Success and Failure

[Ruth_NZ]

This post was stimulated by something Mav3rick said on the STC (not to me, I hasten to add):

You're ranked 15k, if you're honest with yourself then I reckon you've had some good luck along the way too...

It got me thinking about my own team and about success, failure and luck in general.

My team is currently ranked 21k and I don't feel that to be a result of luck. Neither do I feel it to be an especially successful season so far, I am trailing the #1 OR by 222 points after all, that's 10 points per gameweek. But maybe it is that I credit myself with what goes well and blame bad luck for what goes badly? So I thought I'd make a review of my own team and open up the question of what success and failure really is in FPL.

Bad or unlucky decisions

It may be that we tend to remember these better than the good or lucky ones; certainly I am very aware what mine have been this season.

(i) I started the season with Foster & Heaton and decided to downgrade one to Pickford in GW7. Which to keep was something I thought was a pretty even call. In the end I kept Foster and that has cost me 20 points or so. I'd count that as a 50/50 that went against me.
(ii) I got myself tangled with playing my BB; rather than using it GW1 as I had planned I went against all my own logic and ended up playing it in GW6, with a knock-on effect of having an unbalanced squad for a while. As a result I played the first 10 weeks too passively, failed to build TV and also took 10 points from my BB when I could have had 21 points in GW1. I consider that to be rank bad play on my part.
(iii) Although my call about Aguero/Guardiola has been proved right (and has gained me points in the long run), I implemented it in an unfortunate way. The week I took Aguero out he scored a brace and assist for 16 points. Zlatan (my replacement) blanked. Not for want of trying - on MOTD the comment was "on another day he could have scored 4". And I think he broke the PL record for goal attempts by one player in one game. Even worse, I captained Zlatan instead of Sanchez, who scored 13. So that was another -11. A total loss of 25 points from one FT. That took some doing. I consider that to have been a bit unlucky.
(iv) In GW13 I took Sanchez out, fearing injury. He scored 37 points in the next 2 games and I had to bring him back for 0.4m more than I sold for. I could blame Wenger's misleading comments but that has to go down as bad play by me. I was trying to be too clever.
(v) I took Kane out for Lukaku in GW18; Kane has scored 44 points since then to Lukaku's 28. To be honest I don't know if that was a bad decision or not; certainly it isn't one I blame myself for. Unlucky? Unwise?

Good or lucky decisions

(i) My recent transfer decisions have been pretty good - I brought Zlatan, Alonso, Alli (preferred to Eriksen), Lukaku and Antonio in before they were popular NTIs and have seen price gains as a result while also rising in the OR. I'd count those as good play in the main because they were all considered decisions based on forward planning. Especially the Alli decision (although I guess that could be considered a 50/50 that went in my favour).
(ii) The decision to drop Aguero early (and avoid all City players) has certainly helped me in the long run. I consider that to have been good play on my part.
(iii) I have managed my squad in a sensible way in the main in terms of efficiency, adapting my structure to the price/performance landscape while maintaining a cost effective bench and taking relatively few hits (4 so far).
(iv) Related to this, I observed the very poor PPG I was getting from my defenders in the first 10 weeks of the season and rather than putting it down to the general lack of clean sheets I decided to adjust my structure and strategy to try to improve it - both by investing more budget there and by allocating more FTs to that part of my team. That has helped and I consider that to have been good play.

Luck

Well, we all try to give our team the best chance to gain points and are therefore making judgement decisions all of the time. I think I have made 3 main bad ones during the season - two my fault and one a bit unlucky. And I think I have made 4 or 5 particularly good ones. I'd like to claim credit for those but others may see some luck to have been involved. But couple those together with some efficient squad management and I don't think my current OR of 21k is lucky overall. Personally I am disappointed with the mistakes I have made and that it isn't higher. Take those mistakes out and I might be 120 points behind the leader rather than 220 points behind (and would be inside the top 500). But I guess that goes to show how much luck is involved; my best play would still put me 120 points back so either the leader has been incredibly lucky or he's just a far better manager than me.

Or maybe it's just that the way the season has panned out has suited his approach better than mine? I guess we all have different approaches to FPL. You can see a good manager like TL, when the price/performance landscape of a season suits his approach he can be relied on to do very well. But what if it doesn't? How ready and quick is he to adjust/adapt? He might, for example, struggle in a season where budgetary efficiency is hardly a factor (as last season). I guess each season suits a certain approach and will favour those managers who have a matching strategy. One of the tasks if you are to compete every season is to be quick to read the signs and adapt accordingly.

