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4-4-2 and Team Structure

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Ruth_NZ
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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by Ruth_NZ »

Fuzzy wrote:So, to cut a long story short, the flexibility to shift (and to be open enough to consider shifting) between different structures is valuable. I certainly wouldn't start the season with a structure that was built on the assumption that I would be benching 2 F/Ms each week. The other, lesser, point is that it appears to me that squad value builds more quickly via price increases in the front half of the pitch. I know its a points game and not a value game, but the greater flexibility that higher squad value provides can't be disregarded.
Yes.

I wouldn't start a season on that assumption either. In fact 4-4-2, although it has distinct advantages, also needs specific circumstances to appear in order to thrive.

One is that there must be a maximum 5.0 striker that carries real goal threat and is a regular starter. They need to be a player you'd be happy rotating in and out of your team and who would be a very good 1st sub when not selected. Until the emergence of Anichebe this season that ingredient was missing, Barrow was the most hopeful option.

The second ingredient is that there needs to be a lack of obvious and clear-cut bargain assets in midfield and forward areas in the 6.0/6.5m area. In a season where Vardy, Mahrez and Alli are available around that price and doing exceptionally well (2015/16) or where you get a Kane emerging and an underpriced Sigurdsson doing very well (following his switch to Swansea after the prices came out, 2014/15) then the budget pressure is much reduced and having a credible front 7 is very feasible. A front 7 will always be a better bet if you can afford 7 attackers that are predictably high points-scorers.

The third element is that there needs to be a contingent of premium-priced attackers performing very well, not just one or two. The biggest advantage of the 4-4-2 structure is that it makes it easier to shoehorn 5 or 6 expensive attackers in because you are not trying to get the 7th. That circumstance is now demonstrably at play this season too.

I figured out 2 years ago that the 4-4-2 structure could be optimum under certain circumstances. Personally I think those circumstances are all now in place. I don't agree with those that say it is reflective of general FPL pricing. I think it's much more specific to the price/performance landscape at play at any time.
Last edited by Ruth_NZ on 09 Dec 2016, 15:09, edited 1 time in total.

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eastcentral1
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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by eastcentral1 »

Possible Austin injury making the 4-4-2 highly attractive.

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by SuperGrover »

eastcentral1 wrote:Possible Austin injury making the 4-4-2 highly attractive.
Yessir, very high potential for me.

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by eastcentral1 »

I'm on board.
Ruth_NZ wrote:Personally I think those circumstances are all now in place.
The one big weakness I see is that there's only one Anichibe. And he is injury prone.

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Ruth_NZ
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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by Ruth_NZ »

eastcentral1 wrote:
Ruth_NZ wrote:Personally I think those circumstances are all now in place.
I'm on board. The one big weakness I see is that there's only one Anichibe. And he is injury prone.
As is Austin. :? It's probably less critical for a rotation player than an every-week starter though.

I was really hoping that Barrow could be the one before Anichebe emerged. That could still happen. But at the moment I have no clue what Bradley's game plan is. I'm not sure he knows himself.

Good luck anyway. :)

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by gallus »

Another thought on 4-4-2:

Plenty of teams are scoring unreasonably high number of goals this season, which leads to "cs carnage" as fiso-ers like to put it. a few weeks ago we had one(!) cs in the entire weekend. Does that not suggest that a minimal possible number of playing defenders is ideal in the long run?

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by Ruth_NZ »

gallus wrote:Another thought on 4-4-2:

Plenty of teams are scoring unreasonably high number of goals this season, which leads to "cs carnage" as fiso-ers like to put it. a few weeks ago we had one(!) cs in the entire weekend. Does that not suggest that a minimal possible number of playing defenders is ideal in the long run?
I think there are 2 ways to go myself. One is to run an ultra-cheap defensive rotation with no-one above 4.8m (ideally no-one above 4.5m). Lowton-Barragan-Koné-Prödl-Evans would make a reasonable rotation for just under 22.5m. Or you could take Barragan out for Phil Jones if you were inclined to take that risk.

The logic of that is less invested and therefore fewer points required in order to give a semblance of value.

The other is to load into those teams that top the defensive stats with premium defenders that also have some attack threat. Chelsea, Spurs, United, Arsenal for example. But you are mostly paying 6.0m + per unit in that case (Valencia at 5.4 looks like quite a bargain to me). Those kinds of defender also have a good shout of delivering value. But with 3 of them and 2 rotators for the 4th defender spot you are probably investing 27-28m in the defence. Bellerin/Valencia-Toby-Evans-Mee-Alonso as an example.

