R_NZ FPL Blog

[Sutter Kane]

Doesn't high ppg in mids and atts mean that he caught some hot streaks perfectly, which is mostly luck. I agree that defender performance is critical and more predictable (bar goals). 4.2 PPG is gettable, but at what cost elsewhere? (especially if one is looking at 4.2ppg for 3, 4 or 5 defender system)

[Ruth_NZ]

There have been lots of interesting comments made over the last few pages that I wanted to respond to but have been busy doing the top-12 & top-20k analysis which needed completing while the data was there and that has taken the little time that was available. Now that's done I can get back to some of the other posts and also continue my lessons-learned process (although some of that crept into the top-12 analysis as well).

My approximate 'value' benchmarks at various pricepoints:
4.5m - 3.0 PPG
6.0m - 4.25 PPG
7.5m - 5.5 PPG
9.0m - 6.75 PPG
10.5m - 8.0 PPG
12.0m - 9.25 PPG
You can see there that once you get above 9m or so the likelihood of any player delivering value without captaincy is slim (although more possible over a short hot-streak than over a season).

Well with transfers one should be able to catch hotter streaks than without transfers so these ppg's are close to 'achievable' even if the ppg drop down on FPL indicates that other than defenders/GK, no-one much offers good enough value (or hardly anyone we can realistically predict for next season)!!

I'd hoped to get back to Ruth before this but my impression was that his benchmarks were a little bit high for 7.5m upwards and maybe a bit low below that. Maybe the gradient is too steep (or maybe it is not a straight line with diminishing marginal returns as prices rise, to go back to a previous point).

Since these posts I had a chat with AR by PM and thought maybe to reproduce some of it concerning the benchmarks mentioned. If anyone wants a full description of the rationality then there's a post called Squad Structure & Value on page 12 of this thread which explains the methodology in detail but essentially it is about looking at how to achieve 2500 points with a budget of 100m. After making allowances for captaincy and chips, you are left with around 57 points per week being needed. Roughly 67.5m of your budget is compulsory spend (15 base-price players that actually start for their teams) and for that you can allow roughly 30 points. So 27 points per GW must come from the other 32.5m and that means that each 0.5m of 'free' spend has to deliver 0.42 points per GW. So that's my ballpark valuation of 0.5m 'free' budget; 0.42 points per GW or around 16 points per season.

That's why I add 1.25 ppg for every 1.5m spend above base price in my value benchmarks. The fact that very few premium attackers achieve the benchmark is simply the way it is. The point is: don't pick so many of them. I think when you go above 9.0m or so there is next to no chance of a player delivering value without captaincy, other than in short hot-streaks. SK is quite right that this then crosses over into transfer usage but you also have to ask how much that helps; certainly my experience this season in attempting to profit from good fixture runs with the likes of Sánchez and Hazard wasn't very successful and I'd have been much better off just getting Salah and sticking with him (and also using the budget saved elsewhere).

On the other hand, that use of transfers to move between premium attackers can work well; last season (16/17) I was very successful in picking my timing with Lukaku for example. But it's a bit hit-and-miss really and that crosses into the whole form v fixtures thing, which is something I have noted as a heading to re-examine for my lessons-learned.

Value isn't everything, you also need some spend on potential captains that won't be justified on 'pure' value and that in fact increases the value return you need from the 32.5m free budget if anything; either that or you need to run very hot on captaincy. So 0.42 ppGW might actually need to be 0.45 or so. But either way, there is a substantial element in designing a squad that has to be value-based, that's clear. I have known that for a long time but still made the mistake of ending up with too many premium attackers last season to the detriment of my team's overall performance. You just have to force yourself not to do it; even the likes of Kane can't hurt you really over a period unless he runs really hot because his price is so high to start with. It is the under-priced value player - especially if they turn into a valid captain - that can kill you - such as Sterling and especially Salah this season. The trouble - as AR pointed out via PM - is that "it is very difficult to hold your nerve when multiple big guns score high". He's right; it is.

The value element is something that many good managers already do instinctively even if they didn't calculate benchmarks, for example AR's decision last season to invest more in predictable, premium defenders and to play less attackers. Baganboy is another that has tended that way for some time (with good results when he doesn't get bored with FPL). That is probably the best way to square the 'value' circle as long as you have the right captains (or the 'right' premium attackers). The trick is to not mind Hazard, or Sánchez, or Kane (or whoever) getting a haul when you don't have him in your team; having the equanimity to let others have those points in the confidence that your structure will gain 2-3 points per week on them over a period as long as you are selecting well and getting at least par returns with captaincy (which means the 7.5 - 8.0 doubled range in my book).

Again, another job for later but my impression is that most of the premium players at each price point actually scored lower this season than last season based on ppg. This was masked to some extent in terms of overall scores because of Salah (and to an extent Sterling).