Where I do consider myself to have had some luck compared to some on FISO is in terms of injuries. I haven't had the spate of injury concerns that others appear to have had. But maybe that's partly because I am dismissive of a lot of these 75% flags which are based on nothing but froth and surmise. There have been times when 3 or 4 players in my team have been marked as doubts when I have been pretty confident that none were injured. So I have just learned to do my own research and ignore the false flags.

Success and failure

This is the last element I'd like to discuss. What constitutes a success? I know that some managers concentrate on MLs or cash play but I always keep my team away from that. I am only focused on OR (and on having some fun playing the game). To me, top 1k at the end of the season would be a success (I have never achieved it). Outside the top 10k would be a failure. In between is some kind of average season. The main thing I try to do each season is to learn from my mistakes and to try to eliminate them. The problem is that every season I seem to find some new ones to make.

[Redrum2]

A very enjoyable read. I usually reflect back on my fantasy football teams (although I mostly enjoy the Sun and Telegraph formats) at the end of the season. Maybe doing a similar review mid-season will help improve my game. I playing fpl for the first time this season although I am not very good (currently ranked 330k) but it's not the case of unlucky decisions or injuries - I only have myself to blame as I don't really put any effort at all and pay no attention to price changes. Although my recent purchase of Carroll is to be considered lucky but had the gut feeling that he would step up his game while Payet sulks. I find fpl a bit complicated for my liking and most of my mates just want a more casual type of game. Although I don't share the same love for fpl as you and many others, I very much enjoy the information posted here by others but especially yourself (the effort you put in your posts and articles is incredible even when most of the criticism you get is unfair in my opinion). I find the information on other sites such as FFS particularly useful for my non-FPL fantasy football teams and been listening to the scoutcast every week for the past two years even when I wasn't playing the game. I made mistakes (I think they are unavoidable) but I do try to learn from them and not repeat them. I can't offer any advice but wish you achieve your goals this season. Best of luck.

[Payet]

Nice post there Ruth.

My team is currently ranked #9,465, so I can say this season is successful, for now.

I had a best start since I'm playing this game, which culminated with #8 rank OR in GW10.

My problem is that every single season I ''fall in love'' with one or two players and I keep them more than it's reasonable. They are not my season keepers, but they are players which style of play I like ATM and I'm kinda stubborn when there comes the decision of selling them.

My hardest decision was to get rid of Aguero this season. I think he's still the #1 player in the league (in terms of football, style of play and his goal instinct), but Pep (the biggest manager fraud ever) made him an average asset this season. Despite how much I love him (Kun), now I'm playing without him and I have one player that I truly hate - Zlatan. The other guy is Sanchez, but during the season he developed in the real season keeper, and he delivers correctly.

Also, I need to comment that IMO this is the hardest season in the recent five or six. So many options and so many players that can deliver points for the same price. It's really hard to be at the top, so this season's winner may be someone who made ALL THE GOOD decision all the way from gameweek 1 until gameweek 38. That's something you can connect with luck, which is essential in order to be a top manager this season.

[Ruth_NZ]

I had a best start since I'm playing this game, which culminated with #8 rank OR in GW10.

Blimey. A start like that is the stuff of dreams. I don't think I have ever been even in the top 100k after 10 weeks.

Apart from that, yes, the irrational likes and dislikes that prejudice our decisions are problematic. I have seen many managers complain about being "trolled" by player X or manager Y when usually they have actually "trolled" themselves. You have to look at what you did wrong and why rather than blaming the player. And you have to accept that sometimes a good decision will produce a poor outcome (and the reverse), that's the nature of FPL, right?

[sjaugen]

Really mixed bag this successes thing;
(i) When I've owned Lukaku got to be among them. Got him on the WC4 and dropped him early in his dry spell
Navigated Siggy similarly. Alonso and Heaton have been great as well. Stuck by Mane long enough to ease the pain of Coutinho/Firmino explosions.

(ii) Going Ozil over Sanchez for a while, dropping Kane after the 2 easy home game blanks; hurts the most. Reluctant on Ibra/Costa since I favoured Aguero has cost me a bunch of points as well, I recon

Drafted Alli/Eriksen for Lallana/Hazard last night (exact funds) leaves me with a feeling that I'll be burned soon again. No Europe games. Chelsea fixtures on the rise. Mane coming back

[Sutter Kane]

At this stage of the season, I am loathed to say I deserve any position, good or bad. When there are people who haven't made a transfer for 15 weeks still ahead of me, (they've stopped playing), it's difficult to analyse without the tongue-in-cheek. The game is now evolved that way - the spread of scores have narrowed so much to keep people interested, makes it incredibly tough to make serious ground regardless of the decisions one makes.

