Getting Sanchez *and* the other big 3?

[Sutter Kane]

Looking at the maths is all well and good but if you don't own Aguero, you have to captain someone else, which is where it often goes wrong since you have plenty of choices (due to the funds available is not owning Kun), and most of those choices are duds in a given week.

I do think we need to be clearer about Aguero, is he consistent? You can't be explosive and consistent unless you score 350+ points. But spreading the Aguero cash around can be a bit silly too, you are effectively upgrading already excellent vfm players, and turning them into players who are probably less vfm. It's about balance whilst maximising captaincy potential.

If one opted to go without Kun, then suddenly, Sanchez is value at 11mn because he's captainable. Maybe a strategy where you look at fixture runs of teams such as Arsenal and chose to captain Sanchez every week during those games could work. Then switch to Chelsea/Hazard's nice run, etc. Takes planning and an absence of bad luck though.

Hazard on pens is nicely priced at 10mn so he kind of has to be in our squads I think. The other 2 are take it or leave it - I wouldn't have all 4 long term. Think I might just go with Kun and Hazard whilst budgets are small.

[Weisenwolf]

Very likely vs very unlikely compromise at 50%, I can roll with that.

So for ten letters\emails that I invite Anjelina Jolie for a weekend of debauchery (with me, obviously) and she says no 10 times: I still have a fifty\fifty chance with the 11th?

She spent all weekend in my Jaccuzi so I'd say you had no chance

[blahblah]

[Weisenwolf]

I could get Cazorla for Coutinho and trouser .7 add that to the 1M ITB and upgrade Redmond with it.

2. Referees do not give Arsenal many penalties.

Yet Arsenal have had 2 penalties in 3 games

Which might suggest it'll be plenty of games before they get two more.

Somebody says Arsenal don't get many penalties, and I mention they have had 2 in 3 games. For you to then say that is absolute nonsense.

Don't be stupid. Go and Google "Law of Averages"

as I pointed out to my twin 5 year olds yesterday, it is not appropriate to call people 'stupid' just because you don't agree with their opinion.

They agreed

[scarletjim]

Don't be stupid. Go and Google "Law of Averages"

as I pointed out to my twin 5 year olds yesterday, it is not appropriate to call people 'stupid' just because you don't agree with their opinion.

They agreed

Yeah it was actully that comment, rather than the flawed logic, that made me get invovled in the conversation. But I doubt it was intended to offend - CR7 normally seems like a nice enough person, and to their credit, removed themselves from the conversation (albeit without accepting their error) rather than carrying it on. No biggie.

[blahblah]

as I pointed out to my twin 5 year olds yesterday, it is not appropriate to call people 'stupid' just because you don't agree with their opinion.

They agreed

I think they were calling you stupid

[scarletjim]

In my comments above I've said that I'll take Ozil rather than Sanchez, but the potential Aguero ban may change that. I might take Sanchez, and what's more, I might even take him over Hazard for the next few weeks - is that madness? I know Hazard is on form and on pens, but they have Liverpool, Arsenal, Man United and Leicester in 4 of the next 6. I know those sides aren't all great defensively recently, but you'd rather be facing bottom 6 sides or relegation favourites surely.

Anyone else got Sanchez ahead of Hazard for the next 6 GWs?

[Weisenwolf]

as I pointed out to my twin 5 year olds yesterday, it is not appropriate to call people 'stupid' just because you don't agree with their opinion.

They agreed

I think they were calling you stupid

Doh! I missed that one

[Weisenwolf]

In my comments above I've said that I'll take Ozil rather than Sanchez, but the potential Aguero ban may change that. I might take Sanchez, and what's more, I might even take him over Hazard for the next few weeks - is that madness? I know Hazard is on form and on pens, but they have Liverpool, Arsenal, Man United and Leicester in 4 of the next 6. I know those sides aren't all great defensively recently, but you'd rather be facing bottom 6 sides or relegation favourites surely.

Anyone else got Sanchez ahead of Hazard for the next 6 GWs?

I would like to have both. I'd rather shift Ibra out than Hazard. Aguero situation may force the issue too.

[scarletjim]

Thankfully Tadic seems like he'll survive until tomorrow without a fall, and Sanchez / Ozil look like they won't rise tonight, so it looks like I can wait until tomorrow. Almost pulled the trigger last night on Tadic > Hazard, but the Aguero thing has made me question whether that's the right way to go in the short term, as if I had Sanchez, I might well captain him in 4 of the next 6 GWs... (Would then WC somewhere between GW8 and GW11, having lost some team value, but with a better idea of who to take for the longer term).

