Fab+Costa, or Haz+8.5 forward

[Carbone]

I'm guessing a lot of people are considering this, for the sake of argument, please consider them all healthy and fit... I've currently Fab and Costa , but am considering Haz and Benteke.

So, you?

[MDrec]

Haz + Benteke ( + Rooney)

[Notned]

Hazard and Benteke, hands down.

[Mav3rick]

There's only one way I'd consider (and have considered) Fabregas over Hazard and that's in a team where Aguero is the perma-captain. With no Aguero and now these doubts over Costa, you can't not pick Hazard.

[Aldershot Rejects]

I'm thinking of going without Hazard initially.

Planning to get Aguero in for GW3/4 and looking at Aguero's fixtures, I would the plan to captain him every week until at least GW12. I cannot then justify spending 11.5m on a player who I'm not captaining. So until my team value goes up or a reliable mid/budget price option (a la Kane) emerges, I'm going to leave Hazard out.

The question then becomes should I bring him in for the first 2-3 GWs and then downgrade him to enable the Aguero transfer? I would probably captain him in GWs 1 & 3 but not 2. The choice for GW1-2 would then be (A) Hazard & Kane or (B) Fabregas & Rooney & 1.5m (i.e. upgrade another player); option B also gives me extra flexibility I think.

The main reason to bring in Hazard would be to cover the 50%+ of teams that have him which seems a pretty negative way to start the season. Leaving him out will also mean that the state of my nerves won't allow me to watch Chelsea for the next couple of months (which may actually be an advantage )

I value your opinions and would be grateful if someone could convince me of the madness of this scheme.

[Mav3rick]

I'm thinking of going without Hazard initially.

...

I value your opinions and would be grateful if someone could convince me of the madness of this scheme.

It isn't madness IMO, but there's obviously a lot of risk in the idea. As you say, after GW1, Aguero is the best captain in many instances and Chelsea don't have a favourable fixture (when City don't also have one) until GW13.

If you were feeling brave, and are happy to captain Aguero most weeks then saving the wildcard for GW13 (when Chelsea embark on a mega-fixture run that you will not want to be without Hazard for) is not a bad shout. On a non-captaincy basis (so just looking at value) Fabregas or another 9.0 mid plus 2.5 invested elsewhere could make up the points quite easily.

Of course Hazard will score points and people will say you are mad for not having him, but if you are going to captain Aguero anyway, then Hazard is clearly more expensive than the points he will score if not doubled.

In short, no it isn't madness, and is in fact a wildcard strategy that I think is highly possible.

[Aldershot Rejects]

Thanks Mav3rick

[d2024p]

I've been really struggling to find a spot in my team for Hazard and Aguero at the same time. Something in my mind, probably something in most of our minds, is nagging away that a team without Hazard is somehow missing out.

I intend to captain Aguero every week when he is fit so, I thought I'd try and work out the cost benefit of having Hazard if he is picking up 1x points for me vs saving the money and investing it elsewhere in the team. I put together some comparative statistics based on scaling other players up to Hazard's minutes played (no midfielder played more last season) and adjusting their scores accordingly, then dividing these scores by their price to get points per million assuming equal minutes played. Nothing really new or world beating but it has helped me understand my best approach to the new season.

What is interesting is that Hazard comes out at 20.3 while Aguero gets 22.1. No surprise maybe - I have scaled up the minutes of a player who had a couple of injuries last year - but trying more players, Sanchez nets 20.6 - more than Hazard - Yaya gets 22.7, Fabregas gets 21.4. We all suspect that Henderson is good value and he is indeed at 24.0. Sigurdsson has gone up in price so people are perhaps loath to see him as good value, but his PPM is still a fantastic 25.9. Eriksen is also better value in this algorithm than Hazard.

Looking at a couple of strikers (I didn't have a chance to do this all with full stats and a spreadsheet, I did it on the bus with a pen and paper ) Pelle, despite getting a good score and being reasonably priced only comes out at 19.1. Kane is still great value at 26.3. Costa is 22.3, Berahino is the same as Kane on 26.3.

A sample set of defenders all work out at better value than Edin. Ivanovic is 25.3, Terry 24.9. Cresswell is 23.1, Williams 24.0 and Mertesacker is 23.6. The goalkeepers are the best value though, by a mile. Adrian is 28.4, Speroni 26.9, Schmeichel is 28.7. Pantillimon, Mignolet and Fabianski all come in over 30.

My conclusion really is that there is inflation in player value at the very top end of the spectrum. Because Hazard is the standout midfielder, FPL have felt it necessary to put him in his own price bracket and, unless you plan to captain him regularly he just isn't worth weakening the rest of your team for. I'm really interested to see that Kane and Siggy are still great value despite price rises so I will be going for them. I appreciate that my study is by no means perfect. Hazard played all those minutes because he is a mercurial talent and Jose was heavily reliant on him last season, but it works both ways: to justify his price tag this season he has to significantly outdo himself over last year and to do so he has to be lucky and have another injury free season. Food for thought anyway. I'm happy with Kun for captain whilst he is fit and the best replacement when he's not. Hope you find this useful!

