Goalkeeper, what's your thoughts? (Premium Vs rotation)

[Football Hero]

If you plan to do a goalkeeper transfer in GW8, then that is fine. However from GW8 - GW11, I can see West Brom losing all of those matches and so he shouldn't willingly be played in any of them.

The only downside to doing a goalkeeper transfer in GW8 is the opportunity cost of not doing an alternative transfer, but if you've planned for it then it should work out well.

Even if I played Foster GW8-11, by then I have already received a great advantage by investing 0.5m elsewhere in my squad on the field for GW4-7 - compared to those who have had 0.5m on bench, instead of on-field, for GW4-7.

You see, it's a judgment call, and there is not a definite right answer.

Yes, you have had the slight advantage of reinvesting the 0.5, and if you keep the 0.5 invested in your other players, it will be GW8 - GW11 where the pain will be felt from that decision essentially.

A lot will change by GW8 regardless of how much you plan. At worst, I will pay -4 points for having 0.5m more money on field for GW4, GW5, GW6, GW7. So I will have 0.5m more money on field for a total of four gameweeks, and in the very worst case scenario I pay -4 points for that - doesn't sound too bad for me.

How do I have a feeling neither of us wants to give a last word for the other?

I am trying to base my goalkeeper strategy on using as few transfers as possible and just letting them sit there, working more effectively in tandem.

Your strategy could be better if you spend the odd transfer on your goalkeepers, (because transfers are better than being forced into a strict rotation, since rotations rarely fit 100% snugly, whereas transfers can fit 100% snugly around fixtures), but if you don't spend a transfer here and there due to having other transfers you need to make, it will likely be a bit worse overall.

[dino1980]

Loads of ways to play this game! I'm firmly in the 4.5/4.0 camp as opposed to 4.5/4.5 as I think the .5 can be invested elsewhere with a greater return. However just for fun I decided to run some numbers using the FFS RMT tool for projected returns from now until the end of the season using various goalkeeper combos costing 8.5 or 9.0. Obviously this isn't 100% fullproof but it gives a good idea of what to expect in terms of returns for different combos.

So using Foster/Pickford (the most popular 8.5 combo) as a baseline I then looked at numerous 4.5/4.5 combos to see how many more points they'd return over the course of the season if you played the keeper with the best fixture each week. Results below:

Foster/Boruc +6.57 points
Foster/Valdes +4.58 points
Foster/Heaton +3.18 points
Foster/Mandanda +2.23 points
Heaton/Valdes -0.5 points
Heaton/Mandanda -2.34 points
Mandanda/Valdes -3.41 points

So the best outcome, according to FFS, is +6.57 points for the season by having two rotating 4.5s instead of the Foster/Pickford combo. Can you get 'better value' for that .5 elsewhere? Yes, yes you can.

I set up the defence of the team as below in what is a pretty typical spread of funds. I then had a front eight of Hazard/Ozil/Firmino/Bolasie/Capoue/Aguero/Lukaku/Benteke which is in budget and means that more than 3 at the back will be a rarity:

GK: 4.5/4.0
Defence: Best 5.5/Best 5.0/Best 4.5 x 3 - by best I mean I looked at the FFS Season Long predictions for defenders and picked those predicted to score the most at the three price points.

I then replaced the worst 4.5 with the second best 5.0 and the outcome was +11.52 points
Then using the original structure I replaced the best 5.0 with the second best 5.5 and the outcome was +12.8 points.

I stopped there as I'd wasted enough of my time by this point.

[Stemania]

Various posts moved from the Jakupovic or Pickford - which one is more likely to start? thread as it seems a more appropriate place for them.

[Football Hero]

Loads of ways to play this game! I'm firmly in the 4.5/4.0 camp as opposed to 4.5/4.5 as I think the .5 can be invested elsewhere with a greater return. However just for fun I decided to run some numbers using the FFS RMT tool for projected returns from now until the end of the season using various goalkeeper combos costing 8.5 or 9.0. Obviously this isn't 100% fullproof but it gives a good idea of what to expect in terms of returns for different combos.

So using Foster/Pickford (the most popular 8.5 combo) as a baseline I then looked at numerous 4.5/4.5 combos to see how many more points they'd return over the course of the season if you played the keeper with the best fixture each week. Results below:

Foster/Boruc +6.57 points
Foster/Valdes +4.58 points
Foster/Heaton +3.18 points
Foster/Mandanda +2.23 points
Heaton/Valdes -0.5 points
Heaton/Mandanda -2.34 points
Mandanda/Valdes -3.41 points

So the best outcome, according to FFS, is +6.57 points for the season by having two rotating 4.5s instead of the Foster/Pickford combo. Can you get 'better value' for that .5 elsewhere? Yes, yes you can.

