General FPL Chat 2018/19

Morzadec

FHFC wrote: »

I'm having an absolute nightmare start lads and I don't quite know why.

Missed Richarlison GW1 and I took a -8 last week which turned out disastrously in terms of GW3 points but moved out some duds gave me players that should be good for the short term.

I can't see much wrong with my team. Took a -4 to get Alonso and move Richarlison this week so far and it looks ok for GW4.

But my OR is 925k.

Patricio/Hamer
Alonso, Mendy, Holebas, Wan Bissaka, Peltier
Salah, Mkhitaryan, Pedro, Walcott, Gunnarson
Aguero, Auba, Arnie

I'm resisting the urge to wildcard as I would still want a lot of those players and would only really be tidying up. Am I being too patient?

I wouldn't WC with that team, it looks really solid.

I just wildcarded myself, i think it was justifiable. My WC team has 3 of your 5 defenders, and 4 of your 5 midfielders.

There's really not many changes I'd make to that team if I was WCing, I think you have to soldier on.

Also had an underwhelming start myself, 588k overall. Tis a long season though

Necronomicon

On this day in 2011 United beat Arsenal 8-2 at Old Trafford. I had Rooney(c) and Young, five goals and a bunch of assists between them. One of my fondest FPL memories.

Iused2likebusts

KevIRL wrote: »

One thing a little different this year is that many of the strong players seem to have gotten off to good starts.

That's the big key difference.

Mr.Prodston

FHFC wrote: »

I'm having an absolute nightmare start lads and I don't quite know why.

Missed Richarlison GW1 and I took a -8 last week which turned out disastrously in terms of GW3 points but moved out some duds gave me players that should be good for the short term.

I can't see much wrong with my team. Took a -4 to get Alonso and move Richarlison this week so far and it looks ok for GW4.

But my OR is 925k.

Patricio/Hamer
Alonso, Mendy, Holebas, Wan Bissaka, Peltier
Salah, Mkhitaryan, Pedro, Walcott, Gunnarson
Aguero, Auba, Arnie

I'm resisting the urge to wildcard as I would still want a lot of those players and would only really be tidying up. Am I being too patient?

You're not really missing anyone of note for needing a wildcard.

It seems for now that the template is too wide to fit them all in. Unless you're going to go for a major reshuffle for Kane/Hazard/Robertson then I'd suggest hanging on another few weeks.

I jumped on Robertson myself Saturday but now find myself needing a -8 to get Alonso in for PVA or Cedric and getting a forward under 5.0 which I can't justify even though I'm not happy with King or Zaha.

Unlike Ash Ketchum we ain't gonna be able to catch them all :cool:

Maybe if you hung around here more often you'd pick up a few tips from boardsies who seem to be off to a flyer :P Even I'm at 235k as someone who notoriously doesn't start well.

Seriously I'd try and give it another week anyway, it's a good team.

iroced

FHFC wrote: »

On this part, I got PEA and Mhki in as part of my hit last week along with Pedro. I actually had funds to get Kane, and I was initially going to do that move but I got PEA and kept 1.5m in the bank.

I'm not sold on Kane as an option yet. Scary words to say given how much he murdered me last year with the infamous double hattricks.

But the difference is that while he has returned well the last two weeks and will haul here and there, he's not auto-captain for most people, and for the huge price he's not giving value for budget if not captained. (I know some people disagree with that concept so if you don't lets agree to disagree).

I think there is serious value in the 6m to 8m range this year, compare to very little potential sub 6m (apart from maybe Austin, and possibly Fraser) so I don't think owning 3 super-premium players is justified when you could use the money to have a bigger defence and strong 3rd/4th mid and/or 3rd striker.

I.e. trying to own Kane, Salah and Aguero will leave you scrimping in defence and having a cheap 4th mid/3rd striker.

But looking at the fixtures of those three over the next 10 GWs and I only see ONE week where Kane would be the overwhelming captain choice -see below.



So I'd be more looking at downgrading PEA to Mitrovic and improving my defence and being able to upgrade my third mid to a 9m budget range player.

There's probably an argument to own Kane around GW7 to 9, and there will be runs of fixtures where his captaincy threat is higher, but in general I think I'll leave him and accept that he may get a brace or a hat trick here and there but if I'm getting decent captain returns from Aguero/Salah for less investment I can live with that.

