Is hopping on and off too risky

[Zimmerman]

Have been reading about people planning on bringing in Aguero (for their game against Palace) and then switching back to Lukaku (for his game against Palace).
It got me wondering. It seems like a no brainer doesn't it?

But we all know football isn't logical and it doesn't always go the way the bookies or pundits would assume.

Ive had a look at last season's captain picks to see what (if anything) it could tell us.

DISCLAIMER 1: one season's data isn't the basis for any scientific study

16/17 FISO Captain Pick: (from the weekly threads)
Sanchez 11
Aguero 10
Kane 6
Lukaku 5
Ibrahimovic 2
Costa 1
Alli 1
Hazard 1 - despite him being one of the highest scoring players last season (presumably Costa's price and their defence dictated not many owned Hazard)?
Negredo 1

If you followed the FISO consensus every week (assuming you had the funds and transfers every week) - you'd have picked up
264 points + Sanchez points from Week 37 and Kane points from Week 38.

(sanchez scored 1 and assisted 1 v Stoke and then got a brace against Sunderland).
(kane scored a hat trick v Hull).

Meanwhile, if you just backed the same player EVERY week*
Sanchez 264
Alli 225
Kane 224
Hazard 224
Lukaku 221
Costa 196
Aguero 175
Ibra 163

* the obvious caveat is that you would have been able to pick an alternative when you know someone is suspended or definitely missing.
e.g. Kane missed two periods of 5 weeks. Aguero missed a 4 week stretch. Ibra missed a 3 week and then a 5 weeker.

You could further alleviate the risk by not captaining your guy against their top 7 opponents (as was the natural tendency with the fluid captain method).

Therefore, does anyone have the nerve to captain the same player for 26 weeks (avoiding top 7 opponents) if he's fit?

[Zimmerman]

Points against top 7 opponents
Hazard 68 (12)
Alli 50 (10) + United in week 37
Kane 38 (10) + United in week 37
Sanchez 39 (11) + Everton in week 38
Costa 40 (12)
Aguero 28 (10)
Lukaku 24 (10) + Arsenal in week 38
Ibrahimovic 23 (8)

Average between these guys 3.67 per game against top 7 opponents
Hazard and All far and away performing better than their striker counterparts

[blahblah]

Our one is from who you actually have.

Check out the top pick comp thing. I'm on phone so cnt link it easily. There is a jinx idea for thecfurst picked.....

[Skrtel]

I think hop on and off is the way to go, but not match by match, more like clusters of 5 games, and when you hopped on/off you have to believe in your decision and not knee jerk after one game.

[Zimmerman]

Our one is from who you actually have.

Check out the top pick comp thing. I'm on phone so cnt link it easily. There is a jinx idea for thecfurst picked.....

But it's not a bad indicator though.

As by and large they are the best players to have, the form players etc. and then the easy fixtures etc.

It pretty much ties in with what you (I) would have done anyway

[Zimmerman]

I think hop on and off is the way to go, but not match by match, more like clusters of 5 games, and when you hopped on/off you have to believe in your decision and not knee jerk after one game.

Yes I think that's the key. Have the conviction to back your man regardless. Chopping and changing and chasing then you're at risk of always missing the boat.

Hard to ignore fixtures (and emotion) though.

[MoSe]

no pain no gain

(no Kane no game? )

[blahblah]

I think hop on and off is the way to go, but not match by match, more like clusters of 5 games, and when you hopped on/off you have to believe in your decision and not knee jerk after one game.

For Xfers, yes 5 is kinda the Ball park I try to use. I am going to try to be good this season and do this properly: I have Romyn's fixture grid, but changed it so just the top 7 are coloured Red and those are the only "bad" matches - admittedly Everton may need changing to pale Red, but their next run of fixtures will decide that.....

I would guess that most plan to alternate Capt's, but actually use a few more than 2. (There is a big thing about the really expoensive players only worth it if you are going to Capt them. But I can not claim to understand it beyond the idea that 2x9m > 12+6m players for "normal" ie non-Banding points of the 12.)

[Kuchi]

Very risky but carries a high reward potential. Having the best two strikers each week and the "best" captain I think very strong. Obviously you are burning a fair few transfers but I don't have a problem with hits. Last season I took 96 pts worth of hits but it worked out well. With the HOHO tactic too it is very very easy to execute and you will not be destroying your team structure in anyway what so ever. This obviously assumes that you can do say Aguero to Lukaku and backwards in one move. I think it you are too inflexible with money and literally have every 0.1 tied up then it just won't work. It is a very aggressive and proactive tactic and if this is your playstyle then I think you should go for it. More cautious/passive managers probably shouldn't attempt this as one should always play to their strengths.