[The Libero]

Thinking about the value for money of the premiums, I'd rank Hazard (10.1) and Kane (10.9) the best, if they are on form. In the last two seasons Aguero scored 50 goals and 13 assists; whereas Kane scored 46 goals and 10 assists, and on that level of performance, Kane is a reasonably close clone of Aguero at 2m cheaper.

Sanchez in the last two seasons scored 29 goals and 13 assists, compared to Hazard's 19 goals and 14 assists, but if you regarded Hazard's last season as being an outlier, and instead looked at his two seasons before that, he scored 28 goals and 20 assists. So overall you can probably say those two are similar, albeit Hazard is 0.8m cheaper, has more likelihood of picking up clean sheet points, and when he has been in form, has been a better bet at remaining fit and robust over the full season where Sanchez can go through periods of tiring. (Yes I'm aware Hazard had a whole season of being average, which is why he is attractively priced now, I'm regarding that as being a blip that won't be repeated.

De Bruyne's record last year (7 goals, 10 assists) was not as good as maybe people think largely because he didn't get much output away from home, so at 10.5 I'd have him below Hazard and Sanchez.

At the 9.5 bracket you basically have Ozil who averages 5 goals and 12 assists in his 3 seasons here, Payet (9 and 13 last season), Mahrez (11 and 8 averaged over the past two seasons) and Martial (11 and 6 last season). Out of those I have less confidence in the reliability of Mahrez and Ozil and more in Payet and Martial.

Ibrahimovic is the difficult one to assess because other than his age a lot of things are in his favour - no CL action, good fitness record, on penalties, United seem to be rejuvenated and have quality in the midfield to create chances for him, so he may be an Aguero clone at 1.5m cheaper.

[Football Hero]

Thinking about the value for money of the premiums, I'd rank Hazard (10.1) and Kane (10.9) the best, if they are on form. In the last two seasons Aguero scored 50 goals and 13 assists; whereas Kane scored 46 goals and 10 assists, and on that level of performance, Kane is a reasonably close clone of Aguero at 2m cheaper.

Sanchez in the last two seasons scored 29 goals and 13 assists, compared to Hazard's 19 goals and 14 assists, but if you regarded Hazard's last season as being an outlier, and instead looked at his two seasons before that, he scored 28 goals and 20 assists. So overall you can probably say those two are similar, albeit Hazard is 0.8m cheaper, has more likelihood of picking up clean sheet points, and when he has been in form, has been a better bet at remaining fit and robust over the full season where Sanchez can go through periods of tiring. (Yes I'm aware Hazard had a whole season of being average, which is why he is attractively priced now, I'm regarding that as being a blip that won't be repeated.

De Bruyne's record last year (7 goals, 10 assists) was not as good as maybe people think largely because he didn't get much output away from home, so at 10.5 I'd have him below Hazard and Sanchez.

At the 9.5 bracket you basically have Ozil who averages 5 goals and 12 assists in his 3 seasons here, Payet (9 and 13 last season), Mahrez (11 and 8 averaged over the past two seasons) and Martial (11 and 6 last season). Out of those I have less confidence in the reliability of Mahrez and Ozil and more in Payet and Martial.

Ibrahimovic is the difficult one to assess because other than his age a lot of things are in his favour - no CL action, good fitness record, on penalties, United seem to be rejuvenated and have quality in the midfield to create chances for him, so he may be an Aguero clone at 1.5m cheaper.

Good assessment.

Yeah, I think De Bruyne should be closer to 9.5 personally, he seems too expensive to own this year as there's not quite enough goalage in him, despite him having a powerful shot.

Lucas Perez could help improve Sanchez and Ozil's output if he scores more goals than Giroud, (which presumably he should do if they are thinking about replacing Giroud with him).

[Sutter Kane]

Hazard isn't in Europe either so he's the first name on my team sheet.

I'd pencilled in Kane for GW5. However this could easily change; I find myself drawn to players from clubs who have no major commitment other than the PL. Man U, Chelsea and Liverpool being the ones I'm drawn to. The likes of Mane, Firmino, Mkhytarian are being watched!

[Huge Lion]

Just WC-ED to get Sanchez in. Now have Aguero, Hazard, Sanchez, Costa, Barkley and Sterling. Defence weakened, but happy to take the hit.

