Best XI for GW14 - a "template" or just a FH team...

[MoSe]

taking on from a discussion between raoul and RNZ about "template" teams performing worse than alternatives in last GW...

viewtopic.php?p=3268774#p3268774

for my first time this season (or ...ever?) I looked at FFS Scout Picks article - the "nominations" one actually

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=129411&p=3269439#p3269439

https://www.fantasyfootballscout.co.uk/ ... meweek-14/

I learned about their method, and looked into their data

FFS gw14 nominations.gif

considering that the "order" of their nomination has a weight too, I added a 321 weight for GK and 54321 for other positions
their nominations are sorted, in each position, by #votes first, only then by avg weight

FFS gw14 Scout Picks - preview.gif

as you read in their ScoutPick article(s) they self-imposed a £83m budget cap for the XI, to make it viable, or anyway valid
to field all their 7 four-voted nominations (Lossl / Alonso Doherty / Sterling Hazard Salah / Aguero),
they'd need to ditch Robertson, and pick for instance Schindler AWB Mooy Jiménez in a 442, with 0.2m to spare

in the pic above I examined the Salah-less option instead, freeing more budget, building a 3-3-2 skeleton with 3-voted Robbo+Sané+Jimé & 2 more to pick for 11m
they could be Schinlder-Zaha (two votes each), or TAA-Rondon, or a 352 with the two single-voted cheapos and 0.7m to spare
another alternative would be Martial+Arnie in place of Sané+Jiménez
________________

as hinted in our GW13 scores topic too, I'm not that much interested in the specific details,
but rather on what could these "ScoutPicks" represent

Clearly they are nominated and then whittled down to the XI, specifically with just the current GW in mind
the nominations change every GW, and not future gw consideration appears to be taken into account

Clearly, if you wanted to consider it as a template to model your team after in this specific GW, you'd have to take several hits, or a WC, to copy it
And then you'd have to ovarhaul it again for next GW

You could more realistically consider it as a template for a FH team, should you really think this would be the best GW to play your FH (?)
you follow that template, you can make any transfer (including cheapest enablers on your bench if you need it to afford the XI)
and that will bear no effect on your following gw team
________________

here in FISO we have our weekly Captaincy threads (which we know are rather "who you captained" than "who you'd captain")
and the Transfers and bench topics to gather ideas about hot or popular players on our site

we have nothing like the "Best XI Picks for This GW" suggestions tho, afaik

- is that because we don't find it worth / interesting?
- is that becasue we use the available FFS (or other sites') one?
- is that becasue no one thought or bothered to organise our version here?
- maybe we had something like it in the past, which got discontinued?

I don't mean we "need" to mock-replicate the FFS one, or to "compete" with their picks
But as it has been brought to my attention as a FFS team-template, while imho it's rather a Single-week/FH-team suggestion,
I wonder what wold a FISO GW-template be....

we should first decide how crowded a panel to have (3-4-5 or more members) and then WHO to appoint for it

• On a whim I'd vote to include Stemania and RNZ in it, and then it would be a tough choice between those skilled and trusted enough to complete it, see for instance all those who keep or contribute in many detailed and insightful RMTs. Always on a whim, if it's a quintet i'd include baganboy, AR and TT in it. but many other would be worth it and make me change my mind, for instance SuperGrover who's our current Forum League leader, or Ardrageen, or....

then once established a panel (with those to accept the appointment and commitment, of course) we could have a multiple-check Poll with the players nominated by the panel, to restrict the choice to FISO Best XI by all members consensus....

well, I jsut threw a stone in the pond, up to anyone here to pick it up, if you like

[Ruth_NZ]

I wasn't suggesting that it's the FFS template, MoSe, obviously it is based on that week specifically. But they tend to stick with players that are generally being advocated on FFS at the time, so it is somewhat indicative of their template in that sense. If a player is in the Scout Picks team they are probably in "the template" but not every template player will be in the Scout Picks team.

A template in FPL terms is a construction that others can copy. It is more apparent on FFS than anywhere else, where you will regularly see posters going online and asking "what's the template at the moment". Players that aren't included are referred to as a "differential" (which means they are halfway to being accorded template approval) or a "punt" (which means that few other managers have thought this player worthwhile and that therefore you are probably wrong to pick them or at least playing with risk).

Personally I don't like any of those terms because they all have the same underlying idea that there is a correct consensus about the best approach. Stemania and I have argued in the past about whether the FFS template is steered (influencing managers) or is the result of managers making independent judgements which gravitate the same way because they are seeing the same evidence. Either way, what we both agree on is that there is no substitute for making your own strategy, analysis and decisions.

I wouldn't be interested in creating a GW team on FISO (or participating in such), I think it is too short-term to be of use to anyone not using the FH. But a team for the next 6 GWs would be more interesting, especially if the possibility of rotating players therein was allowed for. That would be more useful in informing transfer decisions but would be more complex to do. FFS doesn't do complex, it does headlines. FISO does complex better but the question is whether there is a good reason to put the work in for something like that.