As far as A bad decision I've made, a good eg I think was choosing Evans over McAuley (as I thought he was pensionable age), a horrible decision. To be punished by 40 points is absolutely ludicrous however. That's basically 30-40 points just simply gone in one swoop because McAuley is so heavily owned. In this game it feels good decisions are often rewarded but not as well as you'd hope but 'bad' ones are punished so severely. You rarely just get away with it (unless you're in the top 50 in which case you've got away with an awdul lot) I think that's what Mav might have been saying; such is the haphazardness/unpredicatability of the game now, that to be highly ranked at this stage, more 50/50s have gone right that wrong.

PS: Evans appears to still be injured too!! So, cue another McAuley points haul!!

[Turd Ferguson]

I was trying to be too clever.

This is the thing I'm most guilty of. It's frustrating. You want to have some secret insight that gets you ahead of the field. But most of the time, when a class player is playing well and putting up points, you get him in your team. It's as simple as that.

I'm also guilty of playing the fixtures too much. I try to avoid tough away games for my premiums or bad stretches for my 3rd/4th defenders rather than just living with a 2 pointer now and then. Too often the premium comes up with a haul in a tough game or a 4.5 defender comes up with a fluke clean sheet and it turns out to be a wasted transfer.

There's a term in statistics called autocorrelation, which basically measures how strong trends are in the data, i.e. if a player has scored well recently, how likely are they to continue to score well rather than revert to the mean. My gut impression is that autocorrelation is pretty high in FPL. I've never had the free time to get a pile of data and do the analysis.

[Ruth_NZ]

As far as a bad decision I've made, a good example I think was choosing Evans over McAuley (as I thought he was pensionable age), a horrible decision. To be punished by 40 points is absolutely ludicrous however.

Yeah, I did the same and for the same reason, McAuley is 35 (or is he 36 now?). But then Evans does have a history with injury and McAuley does have a history with set piece goals. I'm not sure if that was a bad decision or an unlucky one. A bit of both I think.

[Mav3rick]

Without a suitable crystal ball, all good decisions have a chance of going wrong so if more than expected work out, then isn't that being lucky?

My team is currently ranked 30k, and i think I've been lucky, maybe not in fortunate bench performances etc but when I look at players like Brunt, I see a sensible decision to bring him in but the reward has been over the top.

You don't have to have mad, blind luck to do well, but it helps if your 65% calls come off 80% of the time.

[Aldershot Rejects]

This thread reminds me of the old saying: "The more I practice, the luckier I get." I suspect that if you stick to a decent strategy and play the long game you will end up with a decent position. If a decision is truly 50:50, then you'll expect to get it wrong half the time - that's how the cookie crumbles. It's just that we tend to remember the one's we get wrong.

Which, for me, causes me to question my captain strategy. If I'd captained Sanchez every week since I'd bought him in (for GW7), I'd have 13 more points than I have by rotating my captain. Is that unlucky (I keep getting 50:50 calls wrong) or is that bad tactics given that Sanchez is comfortably the highest scoring player in the game and is averaging almost 1ppg more than anyone else?

[BobMem]

Really interesting discussion here chaps. It's much better to analyse both the good and the bad, to try and learn, then just moan/brag IMO!

I'm another that was tricked by Evans. I do think it's a mix of luck and bad decision. It may have been reasonable for McAuley to outscore Evans a little over the period, but 40 points is outrageous! It doesn't help that I actually had McAuley early doors, but wildcarded to Evans for the extra 0.1 or so

Best luck/decision for me was Aguero Kane. I'd judged Kane would reasonably score more points over the next 3-4 fixtures, but for Kane to score a brace (IIRC) and Aguero get sent off was probably somewhat fortunate!

Taking Kane out after his double home blank as captain was definitely a poor decision, but one driven more by frustration than anything else. I think I did the transfer on the final whistle!

[Payet]

My biggest mistake was I was suspicious about Diego Costa and especially Chelsea. My prediction (before the season start) was that they'll be fighting for Champions League slot, and they were shit until Arsenal defeated them 3:0... They started to play outstanding after that game and I didn't have any Chelsea player during their "clean-sheet" run and Costa's excellent form.