[loosecannon85]

With the abundance of attacking options I think hopping on and off may be necessary. I've tried squeezing 3 premium strikers but it destroys the balance of my team.

Im thinking GW8 Lukaku Aguero

Man City fixtures are kinder GW8 onwards.

[Sutter Kane]

If we are to HOHO for cluster of say 5 games (or abouts), I'm finding it difficult to distinguish between regular transfer strategy and HOHO. Surely we're just saying that this time it's more about strikers because there are so many of them performing well. If however we are spending transfers every 1 or 2 weeks to catch form (e.g. after Kun's 20 pointer) then I don't think that will work long term. [That was my original thought about the HOHO strategy]

[Sutter Kane]

Many were burnt by removing Morata for Kun this week. Lukaku didn't do badly either and has Palace up next. Kane continues to score away from home - a fair few got rid and he scored 13pts and could have been double that. These are huge players who can score heavily against anyone. Removing them is all fraught with danger - I have enough issues with needing more transfers as it is every season; I don't need to add more probable hits in there as well.

[Billy Bongo]

Hoho is high risk everyone knows that, it's also high reward

Providing you are following both form AND fixture

Kun outscored Lukaku yesterday and there is more than a high chance that will be reversed next week

City Utd both home v palace a no brainer for hoho imo

Also hasn't cost anything due to Aguero triple rise

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[Billy Bongo]

Just watched MOTD

Palace were every bit as awful as City were brilliant

Lukaku cap trillion percent

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[sstaffsw]

Agreed 100%. I will be doing Aguero Lukaku (c) as planned.

[MPTree]

My general feelings about this:

Hopping on and hopping off is absolutely fine - it is, arguably, the nature of the game. We bring good players in for good fixtures and often ditch them when the fixtures turn.

However, hopping on, hopping off, then hopping back on again, I believe to be detrimental to the effective maintenance of a healthy squad. That's three transfers you could have spent elsewhere, or (assuming we value any transfer at four points) 12 points worth. Such flip-floppitty might pay off in the short term, but won't realistically pay off in the long term.

[Football Hero]

HOHO transfers are literally no different to your normal transfers.

For instance, a HOHO transfer might be me transferring in Aguero the week after next because he has a good run of games coming up.

And supposedly a so-called 'normal' transfer would be me transferring in Cresswell next week because he has a good run of games coming up.

There is literally no difference really and this HOHO concept is kind of moot.

[Billy Bongo]

HOHO transfers are literally no different to your normal transfers.

For instance, a HOHO transfer might be me transferring in Aguero the week after next because he has a good run of games coming up.

And supposedly a so-called 'normal' transfer would be me transferring in Cresswell next week because he has a good run of games coming up.

There is literally no difference really and this HOHO concept is kind of moot.

That misses the point a bit, hoho is taking a risk regardless of money and refusing to set and forget a top player

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[Football Hero]

HOHO transfers are literally no different to your normal transfers.

For instance, a HOHO transfer might be me transferring in Aguero the week after next because he has a good run of games coming up.

And supposedly a so-called 'normal' transfer would be me transferring in Cresswell next week because he has a good run of games coming up.

There is literally no difference really and this HOHO concept is kind of moot.

That misses the point a bit, hoho is taking a risk regardless of money and refusing to set and forget a top player

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Getting in Cresswell and selling a good scoring defender that I have made 0.3 on, is taking a risk and not caring about the money loss in the same way though, so really there is no splitting these concepts from what I can see.

We should be hopping on and hopping off all of the players in our teams, there shouldn't really be too many, if any, set-and-forget players.

[MoSe]

.

[Football Hero]

[...]

Hop on, hop off is not the same as just 'transferring in/out players' like normal as mentioned above in thread when players are 'in-form we transfer them in, then when not in-form we transfer them out'. Hop on/off is almost completely opposite. It is transferring players out, or hopping off, even when the player is in-form, and transferring in, or hopping on, top quality players who have the fixture, not just the form.

This assumes that our 'normal' transfers are only done for players that are in and out of form. The truth is that they shouldn't be, and so still our 'normal' correctly-done transfers are the same as the HOHO transfers in reality. There is no real disctinction to be made here unless you create an incorrect premise around which our 'normal' transfers are supposedly based on.