I agree with everything you said. And in particular the value for money players offer. I even started to "question" a very little bit Salah myself. Not for now. But e.g. I'll keep a close eye on Salah vs Mané. What's putting me off for now for sure is his huge captaincy appeal. But we all know this can change very fast. A little injury, a bad run and in the meantime Spurs & Kane on fire and the whole situation has turned upside down.

My worry about flexibility would become real if the likes of Hazard, Sanchez, KDB alongside PEA start clicking. So far, as you said, with all the mid-price mids delivering the goods, we've nothing to worry about.

Iused2likebusts wrote: »

KevIRL wrote: »

One thing a little different this year is that many of the strong players seem to have gotten off to good starts.

That's the big key difference.

Apart from your own mini-leagues where you're fighting for cash (on which I can't have an opinion) how do you measure that? I'd say all the regulars in here are what you call strong serious players. And I'm under the impression to be reading this statement every single season from different players and such a start did not impede some of these players to get a top 10k finish, which I'd consider strong whatever the final rankings of any league.

Chesty08

ICT Index... Can someone explain what this is and it's importance? 

Influence, Creativity, Threat

I suppose to give some background... I have been thinking of going with Salah as captain the weekend, is he going to outscore (or similar score) Mane, is he really worth the extra cash. Getting no bps the last two games really annoyed me when he had so much influence on the game, I couldn't comprehend how he was penalised rather than rewarded more.

My own view watching games, is that he is above and beyond Mane, a constant threat and really could/should of scored more than his 2 goals to date.

His ICT Index (52.5) is much higher than anyone else in the game (nearest are Aguero 39.5 and then Mane 35).

Is this a strong indicator on a players performance?

greedygoblin

Chesty08 wrote: »

ICT Index... Can someone explain what this is and it's importance?
Influence, Creativity, Threat

There's a paragraph or two about it on the FPL website:

The ICT Index is a football statistical index developed specifically to assess a player as an FPL asset. It uses match event data to generate a single score for three key areas – Influence, Creativity and Threat. These figures then combine to create an individual’s ICT Index score. It condenses more than 40 match event statistics into four distinct scores. These offer a view on player performance for factors that are known to produce FPL points.
1. Influence
Influence is the first measurement - this evaluates the degree to which that player has made an impact on a match, or matches over the season. It takes into account events and actions that could directly or indirectly effect the match outcome. At the very top level these are decisive actions like goals and assists. However, the Influence score also processes significant defensive actions to analyse the effectiveness of defenders and goalkeepers.
2. Creativity
Creativity assesses player performance in terms of producing goal scoring opportunities for others. It can be used as a guide to identify the players most likely to supply assists. While this analyses frequency of passing and crossing, it also considers pitch location and the incisiveness of the final ball.
3. Threat
Threat is the third measure, producing a value that examines a player’s threat on goal; it therefore gauges those individuals most likely to score goals. While attempts are the key action, the Index looks at pitch location, giving greater weight to actions that are regarded as the best openings to register a goal. All three of these scores are then combined to create an overall ICT Index score. That then offers a single figure that presents a view on that player as an FPL asset.

Iused2likebusts

iroced wrote: »

I agree with everything you said. And in particular the value for money players offer. I even started to "question" a very little bit Salah myself. Not for now. But e.g. I'll keep a close eye on Salah vs Mané. What's putting me off for now for sure is his huge captaincy appeal. But we all know this can change very fast. A little injury, a bad run and in the meantime Spurs & Kane on fire and the whole situation has turned upside down.

My worry about flexibility would become real if the likes of Hazard, Sanchez, KDB alongside PEA start clicking. So far, as you said, with all the mid-price mids delivering the goods, we've nothing to worry about.




Apart from your own mini-leagues where you're fighting for cash (on which I can't have an opinion) how do you measure that? I'd say all the regulars in here are what you call strong serious players. And I'm under the impression to be reading this statement every single season from different players and such a start did not impede some of these players to get a top 10k finish, which I'd consider strong whatever the final rankings of any league.

I'm 400k I'm fine with that start. I'm already in the top 10%. However in dahats league I'm 16th out of 25. In the elite 64 league I'm 49th out of 64. On the flipside I'm 3rd out of 25 in a league that's fairly handy. The good players in general have got off to a good start so 400K isn't as good at this stage as it usually is. I want to finish above as many good players as possible. I'd get much more satisfaction from winning dahats league over some of the pay leagues I'm in with friends.