Screenshot_2016-08-29-13-29-13.png

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

[schjorp]

Would Sanchez in for Barkley (plus 2 downgrades in Rondon->Diomande and Redmond->JoshKing) for a -8 be worth it?
Or perhaps Özil in for Barkley/Lamela (plus Rondon->Diomande) for a -4?

[baganboy]

Sanchez in the last two seasons scored 29 goals and 13 assists, compared to Hazard's 19 goals and 14 assists, but if you regarded Hazard's last season as being an outlier, and instead looked at his two seasons before that, he scored 28 goals and 20 assists. So overall you can probably say those two are similar, albeit Hazard is 0.8m cheaper, has more likelihood of picking up clean sheet points, and when he has been in form, has been a better bet at remaining fit and robust over the full season where Sanchez can go through periods of tiring. (Yes I'm aware Hazard had a whole season of being average, which is why he is attractively priced now, I'm regarding that as being a blip that won't be repeated.

Alexis was broken for a lot of the last season too.
Also, one can also say that the two seasons Alexis has played in the PL were both sub-optimal. Season 1 was the settling-in season, and season 2 was the injured season.
And your stat is around Alexis = 5380 minutes and Hazard 6263 minutes i.e. almost 10 matches.
I think Alexis' upside is higher than Hazard's. It's marginal, though. And at this point, with Hazard priced cheaper than Alexis, there's nothing to choose between the two.
I have both, and am happy to.

[The Libero]

Lucas Perez could help improve Sanchez and Ozil's output if he scores more goals than Giroud, (which presumably he should do if they are thinking about replacing Giroud with him).

Hmm, the jury is out on Lucas. He's had only had one reasonably prolific season. Roberto Soldado came in to Spurs with a track record of four consistent seasons of scoring in La Liga and he didn't make that much of an impact so I'm a bit unsure about Lucas. Giroud's last three seasons' PL goal tallies are 16-14-16, and will Lucas outscore that? Time will tell.

The potential increase on output (particularly for Ozil) could be if he's the type of player that is a more clinical finisher from balls being played through to his feet/ahead of him than the target man/aerial style Giroud. I thought if Welbeck could stay fit and just improve his finishing a touch he could be a 20 goal a season player with Ozil and Sanchez around as he is a pacey player who runs on to balls.

[andybarrell]

i have all 4 + 4 big defenders, quite happy with my team now

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[Football Hero]

i have all 4 + 4 big defenders, quite happy with my team now

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That's a pretty ridiculous team. The only weakness is that you have to play one of Diomande, Capoue or Fer every week. You have the top 4 big hitters in the game, plus two Man Utd defenders, a Man City defender and Baines. That shouldn't be affordable really, FPL have messed up and not priced players high enough again.

[Geri]

.

[Football Hero]

What's even worse is that whenever Aguero is out injured, you can just switch him out for Costa, and then of the 3.5M that you have in the bank, you can use 3.0 on Redmond to turn him into Mane, and then the remaining 0.5 can be used to upgrade Fer to Puncheon.

Then your starting 11 would be:

Mandanda

Shaw, Valencia, Baines, Stones

Hazard, Sanchez, Mane, Puncheon

Ibrahimovic, Costa

Granted, your bench is sh*te, but you would rarely need to use them and all those starting 11 players would get decent points most weeks. Insane, FPL shouldn't allow a team like that to be built imo, and from just the starting 100.0 budget as well, it's far too strong and it doesn't require you to do any transfers really.

Managers aren't forced to choose players from the breadth of the league anymore, you can just fill your team with players from the top clubs. It's been like that for a few years now and it doesn't look like changing any time soon.

You'd think that if anyone were to try and squeeze the big 4 in, then their team would look something like this:

Jakupovic, Pickford

McAuley, Amat, Friend, Wilson, Holgate

Sanchez, Hazard, Redmond, Fer, Capoue

Aguero, Ibrahimovic, Diomande

At least then you could see the damage that having 4 expensive players does to the make-up of the rest of the squad.

[Geri]

i have all 4 + 4 big defenders, quite happy with my team now

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That's a pretty ridiculous team. The only weakness is that you have to play one of Diomande, Capoue or Fer every week. You have the top 4 big hitters in the game, plus two Man Utd defenders, a Man City defender and Baines. That shouldn't be affordable really, FPL have messed up and not priced players high enough again.