That's how I lost my OR rank. I had a reaction which was to late, so now I'm trying to stay in top 10k since my dreams about top 1k have broken apart.

[Ruth_NZ]

Without a suitable crystal ball, all good decisions have a chance of going wrong so if more than expected work out, then isn't that being lucky? You don't have to have mad, blind luck to do well, but it helps if your 65% calls come off 80% of the time.

I agree with that. I guess it then begs a question: how long is long enough for the luck factor to even out? 10 games? 20 games? Is a whole season actually long enough?

We have 37 FTs in the season and 38 captaincy calls. We have 4 opportunities to use chips. We have 2 wildcards where multiple changes are free. And we can take hits or not. We also have to decide on squad structure and strategy and when/if to adapt it. And we have to decide on squad selection (11 from 15) every week.

How many actions is that? 200? It's hard to measure. I have made multiple decisions this week which have led to me taking no action at all - a lot of the thinking we do doesn't end in a visible action so maybe there are 2000 decisions behind those 200 actions. But if 200 actions is a fair estimation then maybe you need to get 150-180 right to have a chance of winning FPL. Which suggests that luck doesn't even out over a season, it's too short.

I don't think luck is required to get into the top 20k. I do think some luck is required to get into the top 200. But I have no means of quantifying this either.

So now I'm trying to stay in top 10k since my dreams about top 1k have broken apart.

They really haven't. 1k is still very achievable from where you are. I haven't given up on it and I must be 20 points or so behind you.

[Valeron]

Success is a top 10k finish, anything else a failure.

I'm not interested in my rank now and I feel totally out of luck so far but I'm still confident of a top 10k finish. I wonder if it really is coincidence I never get a good first half season.

[Sutter Kane]

I agree with that. I guess it then begs a question: how long is long enough for the luck factor to even out? 10 games? 20 games? Is a whole season actually long enough?

No the whole season is not long enough. Nowhere near imo. It's why Ville is so great; very few can offer consistency on that level. Over a season you can get the usually average player getting silly amounts of luck, then actually taking the game seriously and getting top 50. Means nothing nowadays. What Ville has done is far in excess of anyone else winning this game, in terms of difficulty because there's virtually no luck involved in performing for that long. Ooh look, it's turned into another luck thread...

[matmutte]

Analyzing my season so far i made 3 main mistakes :
- ignoring Chelsea defenders and Costa, which have been consistent point providers
- for the first time i studied fixtures and tried to bring key players with the best fixtures ahead. I think that hasnt worked out very well.
- and then of course either being too patient with some players or too impatient ( kept Ibo for his barren spell and sold just before he pocked up again; sold Hazard just before his purple patch, etc. Id say its failure, but you could say it's bad luck.

Right now i'm around 100k and i can realistically only aim for top 20-30k at best.
With 4 million players i think top 10k is a great success.
Also agree with a poster above who said this year has been the most difficult due to the number of players performing.

[Mav3rick]

Skill vs Luck comes up every year, I'm not going to weigh on that one and there's no way I'm going to attempt to quantify it, especially not in relation to Ville

I will say though that I honestly don't think we can set the top 10k as some sort of performance benchmark - for me it's a badge of honour, not a minimum required standard. Good managers make it regularly, but none of us are guaranteed a spot there these days.

[Finisher1]

Skill vs Luck comes up every year, I'm not going to weigh on that one and there's no way I'm going to attempt to quantify it, especially not in relation to Ville

I think Ville is a unit of luck, that's how you quantify it.

[Ruth_NZ]

Right now I'm around 100k and I can realistically only aim for top 20-30k at best.

Why? There are only 65 points between 100k and 10k. That's not insurmountable is it?

A lot of people in the top 100k will get in a right mess with the blanks and DGWs. Navigate them well and anything can happen. In addition, 25% of the top 10k have already used the 2nd wildcard, 29% have used triple captain and 24% have used the bench boost. More than 90% have never finished in the top 10k before. I think it's still all to play for with 16 gameweeks left.

[Aldershot Rejects]

Right now I'm around 100k and I can realistically only aim for top 20-30k at best.

Why? There are only 65 points between 100k and 10k. That's not insurmountable is it?

A lot of people in the top 100k will get in a right mess with the blanks and DGWs. Navigate them well and anything can happen. In addition, 25% of the top 10k have already used the 2nd wildcard, 29% have used triple captain and 24% have used the bench boost. More than 90% have never finished in the top 10k before. I think it's still all to play for with 16 gameweeks left.