[MoSe]

From your objections to raoul's statements, I had understood that you considered Sigurdsson a "template player" in FFS also because he was included in their GW13 ScoutPicks.
As I said there tho, I'm glad you brought up the subject inducing me to clarify my mind about the term semantics and the ScoutPicks workings

I'm happy (and thankful) for what you summarised in your above post, that's why I thought the subject would have been interesting here.

I'm perfectly fine having slight different PoVs (e.g. I'm more interested in recognising where a mass of independent choices converge, rather than in a model "construction")

I also agree that a mid-term template would be the only one worth investigating (whence indeed my discomfort in thus calling FFS GW ScoutPicks)

Having here too something similar to FFS ScoutPicks was just a wandering thought, I'd don't think I'd be willing to commit into such endeavour myself either

From my above slant on the issue tho, I used the FNTSY PL tool to get the FISO Forum League Top 50 teams actual picks
of course they report GW13 now, before this evening deadline
http://fntsypl.com/live?league=14226
http://fntsypl.com/selections?league=14226

I don't think the tool allows to check back for past GWs, so that table will be "lost" after this evening deadline,
I provided to capture and format them a bit
this is "as if" each of the Forum League top 50 teams had "voted with their feet" i.e. with their actual GW13 teams

• alas it' doesn't provide starters/bench info like FPLD Google sheets do, but it has Captains on the Live page
  but you can check it for individual players in the selection page
  e.g. AWB had 39/50 picks, but if you click on the number "39" you listed all teams who picked him, and they're all "strikethrough", meaning his owners all benched him
  checking TAA you see that one of his 5 owners benched him. Whilst clicking on Sterling's "13" you see 5 o their 13 owning tesms in bold, that's those who Captained him

the most "voted" (i.e. XV-picked) players form a "de-facto" FISO Top 50 XV template for GW13

FISO Top50 GW13 picks.gif

I marked the XV on the left with position, it's a 4-4-2 with 4 benchers in lowercase
I didn't insert prices (as I did instead for FFS GW14 nominations) so that might well be not valid budgetwise
And, the 39-picked AWB made the initial XI although he was actually 39-benched. I could have thus switched him with Wilson, changing to a 3-4-3

The XV most popular 2-5-5-3 picks tallied up 374 picks out of 750 (50*15=750), that's practically half of the picks
Or, we could say that on average the top 50 teams have 7.5 player each from that "FISO template"

• Patricio (Fabianski)
  Alonso Robertson Doherty (AWB Laporte)
  Richarlison Salah Hazard Fraser (Mané)
  Aguero Arnautovic Wilso

n

Sterling, the 2nd highset scorer of the 90 individual picked players, fell just outside the template for mids,
with only 1 fewer pick than Mané, but almost half those of Fraser who made the XI
the GW top scorer Sané was only picked by 1 team in Fiso top 50, Jameselaprendi's "Football Club FC"

BTW, the team ranked 50th in Fiso Forum League after GW13 has 9,271 FPL rank, so our sample is all inside FPL 10k

[MoSe]

Either way, what we both agree on is that there is no substitute for making your own strategy, analysis and decisions.

I forgot to add (as the above post was long enough already )

I usually take the above for basic, given and granted!

I'm SHOCKED when I read someone thinking otherwise!

I'm for instance also shocked when someone says that the Form sorting in Tranfers, or there https://fantasy.premierleague.com/a/statistics/form
is "useless" because there "can be" rubbish players at its top who only got there thanks to a lucky fluke, but can't keep such form up.
Well it's UP TO YOU to *understand* which players in the Form standings to weed out because of that, and which to consider.
i'm shocked by those whose mind is so rigid to say

• "If I use the Form standing I have to follow it as a bible, I'm not smart enough to verify, understand and filter with a pinch of salt which players there are worth considering"

similarly for how to use a template, that should be *obvious*. Or is it?

[Ruth_NZ]

Well, the fact that he was included in the SPs is a strong indicator, put it like that. And I know for a fact that he was being advocated widely on FFS over the last few weeks so he ticks that box too. Which was what I said to raoul at the time.

The FFS template isn't 11 players, it's a pool of maybe 20 or so. Some are deemed 'essential' (another horrible term) and others are on a shifting scale of how in favour they are at the moment. Which is usually based on recent points scored rather than projected points potential (they are often treated as if they are one and the same thing).

Personally I dislike the whole 'template' concept and indeed the term itself. I see it to be an invitation to mediocrity and copycat management. If there weren't an idea about getting the right/popular/in-the-know/in-crowd players there wouldn't be any need for the term at all, it would just be managers making their own independent decisions. So the widespread use of the word indicates that copycat management and copycat thought is very common in FPL.