FHFC

Mr.Prodston wrote: »

You're not really missing anyone of note for needing a wildcard.

It seems for now that the template is too wide to fit them all in. Unless you're going to go for a major reshuffle for Kane/Hazard/Robertson then I'd suggest hanging on another few weeks.

I jumped on Robertson myself Saturday but now find myself needing a -8 to get Alonso in for PVA or Cedric and getting a forward under 5.0 which I can't justify even though I'm not happy with King or Zaha.

Unlike Ash Ketchum we ain't gonna be able to catch them all :cool:

Maybe if you hung around here more often you'd pick up a few tips from boardsies who seem to be off to a flyer :P Even I'm at 235k as someone who notoriously doesn't start well.

Seriously I'd try and give it another week anyway, it's a good team.

Yeh my FPL game has gone to hell since I started hanging around here less.

I had TAA who was proving a wholly inadequate substitute for Robertson. I had intended keeping him but I had exact money to swap him to Alonso and looking at comparitive fixtures it seemed a good move. I'd definitely expect to get Liverpool defence back on WC but time enough till after their run of 4 away games plus Man City.

FHFC

iroced wrote: »

I agree with everything you said. And in particular the value for money players offer. I even started to "question" a very little bit Salah myself. Not for now. But e.g. I'll keep a close eye on Salah vs Mané. What's putting me off for now for sure is his huge captaincy appeal. But we all know this can change very fast. A little injury, a bad run and in the meantime Spurs & Kane on fire and the whole situation has turned upside down.

My worry about flexibility would become real if the likes of Hazard, Sanchez, KDB alongside PEA start clicking. So far, as you said, with all the mid-price mids delivering the goods, we've nothing to worry about.

The big difference when it comes to the value argument is whether the player is highly captained generally. If Kane was hitting 30 or 40% captaincy I'd change my view and say you need to have him as not owning a popular explosive captain could kill the OR.

Similarly with Salah even though he's not tearing it up he'll still have huge captain numbers for many of those nice home fixtures so its a different story going without him vs Kane with less captaincy and harder fixtures.

greedygoblin

Chesty08 wrote: »

ICT Index... Can someone explain what this is and it's importance?

Influence, Creativity, Threat

I suppose to give some background... I have been thinking of going with Salah as captain the weekend, is he going to outscore (or similar score) Mane, is he really worth the extra cash. Getting no bps the last two games really annoyed me when he had so much influence on the game, I couldn't comprehend how he was penalised rather than rewarded more.

My own view watching games, is that he is above and beyond Mane, a constant threat and really could/should of scored more than his 2 goals to date.

His ICT Index (52.5) is much higher than anyone else in the game (nearest are Aguero 39.5 and then Mane 35).

Is this a strong indicator on a players performance?

I decided to look into this a bit more to see how this ICT index figure corresponded with the actual FPL performance of a few players. I plotted this index figure against the minutes per point (I think minutes/point gives a fairer reflection of how a player has performed; for example, Hazard & Trippier have missed a fair amount of gametime & using the total points scored on it's own would distort the comparison to their detriment). I could have used points/minute instead but the numbers would have been a bit messier to deal with. Here is the result:





Basically, the higher the ICT index, & the further to the left hand side the better. There's a few things that are noticeable straight off. First of all, Salah is way out ahead of everyone else in terms of his ICT index. However, some players with lower index values are scoring more points (Mane, Trippier, Alonso, Hazard). This could indicate that Salah is simply underachieving so far in terms of his points scoring while putting in the passes, crosses, tackling etc, or the other players points returns aren't sustainable given their ICT numbers to date.*


Looking at the other end of the graph & you can see that Aubamayang's performance indicators & points returns are pretty abysmal. Eriksen's aren't much better. Of the 3 main Pool attackers, Firmino seems to be the poor relation in terms of both metrics so far.


It would be interesting to update this graph every couple of weeks to see how it changes. Provides a bit of food for thought. One thing the ICT index doesn't take account of is fixture difficulty; for instance Arsenal playing City & Chelsea in their 1st two games, so maybe the poor performance metrics for them are understandable. I've only included a selection of the most popular players, it starts to get very messy very fast the more you include.