Agree with Ruth. I've gone from 743k to 112k in 6 weeks, plenty of time yet to push on towards top 10k particularly with blanks and doubles to negotiate. It is probably an outside chance but it is definitely on.

[matmutte]

Thanks for the motivation guys. Just dont feel right this season, cant find the right inspiration for choices week in week out. If a big DGW comes around it can be a lever but top 10k seems far away. Templates are on and its difficult to find differential points provider

[Payet]

They really haven't. 1k is still very achievable from where you are. I haven't given up on it and I must be 20 points or so behind you.

Yep, you are just 21 points away.

[baganboy]

I love the high scores. I am a serious, serious FPL player.
But success for me is a season where I consider to have played well, as opposed to not so well. With me as the judge
And rank is just one aspect of it.

There have been seasons where a few chances taken towards the latter part of the season have plummetted my rank towards the lower-than 5Ks. Sometimes even lower than 10K. sometimes the same risks, when they have worked out, have taken my season rankings edging towards the double digits.
I don't mind that. If I am there or thereabouts - between 1-5K around the 30th GW, I will take calculated risks to get to the top. If I fall to 10K, I could not care less.
A safety-first 1.5-4.5k rank makes you feel nothing at the end of the season. Learnt that pretty early during my FPL days.
(Edit: worse than nothing, in fact. makes you feel like you had a chance, and you were not bold to take it)

HOF is nice, but I was playing the game when there was no HOF, and will play the game when there would be 4-5 different HOFs with different calculations (and I can bet you that day will come).

[baganboy]

Oh, and of course, my favourite season ever was 2012-13, when if I remember correctly, I was about 100K at the end of GW30, and was at about 30k after GW34. I ended up inside 10K. I was buzzing right until the next season started.
That was my fourth best overall performance. Good chance I will top it this season too. But I guarantee you I will not feel as good at the end of it.
(Matmutte, if this would be at all relevant to you.... I can assure you it's possible. With a dollop of luck, sure. But very possible).

This is not to say that rank does not matter. in 2013-14, I did horribly. And felt horrible after the season got over.

[Ruth_NZ]

HOF is nice, but I was playing the game when there was no HOF, and will play the game when there would be 4-5 different HOFs with different calculations (and I can bet you that day will come).

I don't have a lot of interest in the HOF, it seems a very artificial construct that encourages safety-first play to me. People rank high in it because they play for position rather than to win. And frankly it is only there so that top managers will enter their team in the FFS league and make it the top ML (which I'm quite glad to see is failing to work this season). I have never entered my team in the FFS league and I doubt I ever will do.

[Valeron]

Safety first, or optimal play?
I don't see the point in doing anything other than play what you feel is optimal. Is that safety first? Unless you are chasing a specific player and somehow know the moves your rival is making week to week.
Admittedly I'd swap several high finishes for 1 year overall 1st place. But even taking a few gambles and them all paying off you're still very unlikely to win. Many of the winners of the game are not very good players. I aim to earn a place in the HOF where most of the smartest players reside.

[Paulista]

As far as a bad decision I've made, a good example I think was choosing Evans over McAuley (as I thought he was pensionable age), a horrible decision. To be punished by 40 points is absolutely ludicrous however.

Yeah, I did the same and for the same reason, McAuley is 35 (or is he 36 now?).

37

[Paulista]

Many of the winners of the game are not very good players.

Anyone that wins FPL is a very good player in my book!

Just checked some of the winners from recent seasons; Tom Fenley, Simon March, Matthew Martyniak, they all have several fantastic overall ranks each.

Last years winner did a Nottingham Forest and won in his first season.

[ajm]

Interesting topic. I've often though to try and quantify this. For simplicity, if you take decisions as a virtual coin toss, and assume there are 20 such decisions over the course of the season, with 4 million players you would expect a few to get all 20 correct by chance! That alone could be worth a couple of hundred points!

[Ruth_NZ]

Right now I'm around 100k and I can realistically only aim for top 20-30k at best.

Why? There are only 65 points between 100k and 10k. That's not insurmountable is it?

A lot of people in the top 100k will get in a right mess with the blanks and DGWs. Navigate them well and anything can happen. In addition, 25% of the top 10k have already used the 2nd wildcard, 29% have used triple captain and 24% have used the bench boost. More than 90% have never finished in the top 10k before. I think it's still all to play for with 16 gameweeks left.

There you go! 30k already and still 14 weeks to go!