I set up the defence of the team as below in what is a pretty typical spread of funds. I then had a front eight of Hazard/Ozil/Firmino/Bolasie/Capoue/Aguero/Lukaku/Benteke which is in budget and means that more than 3 at the back will be a rarity:

GK: 4.5/4.0
Defence: Best 5.5/Best 5.0/Best 4.5 x 3 - by best I mean I looked at the FFS Season Long predictions for defenders and picked those predicted to score the most at the three price points.

I then replaced the worst 4.5 with the second best 5.0 and the outcome was +11.52 points
Then using the original structure I replaced the best 5.0 with the second best 5.5 and the outcome was +12.8 points.

I stopped there as I'd wasted enough of my time by this point.

I'm surprised that it's only a 6.5 point increase from rotation.

Perhaps this is based heavily on last year which was a bit of an anomaly when it comes to Home CS/Away CS.

The ratio of Home CS/Away CS for the last three years is:

2015/16: 132%
2014/15: 145%
2013/14: 148%

If this season follows a more 'normal' pattern with Chelsea/Man Utd/Man City duking it out at the top and Leicester/Spurs sliding back, you would expect a greater ratio of home clean sheets to away clean sheets than there was last year. There would also be less minus points being subtracted for home defences and more minus points being subtracted for away defences.

Perhaps more data needs to be analysed to see how pronounced the advantage is for playing at home.

[Sutter Kane]

I'm surprised that it's only a 6.5 point increase from rotation.

Well when you get the choice wrong, it often goes 'horror show' wrong. An away clean sheet with lots of saves could be 10-11 points. When you play your keeper 100% of the time, you catch all the big scores, and obviously all the 1s too; I found with rotating that I got a fair few 6s but also an awful lot of 2s, very little huge scores. I haven't rotated keepers properly for 3 years now. I'll spend that 0.5mn more wisely I feel; towards the DGWs I'll change things a little when I have more £.

Out of Jaku/Pickford, I'll go Pickford as there's an OK chance he keeps his place until Mannone gets back. If Pickford does well, he may keep his place full stop.

[I Am Ville]

On a wildcard and thunking of keeping Jaku and Foster as have made 0.1 on them already and hoping if Jaku keeps his place he will slowly rise.

Is this stupid thinking and should i just get in Pickford as he is now a more likely starter than Jaku?

Deffo keeping Foster

[Resonare]

On a wildcard and thunking of keeping Jaku and Foster as have made 0.1 on them already and hoping if Jaku keeps his place he will slowly rise.

Is this stupid thinking and should i just get in Pickford as he is now a more likely starter than Jaku?

Deffo keeping Foster

If Jakupovic doesn't start, and he probably won't, then you're stuck racing to get him out (before an inevitable price drop) for Pickford who will probably be rising.

[CupidStunt000]

I guess we could argue all day about whether 4.5 / 4.0 beats 4.5 / 4.5 or not but even if there was any advantage to the 4.5 / 4.5 system it's negligible and I'd rather not have the stress of weighing up the pros and cons only to pick the wrong keeper each week or wondering where I can possibly get the 0.4 from to get that team that gives you butterflies whenever you put it in your transfer template. Gonna take the KISS approach to this one and Keep It Simple Stupid.

[Football Hero]

I'm surprised that it's only a 6.5 point increase from rotation.

Well when you get the choice wrong, it often goes 'horror show' wrong. An away clean sheet with lots of saves could be 10-11 points. When you play your keeper 100% of the time, you catch all the big scores, and obviously all the 1s too; I found with rotating that I got a fair few 6s but also an awful lot of 2s, very little huge scores. I haven't rotated keepers properly for 3 years now. I'll spend that 0.5mn more wisely I feel; towards the DGWs I'll change things a little when I have more £.

Out of Jaku/Pickford, I'll go Pickford as there's an OK chance he keeps his place until Mannone gets back. If Pickford does well, he may keep his place full stop.

Heaton got 10 CS in 2014/15.

Now if we split the fixtures into 4 pools of fixture difficulty, (based on points picked up by each team), we have:

Pool 1: che, mcy, mun, ars, sou, liv, stk, CHE, MCY, ARS

Pool 2: tot, swa, whm, eve, lei, new, TOT, CRY, LIV, MUN

Pool 3: wba, qpr, cry, ast, hul, sun, bur, SWA, SOU, STK

Pool 4: EVE, WBA, SUN, AST, WHM, HUL, LEI, BUR, NEW, QPR

Now if we look at Heaton's CS breakdown:

Pool 1: 1
Pool 2: 2
Pool 3: 5
Pool 4: 2

So from just an initial glance, it seems that Heaton's CS are weighted towards his easiest 18 games, (7 CS), and he doesn't keep many CS in his hardest 20 games, (3 CS). The difficulty seems to be assessing some of the opponents that actually represent the hard and easy fixtures ahead of time though.