I didn't do a detailed survey either and would be interested to see yours but my impression (which was formed when doing the top-12 analysis) is the same. Midfielder averages in the most successful FPL teams were around 10% up last season but when you look at it a bit more closely it becomes clear that was substantially down to Salah and Sterling, the rest weren't anything out of the ordinary and many of the premiums (Hazard for example, or Sánchez, or Lukaku) had poor FPL seasons by previous standards.

I rarely assume that any incremental spend on defenders generally offers more points than anywhere else, making cheap defenders better value but basically not as useful FPL wise as expensive ones offering attacking and/or big bonus potential. Is this assumption correct, if one ignores rotation? I'm not happy with 5 at the back - and I don't quite know why. [Could be a lack of flexible transfer power to accumulate the ppg mentioned in your list there.]

I'm not happy with 5-3-2 either because it is very inflexible and you lose many benefits of rotation (5-4-1 is even worse). You are mostly going to have a weak bench with that kind of formation because you'll likely have a 2-point midfielder as 1st sub and quite possibly a non-playing forward as well. It only takes one of your defenders to miss a game and you are in trouble. So 4-4-2 is preferable in my book (assuming the players are available to suit) because it allows more flexibility and a slightly stronger bench to cover eventualities and allow some use to be made of rotation. But that's another telling, underlying question: how strong do you want your bench to be? The VR/Triggerlips/Dazzler approach is all about a weak bench most of the time with the cost pared to the bone and the budget in your first XI. That's one way to do it that obviously works but my preference is to invest a little more in 15 players, have some flexibility and a bench that can weather storms if a spate of injuries hits, for example. Just as long as the budget benched is within reason (18.0m is roughly what I usually aim for).

[Ruth_NZ]

Doesn't high ppg in mids and atts mean that he caught some hot streaks perfectly, which is mostly luck. I agree that defender performance is critical and more predictable (bar goals). 4.2 PPG is gettable, but at what cost elsewhere? (especially if one is looking at 4.2ppg for 3, 4 or 5 defender system).

I knew I'd need all my notes as soon as I had thrown them away (yesterday) and I'm not going to rummage in the bin (though I briefly considered it).

The winner (if we are talking about him) actually got a relatively par number from his forwards. The main reason he had such a high MF average was that he had Salah from GW1 and captained him a lot - from memory he did so 16 times. When you captain MFs a lot - especially a very hot one - it will boost the MF average and suppress the FW average a bit and that's how I read his numbers.

Last season I thought that the winner was very lucky; he relied on a gargantuan captaincy average. This season's winner just looked like a very well-managed team to me, although luck will doubtless have played some part somewhere along the line. But I think he was a deserved winner anyway, unlike the winner of the FPL Cup.

[Sutter Kane]

Yea I should have phrased it differently rather than used him as an e.g. I meant it would be very tough for one to improve on midfield / attacker averages without paralysing the defence, UNLESS you have some serious luck. Therefore defensively is where the gains can be made (unless you nail the perfect captain most weeks), and hopefully those gains will not be at much expense further forward. Well this is where the value presumably comes in with those midfield/forward positions.

I knew I'd need all my notes as soon as I had thrown them away (yesterday) and I'm not going to rummage in the bin (though I briefly considered it).

I can't believe you threw tham away instead of meticulously filing them in chronological order, cross referenced with topic. You can then review them in detail for decades to come.

[Ruth_NZ]

Yea I should have phrased it differently rather than used him as an e.g. I meant it would be very tough for one to improve on midfield / attacker averages without paralysing the defence, UNLESS you have some serious luck. Therefore defensively is where the gains can be made (unless you nail the perfect captain most weeks), and hopefully those gains will not be at much expense further forward. Well this is where the value presumably comes in with those midfield/forward positions.

Yep. Although it's also true that if you can be playing 4 defenders (perhaps even 5) and getting good value from them in terms of ppgpm then you can afford to spend more on each attacker because you only need 6 (or 5) rather than 7. So in a way it should allow you to be a bit more points-focused (rather than value-focused) in attack. That'd be the theory anyway.

I knew I'd need all my notes as soon as I had thrown them away (yesterday) and I'm not going to rummage in the bin (though I briefly considered it).

I can't believe you threw tham away instead of meticulously filing them in chronological order, cross referenced with topic. You can then review them in detail for decades to come.

Actually I'm the opposite of that, my filing system would be non-existent if it weren't for my wife's efforts (which don't extend to my FPL notes). Once something is written I'm done with it; that's why I quite like having this blog because if I do want to refer back to something it is probably written about somewhere in here.

