits can pay off but mainly in the early part of the season or when an expensive player gets injured and you need to shuffle the funds around." Well, the winner made no transfer hits and the guy who was second made 9. The average is 5 but the approach is very different. From the data, I think you can say that if you take too many hits (e.g. more than 12 over the course of the season, or one every 3 GWs) you are unlikely to be competitive at the highest level, but I wouldn't want to say too much more than that.

Similarly, I'm not sure that I would agree with you that the data "proves that saving your wildcard for double game weeks is an effective strategy." How many of the top 50 got a substantial lift in ranking after playing their DGW wildcard? I'm not saying that a late double gameweek wildcard isn't an effective strategy, I'm just not convinced that the data proves it. What is perhaps interesting is that many top players don't seem to require wildcards to thrive. It would be interesting to know what rank Simon and Jon were at the end of GW23 (before they played their first wildcard). Of course, as you note - the new wildcard rules change things considerably for this year.

I agree that my analysis may be quite primitive . However the principle is still strong for me - these players were the top 50 and 30 of them used their wildcard in game week 34, so that must of helped them.

In future I plan to get data from a larger group, perhaps the top 1000. I will look at recording their game week ranks as well, that will be useful data to look at, we can see if the wildcard actually boosted their rankings.