Ridiculous an in good??
I really like that team and that is kind of my WC plan except Ramirez instead of Fer and Foster instead of Mandanda.

[Football Hero]

i have all 4 + 4 big defenders, quite happy with my team now

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That's a pretty ridiculous team. The only weakness is that you have to play one of Diomande, Capoue or Fer every week. You have the top 4 big hitters in the game, plus two Man Utd defenders, a Man City defender and Baines. That shouldn't be affordable really, FPL have messed up and not priced players high enough again.

Ridiculous an in good??
I really like that team and that is kind of my WC plan except Ramirez instead of Fer.

Yes, it's ridiculously good, so much so that if I was behind someone in my mini-leagues, and they switched to that team right now with the top 4 big hitters and an entire defence consisting of premium defenders; then I wouldn't actually know what to do to try and outscore a team like that. I couldn't use a strategy like rotating cheap defenders to save a bit of cash etc. as my rotated cheap defenders would still score less than the premium defenders. I couldn't really choose a better midfield or attack because they own all the best options anyway with 4 strong captain choices each week; so essentially I'd be in a situation where I'm forced to copy or risk falling behind even more.

[Mav3rick]

i have all 4 + 4 big defenders, quite happy with my team now

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That's a pretty ridiculous team. The only weakness is that you have to play one of Diomande, Capoue or Fer every week. You have the top 4 big hitters in the game, plus two Man Utd defenders, a Man City defender and Baines. That shouldn't be affordable really, FPL have messed up and not priced players high enough again.

Ridiculous an in good??
I really like that team and that is kind of my WC plan except Ramirez instead of Fer.

Yes, it's ridiculously good, so much so that if I was behind someone in my mini-leagues, and they switched to that team right now with the top 4 big hitters and an entire defence consisting of premium defenders; then I wouldn't actually know what to do to try and outscore a team like that. I couldn't use a strategy like rotating cheap defenders to save a bit of cash etc. as my rotated cheap defenders would still score less than the premium defenders. I couldn't really choose a better midfield or attack because they own all the best options anyway with 4 strong captain choices each week; so essentially I'd be in a situation where I'm forced to copy or risk falling behind even more.

Let's break down the comparisons...

Keepers - these can be ignored as most teams have a 4.5/4.0 pairing
Defence - Valencia, Shaw & Kingsley can be ignored... most teams can/will be able to have a couple of premium defenders if they so wish - that leaves Baines and Stones.
Midfield - Ignore Hazard, Redmond, Capoue.. Leaves Sanchez and Fer.
Strikers - Ignore Aguero and Ibrahimovic, leaves Diomande.

So.. A base team (that any strategy can have) of a keeper, Valencia, Shaw, Hazard, Redmond, Aguero & Ibrahimovic with 4 more players to field (providing the differences).

Baines, Stones, Sanchez, Fer & Diomande, with Sanchez always starting (obviously) which leaves Baines, Stones, Fer and Diomande to provide three starters each week.

Let's think about the structure of a cheaper team now. There will be a three way rotation supplying one of the defenders, so lets put that up against Baines. There's someone like Firmino up against Sanchez, so lets pencil that in too. That leave two from Stones, Fer, and Diamonade up against Barkley and (lets say) Gray.

A) Sanchez, Baines, Stones, Diomande/Fer
vs
B) Firmino, WBA/MID/??? Rotation, Barkley, Gray

Now, if Diomande is a better option than Gray, then team B can have him, but if a good cheap striker starts doing an Austin, Ings, etc then 140 points should be doable in that position, especially as you can rotate with fixtures and have options during injuries. What is a realistic number for a Diomande/Fer rotation? Honestly, there's little chance of more than 90-100 points is there? So lets say 100. +40 to team B.

Baines vs Barkley - that being an Everton contest, but you'd expect Barkley to come out on top assuming that he's far forward and can be switched for the best 7.5 mid. Barkley is effectively shorthand for "the best 7.5 mid", while Baines' placeholder is for the "third best 5.5 defender". Last year, Tadic, Barkley & Sigurdsson all scored around 160, the best 7.5 mids from last year (Payet/Ayew) scored 170 (and were injured for parts of the season). Remembering that Baine's spot is the third best 5.5 defender, lets say he can achieve something like 140. So +30 to team B.

Stones vs the 3 way rotation. This is hard to call, but you'd be up so far if you'd done the rotation. I'm going to call it even, because of the caliber of defenders available at 4.5, and because you could drop Stones to a 4.5 defender anyway and rotate.