[Multiple Scorgasms]

On a wildcard and thunking of keeping Jaku and Foster as have made 0.1 on them already and hoping if Jaku keeps his place he will slowly rise.

Is this stupid thinking and should i just get in Pickford as he is now a more likely starter than Jaku?

Deffo keeping Foster

I am keeping jaku

Sent from my Hudl 2 using Tapatalk

[gallus]

That extra 0.5 saving isn't worth the increased points hauls from fixture rotation that you lose out on, as well as injury cover that you also lose out on too. No way is 0.5 extra cash worth giving up those two advantages for.

The injury/ban cover is worth something, but can also be an opportunity to switch keepers even if it does cost you 4 pts.

I'm not sure that the rotation bonus has ever been proven. It always looks good on paper, but I always have a nagging doubt that you miss out on the unexpected 10 pointers than push a budget keeper up toward the 150+ mark. I do believe in rotation, but it always feels better putting that extra 0.5 "on the pitch" in most teams I ever look at.

I can confirm that this happens. It's better to just go with a single 4.5 and transfer him out if you have to.

[Joccki_10]

How did Jakupovic do today? Wonder how many of you watched Burnley - Hull.

[pdhmobile]

Whats the thoughts on picking a premium and a bench warmer and just playing the premium. I done it for a bit last season, it beats second guessing which to pick out of 2 budget playing keepers?

[Joccki_10]

There already is a thread about this subject. At the moment I've got both Jakupovic and Pickford and I got more pressing issues to solve rather than changing Jakupovic.

[gallus]

I prefer a cheapie and a bench warmer. It saves 1.0 at the expense of 10-15 points, which I'm happy enough to do.

[Resonare]

Currently got Heaton and Pickford, the only premiums I'd consider are Cech land Lloris.

[Stemania]

There already is a thread about this subject.

Threads now merged.

[ricardo68]

I went with Stekelenberg (5.0) due to Everton's easy start to the season and have been rewarded with 3, 2, 6, 6, -1, 2, 2 (total of 20). Make of that what you will (I consider it a bit Sh!t).

[BobMem]

I went De Gea for 5.5, and now have 2 points more than you!
Pretty tempted to switch to Loris if no international break concerns.

[Sutter Kane]

At the moment, not many clean sheets so no point in spending heavily. Then again, if the number of clean sheets increases (for some random unlikely unknown reason!) then the cheaper keepers will get more bonuses than the expensive ones due to saves (+CS) and usually match up quite well with the premiums. You'd of course expect the likes of De Gea and Cech, etc to top score at the end but for me, it's never been worth it under any circumstances.

So 9.5mn spend for me right now. Wasting a transfer on a keeper is a last resort too.

[BobMem]

Who do you think is the best of the cheapies? I'm no means set on Loris, and would appreciate the extra cash in the bank for a future 4th mid upgrade.

I like the idea of the Hull keeper (Marshall?), but with Jakupovic and Robertson I would cock-block myself on getting Snodgrass, who might be a decent option over the next few.

Imagine not being able to get 4 Hull being an issue!

[ajcairns]

no matter how good Hull's fixtures seem over the next few weeks the only reason to get any of their players should be for budgetary reasons and then only 1 or 2 or Marshall (who should be nailed now), Robertson (as a 5th Def) and Snodgrass (as 4th/5th Mid).

[Weisenwolf]

Is it clear how the Hull defence will line up?

[Owsler]

Currently got Foster and Jakupovic. What are people's thoughts on upgrading one to Forster? I'm worried I'm just looking at a decent fixture this weekend which could quite easily get nicked. Am I best just sticking with Foster for save points? Defensive decisions seem so random at the moment.

[DonTanTilla]

I've got Pickford & Jakupovic and obviously need to shift Jaku assuming he's lost his spot.

Anyone else with this predicament? Who are people stumping for?

[Drew_Peacock]

Thinking of going with Mandananananana as hes cheap and their fixtures are reasonable enough.

Boruc is also in my thoughts although i already have Adam Smith so it would mean a Bournemouth double up which i'm not that keen on. Still though - there are worse teams to double up with.

[Mav3rick]

I've been thinking of jumping on Marshall, but depending how Pickford goes this week I may just keep him at least until I can reasonably get Foster back. His save points are decent enough for the price.

[blahblah]

Is it clear how the Hull defence will line up?

My guess is badly now Phelan has the full time job and the initial excitement has gone - it's all down hill from here, imho.

[MoSe]

Is it clear how the Hull defence will line up?

My guess is badly now Phelan has the full time job and the initial excitement has gone - it's all down hill from here, imho.

You mean down hull

[blahblah]

Is it clear how the Hull defence will line up?

My guess is badly now Phelan has the full time job and the initial excitement has gone - it's all down hill from here, imho.

You mean down hull

Or a holed hull, a bit like the Titanic.