Question is then whether the difference between those 2 defences can be made up by having around 5m more to spend in attack. I don't know what the answer is. But I do know that I'm not willing to accept a defender PPG under 3.0 for an entire season. It is way below par.

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by Stower79 »

Anichebe:

- is a known injury risk.
- According to the FPL stats the most minutes he has completed in a season is 1716.
- his best scoring season is 6 in one season.
- Borini is now back from injury.

In my view basing a team structure on the assumption that Anichebe will play every week is not a good idea. Especially given there is no reasonable alternative in that price bracket.

2 weeks on from when this discussion began and I still see no basis for 4-4-2. There are hardly any clean sheets around and even if there were there would need to be several stand out defenders getting goals/assists on top of the clean sheets. The only one I see in the higher price category at the moment is Alonso who is a solid pick but not a reason to go 4-4-2. And he is no Leighton Baines or John Terry of old. He won't finish the season on 6 points per match which is his current PPG. There are several of a lower price bracket that are good value but then these defenders are still being outperformed by lower priced midfielders in terms of PPG.

For me there is only one ingredient. Are the four defenders you are picking each week outperforming a fifth mid or third striker. For me there are too many cheap midfielders outscoring the defenders at the moment to make 4-4-2 viable on a long term basis.

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by gallus »

Ruth_NZ wrote:
gallus wrote:Another thought on 4-4-2:

Plenty of teams are scoring unreasonably high number of goals this season, which leads to "cs carnage" as fiso-ers like to put it. a few weeks ago we had one(!) cs in the entire weekend. Does that not suggest that a minimal possible number of playing defenders is ideal in the long run?
I think there are 2 ways to go myself. One is to run an ultra-cheap defensive rotation with no-one above 4.8m (ideally no-one above 4.5m). Lowton-Barragan-Koné-Prödl-Evans would make a reasonable rotation for just under 22.5m. Or you could take Barragan out for Phil Jones if you were inclined to take that risk.

The logic of that is less invested and therefore fewer points required in order to give a semblance of value.

The other is to load into those teams that top the defensive stats with premium defenders that also have some attack threat. Chelsea, Spurs, United, Arsenal for example. But you are mostly paying 6.0m + per unit in that case (Valencia at 5.4 looks like quite a bargain to me). Those kinds of defender also have a good shout of delivering value. But with 3 of them and 2 rotators for the 4th defender spot you are probably investing 27-28m in the defence. Bellerin/Valencia-Toby-Evans-Mee-Alonso as an example.

Question is then whether the difference between those 2 defences can be made up by having around 5m more to spend in attack. I don't know what the answer is. But I do know that I'm not willing to accept a defender PPG under 3.0 for an entire season. It is way below par.
Interesting, because I've gone with the inbetween option - 6.0, 2*5.0, 4.5, 4.0, for a total of 24.5. I can't say how well it works because I'm doing for the first time this week, but so far so good.

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by Gambit »

some good points about the lack of clean sheets, but I do think that Chelsea and United are looking very strong at the back, would add Spurs to that too.

The United defenders + keeper are not badly priced so I think that a United double up - DDG + Valencia with one each from Chelsea/Spurs and you would have a very strong defence and could quite easily go DDG - Valencia, Alonso, Rose + one of your two cheaper defenders to form a very solid looking backline.

Chelsea, Spurs, United all look to have really nice fixtures too, would love to do this but I would need multiple transfers to set it up and hits for defenders/Keeper never usually works.

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by Ruth_NZ »

With this week's transfer I have now reached my hybrid 4-4-2 structure:

Foster Pickford
Valencia Evans Mee Alonso Pieters
Sanchez Alli Sigurdsson Hazard Fletcher
Anichebe Zlatan Kane

The players I have marked in red are the rotators - basically pick any 2 from 5 every week. So, one week it will be 4-4-2, another 3-4-3, another 3-5-2. But the main thing is that all 5 rotators are around 4.5m so there's no budget being wasted on the bench. And the bench is all live players, no fodder.

I realise from some comments that to talk of this as a 4-4-2 structure may be misleading because it isn't a fixed formation in the way a 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 would be. But that's what I mean by it anyway, the key component being a cheap striker and a cheap midfielder alongside 2 or 3 cheap defenders.

I would like the defence to be stronger but a relatively average TV (103.5m) coupled with paying 11.5m for Sanchez rather than the 10.9m I originally had him at means that is the best I can do for now. After Xmas I will look at replacing Sigurdsson with Chadli and that might give me another 1m or so for the defence.