So that leaves a simple equation which is that in rough back of an envelope calculations, Sanchez has to be 70 points better than Firmino (who is a place holder for the best 8.5 mid). Firmino scored 155 from just under 2,000 minutes last season. Lets give him 2500 and just multiply the points up (so 190) and then remove 15 for presumed over performance. So 175 for the best 8.5 mid you can find (bearing in mind that Eriksen and Alli also hit similar marks last year).

That leaves Sanchez requiring a score of 245 just to break even.

Not saying it can't be done and I'm happy for you to disagree with my (admittedly pulled out of the air) numbers but I just wanted to show that it isn't true that a team with so many premiums is clearly better.

[Geri]

I totally understand what you are saying and I also am a fan of rotation in defence (also midfield after my TV is good enough for a decent 5th mid) but there is no single budget or mid-priced midfielder that comes out yet. This strategy is not one for the season but if you have to wildcard now (injury and the possible bans) this one is the safest of all. You could easily jump to the best mid priced midfielders and the well known 3-4-3 as soon as the bargain players come up by downgrading the least "important" (injured/banned) premium.

[Football Hero]

i have all 4 + 4 big defenders, quite happy with my team now

Capture.PNG

That's a pretty ridiculous team. The only weakness is that you have to play one of Diomande, Capoue or Fer every week. You have the top 4 big hitters in the game, plus two Man Utd defenders, a Man City defender and Baines. That shouldn't be affordable really, FPL have messed up and not priced players high enough again.

Ridiculous an in good??
I really like that team and that is kind of my WC plan except Ramirez instead of Fer.

Yes, it's ridiculously good, so much so that if I was behind someone in my mini-leagues, and they switched to that team right now with the top 4 big hitters and an entire defence consisting of premium defenders; then I wouldn't actually know what to do to try and outscore a team like that. I couldn't use a strategy like rotating cheap defenders to save a bit of cash etc. as my rotated cheap defenders would still score less than the premium defenders. I couldn't really choose a better midfield or attack because they own all the best options anyway with 4 strong captain choices each week; so essentially I'd be in a situation where I'm forced to copy or risk falling behind even more.

Let's break down the comparisons...

Keepers - these can be ignored as most teams have a 4.5/4.0 pairing
Defence - Valencia, Shaw & Kingsley can be ignored... most teams can/will be able to have a couple of premium defenders if they so wish - that leaves Baines and Stones.
Midfield - Ignore Hazard, Redmond, Capoue.. Leaves Sanchez and Fer.
Strikers - Ignore Aguero and Ibrahimovic, leaves Diomande.

So.. A base team (that any strategy can have) of a keeper, Valencia, Shaw, Hazard, Redmond, Aguero & Ibrahimovic with 4 more players to field (providing the differences).

Baines, Stones, Sanchez, Fer & Diomande, with Sanchez always starting (obviously) which leaves Baines, Stones, Fer and Diomande to provide three starters each week.

Let's think about the structure of a cheaper team now. There will be a three way rotation supplying one of the defenders, so lets put that up against Baines. There's someone like Firmino up against Sanchez, so lets pencil that in too. That leave two from Stones, Fer, and Diamonade up against Barkley and (lets say) Gray.

A) Sanchez, Baines, Stones, Diomande/Fer
vs
B) Firmino, WBA/MID/??? Rotation, Barkley, Gray

Now, if Diomande is a better option than Gray, then team B can have him, but if a good cheap striker starts doing an Austin, Ings, etc then 140 points should be doable in that position, especially as you can rotate with fixtures and have options during injuries. What is a realistic number for a Diomande/Fer rotation? Honestly, there's little chance of more than 90-100 points is there? So lets say 100. +40 to team B.

Baines vs Barkley - that being an Everton contest, but you'd expect Barkley to come out on top assuming that he's far forward and can be switched for the best 7.5 mid. Barkley is effectively shorthand for "the best 7.5 mid", while Baines' placeholder is for the "third best 5.5 defender". Last year, Tadic, Barkley & Sigurdsson all scored around 160, the best 7.5 mids from last year (Payet/Ayew) scored 170 (and were injured for parts of the season). Remembering that Baine's spot is the third best 5.5 defender, lets say he can achieve something like 140. So +30 to team B.

Stones vs the 3 way rotation. This is hard to call, but you'd be up so far if you'd done the rotation. I'm going to call it even, because of the caliber of defenders available at 4.5, and because you could drop Stones to a 4.5 defender anyway and rotate.