So for example, transferring Cresswell in, I would consider doing it regardless of whether Cresswell's immediate form was good or not, and I would consider selling a defender that I already owned whether they were in form or not. I would look only at the future upcoming weeks and see if I felt there were potential points to be gained by doing the transfer.

[blahblah]

If we are to HOHO for cluster of say 5 games (or abouts), I'm finding it difficult to distinguish between regular transfer strategy and HOHO. Surely we're just saying that this time it's more about strikers because there are so many of them performing well. If however we are spending transfers every 1 or 2 weeks to catch form (e.g. after Kun's 20 pointer) then I don't think that will work long term. [That was my original thought about the HOHO strategy]

Yep 5+ GW's is sensible, imho: GW by GW will involve hits sooner or later....

[Zimmerman]

Isn't the truth of the matter probably somewhere in between the two extremes?

Aguero to Lukaku both home against Palace is a no brainer. But in reality chopping every week would be too risky to do.

I found in the opening post you could probably have outscored the FISO captain consensus by having the same captain every single week.

From memory you could have manage 550 points by not changing your captain every week.

If you then factor in tough fixtures you can improve it further.

I've also since found that looking at the Top 8 players if you used Biffs sports almanac it would have been possible to hit 1100 points if you happened upon THE best pick each week (out of the main big hitters).

So it's risk v reward.
Risk dumping a player who still scores a hat trick despite being away at Stoke or play the odds and bring in someone who is at home against a very generous defence.

Changing every week is bound to mean some missed opportunities... but ignoring form and opposition isn't going to always going to end well. Play safe, you'll do ok. Take a risk and you may sink or swim

[Football Hero]

Isn't the truth of the matter probably somewhere in between the two extremes?

Aguero to Lukaku both home against Palace is a no brainer. But in reality chopping every week would be too risky to do.

I found in the opening post you could probably have outscored the FISO captain consensus by having the same captain every single week.

From memory you could have manage 550 points by not changing your captain every week.

If you then factor in tough fixtures you can improve it further.

I've also since found that looking at the Top 8 players if you used Biffs sports almanac it would have been possible to hit 1100 points if you happened upon THE best pick each week (out of the main big hitters).

So it's risk v reward.
Risk dumping a player who still scores a hat trick despite being away at Stoke or play the odds and bring in someone who is at home against a very generous defence.

Changing every week is bound to mean some missed opportunities... but ignoring form and opposition isn't going to always going to end well. Play safe, you'll do ok. Take a risk and you may sink or swim

Aren't these two ideas contradictory? You say that you could probably keep the same captain instead of going for a fixture-related FISO captain consensus, and gain more points as a result, but then say that you could improve these returns further by avoiding tough fixtures and therefore going 'fixture related' with your captain?

[Football Hero]

I've also since found that looking at the Top 8 players if you used Biffs sports almanac it would have been possible to hit 1100 points if you happened upon THE best pick each week (out of the main big hitters).

Is this 1100 points from choosing the best pick, or the pick that actually turned out to score the most points in a given week? If it's the latter, (which I suspect you mean), then 1100 points is not actually possible.

[Zimmerman]

@Football Hero

And therein lies my point. "The answer is somewhere in between both extremes".

You 'could' pick and stick with a captain like Kane all season and probably do reasonably well.

If you then just avoid the 12 games against the 'top 6' and pick a n other.... you'd probably do even better.

You could achieve that approach without hoping on/off in most scenarios.

[Zimmerman]

I've also since found that looking at the Top 8 players if you used Biffs sports almanac it would have been possible to hit 1100 points if you happened upon THE best pick each week (out of the main big hitters).

Is this 1100 points from choosing the best pick, or the pick that actually turned out to score the most points in a given week? If it's the latter, (which I suspect you mean), then 1100 points is not actually possible.

Might be slightly out with the figures, but sure it was in that ballpark. If I log on later I'll post the figures (that was 550 doubles by the way).

[MPTree]

I think for the sake of the discussion (and based on SpiderM4tt's original intent when coining the term), it's helpful to think of HOHO as a strategy characterised by short term transfers. Defining short term as 1-3 GWs seems reasonable. Any transfers made for a period of (say) 4 GWs or longer could more realistically just be referred to as "a transfer".

HOHO: A strategy defined by making transfers for the short term (1-3GWs) in the hopes of capitalising on promising form or fixtures.