[MoSe]

I know something similar can be found (?) in public.tableau where graphs are interactive too
but you can't have RNZ Benchmarks on them!

found one, for those still interested
https://public.tableau.com/profile/mike ... ublish=yes
if you set "Min # weeks played" to 2 and "Min Minutes for played" to 1, you get my aboveposted all-players graph

[Tacalabala]

It's interesting about the bench strength. I feel I've done better with managing it this past season than before, I've tried to take the Ville approach and not be too concerned if I can only field 10 or even 9 players in the odd week and I've been surprised how well I've gotten away with it.

What I have been doing for some time is giving the 5th defender junk status from the start and picking the lowest priced potential starter. On reflection, given the higher propensity for poor returns from forwards, more options in the mids, and greater predictably and the block option the defence, I should actually be having a junk forward as number 15.

I did have a query - how is form calculated on FPL, is it simple 6 game average?

[MoSe]

 

[Tacalabala]

Yep, in the help section

"Form is a player’s average score per match, calculated from all matches played by his club in the last 30 days."

[MGPT]

Interesting stuff on defenders RNZ. Every year I experiment with a relatively big spend on the backline- largely for the type of reasons you have talked about- and every year it seems to just fail. Every time I resort to a typical balanced triggerlips type structure, everything improves again. Even though your logic about value makes perfect sense it seems the consistent top FPL managers still go with a fairly cheap backline and throwaway D5. Do you have any thoughts on why we don't tend to see HOFers who favour premium backlines?

Another factor this year is the World Cup. I remember at the start of the 14/15 season there was a lot of talk about bigger teams keeping fewer clean sheets after WCs as their players would be more fatigued. I have no idea how strong the statistics were o this as it's obviously going to be a very small sample but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on it.

[baganboy]

My approximate 'value' benchmarks at various pricepoints:

4.5m - 3.0 PPG
6.0m - 4.25 PPG
7.5m - 5.5 PPG
9.0m - 6.75 PPG
10.5m - 8.0 PPG
12.0m - 9.25 PPG

your Positions Analysis might be complemented by how much Top 12 and Top 20k sample spent in each position on average, but I understand that would require much more work

As a background for your excellent posts, you might be interested to check there viewtopic.php?f=99&t=115292&p=3200057#p3200057
where I plotted PPG vs Final Price for all FPL players; you can find there individual graphs for each position
here's the all-players one, which should help compare the value available in the different positions

I kno something similar can be found (?) in public.tableau where graphs are interactive too
but you can't have RNZ Benchmarks on them!

This is absolutely amazing, guys.
I ave been tinkering with this concept of creating pricing blocks last season, but this graphical representation would give the most accurate estimate. This is especially valuable for me. Thanks MoSe and RNZ.

While looking at the graphs: I was considering a few other scenarios. Rough estimate, I think about 70% of the players are not good value. And decent managers intuitively gravitate towards the best value players... can we have a way to maybe chop off the bottom 70% ppg players for each position, and then plot only the top 30%, for each position. Perhaps would give a better perspective for price vs PPG for each position?

[MoSe]

IIRC I tested something like that before (or after! ) finalising those graphs, and the result was that if we selected all thos who had a very good PPG, then by definition it became less dependent from price (well maybe not by definiton, we have expert statisticians here who might detail, I'm not one).
Or anyway, that's what it happened. Top PPGs occurred at most price ranges, with lower correlation to price.

Besides, one useful effect of the graph is also to show premiums who did NOT have top PPG

I'll try to check it again, anyway. Maybe.

[ZeroRemorse]

Hey Ruth, hope you're summer's going good mate.

How's the early drafts?
I'm currently considering putting Martial or Sanchez in since they're OOP, but I was burned by Sanchez and Mourinho's timid attacking tactics last season and it's putting me off. Are you considering any United players?

[Cliffard]

^I'm planning for the first 3 GWs only, and am tempted by Shaw.

[Alex van Stell]

Sanchez is rested over summer for the first time in years, but Martial wants out.

[Billy Bongo]

You never know if it's the player or the agent speaking

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

[Ruth_NZ]

Hey Ruth, hope you're summer's going good mate.
How's the early drafts?
I'm currently considering putting Martial or Sanchez in since they're OOP, but I was burned by Sanchez and Mourinho's timid attacking tactics last season and it's putting me off. Are you considering any United players?

Hi ZR and all!

I had a summer completely away from FF and have been so busy that I didn't even watch much of the WC believe it or not.

Have considered passing this season because of time being limited but will play on a part-time kind of basis. It might be my last season though, we'll see. Anyways, I do need to tidy up my lessons learned from last season and do some prep for this season but I probably won't even look at a draft until a few days before the season starts. I'll post as and when I can but probably not at the length and rate of last season.

Good luck all.