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by I Am Ville »

I am pretty much working towards the above type structure to allow some flex and cover rotation issues. I have built up to about 104m now so can squeeze a bit more out of my value. hoping it will work

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by Sutter Kane »

I think you've slightly transitioned the theory from your first post where it was clear what I was reading; which was 6 attackers ONLY. And 4 certain starting defenders. What you have now isn't really any formation; it's nicely adaptable. You've just spent less on your third attacker, thus allowing more money to be spent elsewhere; and that elsewhere is not really in defence, as there's only two 'stalwarts' in there.

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by Beerfuelledman »

Stower79 wrote:Anichebe:

- is a known injury risk.
- According to the FPL stats the most minutes he has completed in a season is 1716.
- his best scoring season is 6 in one season.
- Borini is now back from injury.

In my view basing a team structure on the assumption that Anichebe will play every week is not a good idea. Especially given there is no reasonable alternative in that price bracket.
All of this is true but in a 442 Anichibie is a sub. A sub much like another teams Amat, i.e. no reason why the def & the Mid cant be 1st & 2nd sub. No-one feels the need to post about the perils of picking Amat. Isnt it because Anichibie is a forward and we collectively exhibit 343 bias?

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by Ruth_NZ »

Sutter Kane wrote:I think you've slightly transitioned the theory from your first post where it was clear what I was reading; which was 6 attackers ONLY. And 4 certain starting defenders. What you have now isn't really any formation; it's nicely adaptable. You've just spent less on your third attacker, thus allowing more money to be spent elsewhere; and that elsewhere is not really in defence, as there's only two 'stalwarts' in there.
No, this is what I always meant. Maybe I didn't express it very well.

Ideally I would like 3 big defenders and 2 rotation defenders. Had I not wasted 0.6m of my budget on selling and re-buying Sanchez, had I bought Anichebe at 4.5m instead of 4.7m and if I downgraded Foster to a 4.3m GK (Hennessey, Mannone) then I would have 1.1m more available and could do that. But this is the best I can do with the TV I currently have. That's what comes of being late to the party.

I played the first 10 weeks of this season too quiescently with not a single hit. A TV lower than I would like is the result. I also have a very average OR. But at least I am happy with the state my team is in now, I believe it's about as good as I could make it with the TV available. I just need big things from Zlatan, he's the big differential in there.

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by gallus »

I don't think this is really a 4-4-2, it's a formationless team structure where you use all 15 players and change formation based on fixtures. It's an interesting experiment. However I'm not a fan of rotating attackers. Benching a 13 point brace from the 3rd striker would drive me mad.

edit: when someone mentions playing 4-4-2 I always imagine 3 premium defenders + 2 rotating defenders. But your defence is not that much stronger than mine. True, I have Amat, but with Alonso, Jones, Cedric and Brunt in the team I don't even have to use him.

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by Stemania »

Fletcher isn't really part of a rotation system there, is he? I don't really see a scenario where he'd be fielded ahead of a striker or the best of 3 defenders.

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

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Stemania wrote:Fletcher isn't really part of a rotation system there, is he? I don't really see a scenario where he'd be fielded ahead of a striker or the best of 3 defenders.
Yes. In fact he's in my team this week. WBA have Swansea (h) and I give Fletcher more chance of points than Anichebe against Chelsea or Mee @ West Ham.

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by Ruth_NZ »

gallus wrote:I don't think this is really a 4-4-2, it's a formationless team structure where you use all 15 players and change formation based on fixtures. It's an interesting experiment. However I'm not a fan of rotating attackers. Benching a 13 point brace from the 3rd striker would drive me mad.

edit: when someone mentions playing 4-4-2 I always imagine 3 premium defenders + 2 rotating defenders. But your defence is not that much stronger than mine. True, I have Amat, but with Alonso, Jones, Cedric and Brunt in the team I don't even have to use him.
In which case you either have a bigger TV than me or a more compromised attack. Iheanacho?

I'm not a fan of rotating attackers either unless they are in the same price range as a rotation defender.

I agree that it is in a sense a formationless structure. The reason I think of it as 4-4-2 is the cheap forward and cheap midfielder.

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by Stemania »

Ruth_NZ wrote:
Stemania wrote:Fletcher isn't really part of a rotation system there, is he? I don't really see a scenario where he'd be fielded ahead of a striker or the best of 3 defenders.
Yes. In fact he's in my team this week. WBA have Swansea (h) and I give Fletcher more chance of points than Anichebe against Chelsea or Mee @ West Ham.
I'd still be benching Fletcher there personally - always a decent chance of a CS or a goal from a set piece from a CB, or a goal from a striker in any game. :D

I presume this will be the last time you field him in absolutely ages - it's not a particularly great initial advert otherwise. For then a rotation system that results in fielding Fletcher anything but extraordinarily rarely would not seem to be a particularly strong one, 5 players in it or not. :?