More than happy for that definition to be challenged if we can make it more accurate. I have problems with it, because a) attacking returns are difficult to predict, and b) I don't particularly believe in "form" (but that's a separate discussion). Everything's context and squad dependant of course, and I'm sure I've transferred players in for very brief spells in the past, but generally speaking I don't think it's particularly wise. I especially think HOHOHO (on, off, and on again) is detrimental to FPL success.

[Football Hero]

I think for the sake of the discussion (and based on SpiderM4tt's original intent when coining the term), it's helpful to think of HOHO as a strategy characterised by short term transfers. Defining short term as 1-3 GWs seems reasonable. Any transfers made for a period of (say) 4 GWs or longer could more realistically just be referred to as "a transfer".

HOHO: A strategy defined by making transfers for the short term (1-3GWs) in the hopes of capitalising on promising form or fixtures.

More than happy for that definition to be challenged if we can make it more accurate. I have problems with it, because a) attacking returns are difficult to predict, and b) I don't particularly believe in "form" (but that's a separate discussion). Everything's context and squad dependant of course, and I'm sure I've transferred players in for very brief spells in the past, but generally speaking I don't think it's particularly wise. I especially think HOHOHO (on, off, and on again) is detrimental to FPL success.

There's no need to make a distinction though, they are both just 'transfers'. It offers no advantage to try and segregate them like this.

What if you planned to get player A in for two weeks, (therefore a HOHO transfer supposedly), then at the time you are meant to transfer them out, another player in your team gets injured, (player B), so you remove player B instead and player A ends up kicking around in your team for five weeks in the end, instead of the two weeks that you planned.

That would mean that in actual fact you had made a 'normal' transfer for them originally instead of a 'HOHO' transfer. Except all this really amounts to is arbitrary labelling at this point and it doesn't really change the substance of what you're actually doing, which is just making transfers that you think are profitable and in your team's best interests each week.

[MPTree]

I think for the sake of the discussion (and based on SpiderM4tt's original intent when coining the term), it's helpful to think of HOHO as a strategy characterised by short term transfers. Defining short term as 1-3 GWs seems reasonable. Any transfers made for a period of (say) 4 GWs or longer could more realistically just be referred to as "a transfer".

HOHO: A strategy defined by making transfers for the short term (1-3GWs) in the hopes of capitalising on promising form or fixtures.

More than happy for that definition to be challenged if we can make it more accurate. I have problems with it, because a) attacking returns are difficult to predict, and b) I don't particularly believe in "form" (but that's a separate discussion). Everything's context and squad dependant of course, and I'm sure I've transferred players in for very brief spells in the past, but generally speaking I don't think it's particularly wise. I especially think HOHOHO (on, off, and on again) is detrimental to FPL success.

There's no need to make a distinction though, they are both just 'transfers'. It offers no advantage to try and segregate them like this.

What if you planned to get player A in for two weeks, (therefore a HOHO transfer supposedly), then at the time you are meant to transfer them out, another player in your team gets injured, (player B), so you remove player B instead and player A ends up kicking around in your team for five weeks in the end, instead of the two weeks that you planned.

That would mean that in actual fact you had made a 'normal' transfer for them originally instead of a 'HOHO' transfer. Except all this really amounts to is arbitrary labelling at this point and it doesn't really change the substance of what you're actually doing, which is just making transfers that you think are profitable and in your team's best interests each week.

One of the most significant things theory does is put labels on things and give stuff names, so I disagree that it's not helpful to make distinctions like this.

It's far too basic a model (for me anyway) to suggest that every transfer is just like every other. Aside from captaincy and benching decisions, the game is just a series of transfers. We have strategies and plans in mind when we make these transfers, so it makes perfect sense to differentiate between them in ways that help us better understand the game.

In the example you've quoted above, your aggressive transfer strategy has been hampered by the need to replace an injured player. You have, I believe, identified the key weakness in the HOHO strategy - that the squad is likely to suffer elsewhere.

I think there's really only four types of transfer strategy, with finer points to discuss among each, and probable cross-over in places:

Aggressive transfers, or HOHO: Transferring players for the short term.
Mid-term transfers: I'd say most active managers plan for the mid-term (5 GWs or more) and that most transfers fall in this category.
Long-term transfers: We normally refer to these as 'set and forget', barring injury.
TV transfers: Transfers made in an attempt to build team value.

These four types of transfer are made for different reasons, and it can only be helpful to know the benefits and pitfalls of each.