[ragamuffin]

Hey Ruth, hope you're summer's going good mate.
How's the early drafts?
I'm currently considering putting Martial or Sanchez in since they're OOP, but I was burned by Sanchez and Mourinho's timid attacking tactics last season and it's putting me off. Are you considering any United players?

Hi ZR and all!

I had a summer completely away from FF and have been so busy that I didn't even watch much of the WC believe it or not.

Have considered passing this season because of time being limited but will play on a part-time kind of basis. It might be my last season though, we'll see. Anyways, I do need to tidy up my lessons learned from last season and do some prep for this season but I probably won't even look at a draft until a few days before the season starts. I'll post as and when I can but probably not at the length and rate of last season.

Good luck all.

Hey Ruth,

Good to hear from you mate. How come you will be playing part-time and why are you considering this being your last season?

Was looking forward to following this blog again for the coming season!

[Billy Bongo]

You'll probably enjoy it more!

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

[Cliffard]

What an absolute travesty! Real life has nothing on FPL, Ruth!

[snakzz]

Compadres needs it captain!

[ZeroRemorse]

Hi ZR and all!

I had a summer completely away from FF and have been so busy that I didn't even watch much of the WC believe it or not.

Have considered passing this season because of time being limited but will play on a part-time kind of basis. It might be my last season though, we'll see. Anyways, I do need to tidy up my lessons learned from last season and do some prep for this season but I probably won't even look at a draft until a few days before the season starts. I'll post as and when I can but probably not at the length and rate of last season.

Good luck all.

Sounds like a productive summer! Anything other than FPL is productive
I'm currently in France enjoying the good weather & food.

From a community perspective that's definitely a shame you will be cutting back, you're a valuable asset, I'm gutted to hear that, but we'll be looking forward to what content you do have time for.
But glad to hear you're keeping busy. Good luck with work and hope it allows you some time to rant and chat away with us at some point . I'm definitely interested in what early drafts you have in mind.

PS. Sorry it didn't come home

[Alex van Stell]

Hello All,

With the World Cup success of England and how well it was received in general, how many fpl players do we think there will be this season? 8 mill?

Competition will be tougher than ever this time I think!

[Cliffard]

Ruth, where you at?

[mrbirtakim]

Wish you were here Ruth, here’s to you

[Ruth_NZ]

Hi all...

My pre-season prep has consisted of assembling a team in 60 minutes and that's it. Just very busy with other things that have higher priority.

I may post here from time to time but don't expect any in-depth analysis, I won't be doing it. I'll pretty much be playing on auto-pilot this season.

Good luck!

[Miketelly]

I'll miss your analysis man! But definitely understand the need to take a break. Enjoy the time off and extra free time from not deep diving into FPL. Cheers man.

[MGPT]

Hey Ruth, will miss your insights for sure.

Hope you have a punty no-Salah team this year1

[Ruth_NZ]

So, I updated my FPL button now. This was my initial team...

Allison Hart
Azpilicueta Cook Keane Hoedt Mendy
Mané Salah Schneiderlin Hendrick Pereyra
Aguero Tosun King
99.5m

As planned, I activated BB in GW1. I think that was an easy decision this season. Would have been better had I had more than 60 minutes preparing (since the game launched) - I had no idea about Wan-Bissaka, for example, and he'd have made the cut had I known there was a 4.0m defender with a good GW1 fixture. That would have enabled me to have Richarlison instead of Schneiderlin; he was the one player I'd have liked but couldn't fit in. But still, I'm not complaining really; the team has done well enough so far and although there's no Richarlison not many will have Pereyra.

The early return of the World Cup players has surprised me. Ngolo Kante was very much in my thoughts for this season because he will have a more box-to-box role playing next to Jorginho and I know that Kante is more talented with the ball than many imagine. He's another that would certainly have been in my GW1 team had I known he'd be playing but really I had no idea of that.

My provisional plan is to wildcard in GW5, so in the first international break. Teams should be more settled by then. We'll see how things unfold but essentially I have selected a team for 4 weeks and without bothering too much about my long-term structure (which will be more efficient). The only decision I have to make now is what to do about Richarlison. I think it's probably worthwhile to take a hit in GW2 as long as you are getting 2 players that look like good price-rise bandwagons. Mané & Schneiderlin Pogba & Richarlison perhaps, or maybe Azpilicueta could get downgraded to Shaw or Wan-Bissaka. We'll see what today brings but there's no rush; I wouldn't expect price rises any time soon and will wait on news of Richarlison's injury for sure. Save FT is also a distinct possibility but Richarlison does look like a good horse to back if he is fit.

[Aldershot Rejects]

Saw you had Pereyra - great shout and brilliant first three fixtures. He was on my long watchlist but didn't make the shortcut. Salah as well (before anyone else says it)

Good luck for the season.