EDIT - I suppose it works both ways, because Kun has a solid but not amazing score too. If you are going for Hazard, captain him and don't bother with Aguero.

[wahine]

yes its interesting but what good is it if the player is injured 'frequently and in your team, it just means more transfers,
at least Hazard is less injury prone than Aguero, so that's a place you don't need to change.

last season I went with Fabregas rather than Hazard and it cost me

I dropped Costa out of my draft when he got injury cloud once again, its a roller coaster that I need to avoid.

Chelsea have not got the good start they had last season including the double so its safe to start with Hazard and see how the first gameweek pans out that's what I will do

I am also not on the Henderson bandwagon, because I feel that if HE is scoring top FPL points that doesn't say much for the rest of the Liverpool team, surely a team member will come forward to take those FPL points off Henderson. but then again, he does play every game so has that on his side.
Im trying to play safe and avoid transfers by picking players that stay the distance, then sorting out the value from there.
HAZARD FABREGAS and ROONEY for me for GW 1

[Sutter Kane]

A friend of mine said he read this somewhere; not sure if this has been mentioned before but looking at Fabregas' season history, there is a marked difference between the first half and second half of every season in terms of goals/assists. The first is always brilliant, the second half shocking.

Edit: In fact, googling this leads to a large number of related articles.

[Aldershot Rejects]

My conclusion really is that there is inflation in player value at the very top end of the spectrum. Because Hazard is the standout midfielder, FPL have felt it necessary to put him in his own price bracket and, unless you plan to captain him regularly he just isn't worth weakening the rest of your team for. I'm really interested to see that Kane and Siggy are still great value despite price rises so I will be going for them. I appreciate that my study is by no means perfect. Hazard played all those minutes because he is a mercurial talent and Jose was heavily reliant on him last season, but it works both ways: to justify his price tag this season he has to significantly outdo himself over last year and to do so he has to be lucky and have another injury free season. Food for thought anyway. I'm happy with Kun for captain whilst he is fit and the best replacement when he's not. Hope you find this useful!

EDIT - I suppose it works both ways, because Kun has a solid but not amazing score too. If you are going for Hazard, captain him and don't bother with Aguero.

Interesting, backs up my gut feeling and agree that it applies to Kun as well. Thank you.

[d2024p]

yes its interesting but what good is it if the player is injured 'frequently and in your team, it just means more transfers

I competely agree, and the biggest flaw in my reasoning is that scaling up of minutes can't be done uniformly. Some players played fewer minutes because of injury or rotation, perhaps they were fresher when they did play hence the enhanced values.

Still though, it's worth remembering that whilst Hazard got the highest score last year he had the most minutes in the mid/att bracket. I stand by my assertions that a.) he will need to improve further on last year and b.) he will need to stay almost completely injury free again to justify his price tag . It's actually a bit of a risk picking him. You pay extra for the security of points, but you can pick up more for your money elsewhere.

[Carbone]

A friend of mine said he read this somewhere; not sure if this has been mentioned before but looking at Fabregas' season history, there is a marked difference between the first half and second half of every season in terms of goals/assists. The first is always brilliant, the second half shocking.

Edit: In fact, googling this leads to a large number of related articles.

Exactly! And I think Haz had a quite slow start to both of last season (right?). I'm certain for the one before the last, I had him at start, not sure for the last one, but I had Fab then and it worked fine.

Fab and Costa, hmmm... I have a similar dilemma for Roonpig and Depay, and I never start with CK, but Depay seems ace, and might play CF... But I digress.

[asm_fanz]

Hazard starting slow is a bit of a myth IMO. Sure for the first part of the season last year Fabregas was a better pick, but here are Hazard's stats for the 3 August games from the last 3 seasons:
12/13: 1 goal / 6 (!) assists
13/14 : 1 goal
14/15 : 1 goal / 1 assist

Thats not too bad is it...

[Carbone]

But surely not worth 11.5? Hmmmm... For 13/14 I seem to remember selling him in 4th or 5th round for a loss of around 0.4 in value... is there a place where you can find stats on previous FPL seasons?

[MPTree]

With no Aguero and now these doubts over Costa, you can't not pick Hazard.

Mourinho says Costa will make Sunday's game.
https://twitter.com/ChelseaFC/status/627103211304943617

Massive.

EDIT: Or rather, that he's "available" for the game. Which, upon reflection, may not mean anything coming from Jose.

[MoSe]

But surely not worth 11.5? Hmmmm... For 13/14 I seem to remember selling him in 4th or 5th round for a loss of around 0.4 in value... is there a place where you can find stats on previous FPL seasons?

I only have last season
both every single score item, and all price changes saved from CTC
could post what Hazard did early in the season, but won't be back on PC till tue/wed...

[asm_fanz]

But surely not worth 11.5? Hmmmm... For 13/14 I seem to remember selling him in 4th or 5th round for a loss of around 0.4 in value... is there a place where you can find stats on previous FPL seasons?

If you want to know in which games he scored/assisted you can use that http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/eden-haz ... aison=2013