So that leaves a simple equation which is that in rough back of an envelope calculations, Sanchez has to be 70 points better than Firmino (who is a place holder for the best 8.5 mid). Firmino scored 155 from just under 2,000 minutes last season. Lets give him 2500 and just multiply the points up (so 190) and then remove 15 for presumed over performance. So 175 for the best 8.5 mid you can find (bearing in mind that Eriksen and Alli also hit similar marks last year).

That leaves Sanchez requiring a score of 245 just to break even.

Not saying it can't be done and I'm happy for you to disagree with my (admittedly pulled out of the air) numbers but I just wanted to show that it isn't true that a team with so many premiums is clearly better.

That's good analysis, but there will also be weeks where Sanchez can get captained, (like in GW4 for instance), so that brings back some of that 70 point deficit.

Also, Fer and Diomande can get changed out for Fletcher and Stuani, and if Stuani has a decent season then he could easily score more than the 90 - 100 points that you projected for the Diomande/Fer rotation.

You have made a good point about the better points from the third striker spot and the Barkley position though, so perhaps it's not a victory for the greedy '4 premiums' option. Could this be the triumph of choosing value/points per million over raw total points, like discussed in one of the other threads?

[baganboy]

Fantastic team build-up, Andybarrell, and fantastic analysis, Mav3rick.

Lots to ponder, lots more math to be done. Excellent stuff. This is exactly the reason I play FPL. If it were easy, what's the point in playing?

[Mav3rick]

Could this be the triumph of choosing value/points per million over raw total points, like discussed in one of the other threads?

I don't think there is a winner in the "value" debate, you just have to play what's in front of you at the time. Sometimes the move is to go for a "value" pick, sometimes it's not, it depends on so many things that there isn't a right answer.

One thing I am fairly confident of is that extremes rarely do well over the long term though because they miss optimisations. Too many premiums, not enough premiums, 5 defenders, 3 big strikers, chasing team value etc etc over the long term none of them seem to work. The strength of 3-4-3 for me isn't anything more magical than it's the most flexible formation (thus allowing you the most options) and (for the most part) it's also the cheapest formation to run which makes it efficient too.

There is so much analysis and brain power these days going into FPL thinking that if it were possible to do well based on points per million (or which ever simplified stat you chose) then it would have been discovered by now. For me, circumstances change too much throughout the season for any pre-set idea to work, what you need to be a good FPL manager is the ability to analyse your squad at any given time (in terms of what your biggest problem is - identifying what you're doing wrong can be the hard part) and deal with it whilst being able to consider all the extra incoming variables.

Actual points earned, and therefore any statistic derived from it, are almost the least important factor of the game because it has arguably the least bearing on the future prospect of a player!

[andybarrell]

Hope I have not upset anyone by having this team, someone mentioned with the Base 100m but I have wildcards last week and 4 pt hit this week to get this shower of Shite together
I think I had 100.6m
So not sure if it can be done on 100m
I am happy with this team and hopefully don't need to do much tinkering except for injuries

[Cliffard]

Could this be the triumph of choosing value/points per million over raw total points, like discussed in one of the other threads?

I don't think there is a winner in the "value" debate, you just have to play what's in front of you at the time. Sometimes the move is to go for a "value" pick, sometimes it's not, it depends on so many things that there isn't a right answer.

One thing I am fairly confident of is that extremes rarely do well over the long term though because they miss optimisations. Too many premiums, not enough premiums, 5 defenders, 3 big strikers, chasing team value etc etc over the long term none of them seem to work. The strength of 3-4-3 for me isn't anything more magical than it's the most flexible formation (thus allowing you the most options) and (for the most part) it's also the cheapest formation to run which makes it efficient too.

There is so much analysis and brain power these days going into FPL thinking that if it were possible to do well based on points per million (or which ever simplified stat you chose) then it would have been discovered by now. For me, circumstances change too much throughout the season for any pre-set idea to work, what you need to be a good FPL manager is the ability to analyse your squad at any given time (in terms of what your biggest problem is - identifying what you're doing wrong can be the hard part) and deal with it whilst being able to consider all the extra incoming variables.

Actual points earned, and therefore any statistic derived from it, are almost the least important factor of the game because it has arguably the least bearing on the future prospect of a player!

If I ever write a book on FPL, I'll put this entire quote in there, Mav. Well put, I agree.