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by gallus »

Ruth_NZ wrote:
gallus wrote:I don't think this is really a 4-4-2, it's a formationless team structure where you use all 15 players and change formation based on fixtures. It's an interesting experiment. However I'm not a fan of rotating attackers. Benching a 13 point brace from the 3rd striker would drive me mad.

edit: when someone mentions playing 4-4-2 I always imagine 3 premium defenders + 2 rotating defenders. But your defence is not that much stronger than mine. True, I have Amat, but with Alonso, Jones, Cedric and Brunt in the team I don't even have to use him.
In which case you either have a bigger TV than me or a more compromised attack. Iheanacho?

I'm not a fan of rotating attackers either unless they are in the same price range as a rotation defender.

I agree that it is in a sense a formationless structure. The reason I think of it as 4-4-2 is the cheap forward and cheap midfielder.
Yes I have Iheanacho, but you're right, I also have 1.5 higher TV. I don't like Iheanacho to be honest, I'm thinking of doing Kane&Iheanacho :arrow: Lukaku&Defoe after Kane's great run ends. Austin injury really hurt my plans.

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by eastcentral1 »

So Anichibe missed out because of "an injury". I'll be sweating on the news. Really hope he's back for Watford at home. If so, this missing GW will actually have worked out well for me, with some lucky Williams points.

http://www.sunderlandecho.com/sport/foo ... -1-8290205

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by Ruth_NZ »

Stemania wrote:I'd still be benching Fletcher there personally - always a decent chance of a CS or a goal from a set piece from a CB, or a goal from a striker in any game. :D

I presume this will be the last time you field him in absolutely ages - it's not a particularly great initial advert otherwise. For then a rotation system that results in fielding Fletcher anything but extraordinarily rarely would not seem to be a particularly strong one, 5 players in it or not. :?
My team isn't a great advert for the 4-4-2 structure anyway because I have a lower TV than I should and have made some poor (and expensive to rectify) transfer decisions (e.g. Sanchez). I seem to be getting many 50/50 calls wrong this season and that has put me on the wrong end of the price war. Hence the lower TV.

As for Fletcher, no, I wouldn't expect to field him very often. But at home to Swansea, where I expected WBA to score 3 or 4, there was always a decent chance of a goal, assist or clean sheet. He was the 11th choice for my team and 1-3 points from that slot is pretty much par for the course anyway.

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by baganboy »

I think this thread is basically a discussion on rigidity vs flexibility in deciding on the playing XI from the XV, rather than any specific team structure. Correct me if I am wrong, but perhaps that was what you were trying to articulate from the start - and merits of one team structure over another was not your intention.
I suppose team structure is only relevant if one prefers to keep a rigid XI (as I do), or rotate at one fixed position (as most in this forum do for one defender in a 3-4-3). Or even some weird-ass rotation structures - rotate two defender slots among four players, and one midfielder slot among two players.

But if, like you, one is planning to rotate two positions (which can be a defender, midfielder, forward) among five players - defenders, midfielders, strikers; in that case it is not a 4-4-2, but a flexible team structure. If one is intent on playing Anichebe in one-in-every-three GWs, then one has what can be considered a rotational three striker / two-striker structure anyway.

The benefits of rotation are well-known, and there are many here far better qualified to talk about it. And I believe the basic principles of rotation remain the same with single-position rotation vs flexible-position rotation as you suggest here.

I am not very good at rotating, and I do not believe it is something one has to have. Not necessary that rigid = bad and flexible = good. If asked to choose between a flexible vs a rigid structure, I will choose a structurally and even positionally / player-wise rigid team everytime. But I do respect that there are many ways to skin the cat.

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Re: 4-4-2 and Team Structure

Post by Ruth_NZ »

Interesting article on FFS.

http://www.fantasyfootballscout.co.uk/2 ... in-201617/

The gist of it is that the "dream team" (highest scoring players) approaching the halfway stage last season could have been bought for 99.9m. This season the equivalent squad would cost 119.6m. It's nearly 20m more and the vast majority of the difference is in attack (60.6m against 78.0m). This underlines the point made earlier in this thread about the changed price/performance landscape and why 4-4-2 (or 4-3-3) have become much more valid options this season.

Worth a read anyhow.

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