*Any conclusions should be taken with a pinch of salt given the small sample size (3 games) we have so far.

Chesty08

Thanks greedygoblin this is excellent. It goes without saying, I’ll not be going without Salah and I might even keep the armband on him.

Watching Liverpool the last two games and in particular Mane v Salah, I really couldn’t understand how Mane got bps over Salah. The bps is definitely flawed when it comes to ICT (influence, creativity, threat). As you pointed out Salah just hasn’t converted to points wise. Saying that he is only a few points off (mainly the bps).

We seen it took Salah a few games to click last year.

Salah is a season keeper for me and will outscore Mane to the tune of an extra 3.5m with the armband

greedygoblin

Chesty08 wrote: »

Thanks greedygoblin this is excellent. It goes without saying, I’ll not be going without Salah and I might even keep the armband on him.

Watching Liverpool the last two games and in particular Mane v Salah, I really couldn’t understand how Mane got bps over Salah. The bps is definitely flawed when it comes to ICT (influence, creativity, threat). As you pointed out Salah just hasn’t converted to points wise. Saying that he is only a few points off (mainly the bps).

We seen it took Salah a few games to click last year.

Salah is a season keeper for me and will outscore Mane to the tune of an extra 3.5m with the armband

I thought Salah's looked a bit rusty. Stuff like the final ball going astray, not controlling a pass, losing the ball too easily. He's not looked up to speed. But then again I've mostly just seen highlights & it's difficult to tell having not seen a full game. In fact, I would say the same for Man City. Saw a bit of the Wolves game & it was surprising to see the number of passes going astray.

Chesty08

greedygoblin wrote: »

I thought Salah's looked a bit rusty. Stuff like the final ball going astray, not controlling a pass, losing the ball too easily. He's not looked up to speed. But then again I've mostly just seen highlights & it's difficult to tell having not seen a full game. In fact, I would say the same for Man City. Saw a bit of the Wolves game & it was surprising to see the number of passes going astray.

Yes he has looked a bit off, but you are comparing to his form of late last season. However what the ict indicates & what I felt was that he was doing a lot of this in dangerous position, getting a higher frequency of passes, shots etc away in comparison to say Mane. Obviously them not coming off leads to losing bps but indicator of him being of a really high ict overall.... it’s only a matter of time ...... I hope

ThunbergsAreGo

Chesty08 wrote: »

Yes he has looked a bit off, but you are comparing to his form of late last season. However what the ict indicates & what I felt was that he was doing a lot of this in dangerous position, getting a higher frequency of passes, shots etc away in comparison to say Mane. Obviously them not coming off leads to losing bps but indicator of him being of a really high ict overall.... it’s only a matter of time ...... I hope

Salah did a lot of the same last year

S.M.B.

Is the ICT index based on the last game, last season or a selection of games from this season?

I am guessing if you plotted cost against points per minute you would get a similar graph.

greedygoblin

S.M.B. wrote: »

Is the ICT index based on the last game, last season or a selection of games from this season?

It's all from this season. They assign ICT scores for each game. If you click on a players history they give the ICT scores there alongside the BPS. The headline value they have for each player is a cumulative score; so they just add up all the index values for that player from GW1 up to the present gameweek. This is the value I've used for each player to generate the plot above. It might be more useful to look at the average ICT index for each game, or a running average of the last 3/4/5 gameweeks. It might provide a bit more of an idea of who is in form or not.

S.M.B. wrote: »

I am guessing if you plotted cost against points per minute you would get a similar graph.

Do you mean ICT against points/minute? Or a players value?
Below is what the ICT against points/minute looks like; much the same except the further to the right the better this time. PPM is probably more intuitive. One thing to note is that the ICT figures for Spurs/ManUtd haven't been updated for GW3 yet, which skews the numbers a little for their players. Also Trippier missed GW1 so only has an ICT index for GW2, which maybe reinforces the argument to use an averaged ICT index value instead.

PARlance

From Price Change

thewools wrote: »

Pedro increased.. great. Anyone else reckon he will be dropped now for next game? Might cash in for the 0.1

From watching Newcastle game, you might get that impression. But Sarri tends to like a Pedro type player (playing off last man, looking for balls in behind) in his team. Willian is very alike Hazard in the way he drops a little deeper and wants to play from there.

I'm a little worried as an owner but going to wait and see what happens. I could see Morata being dropped in time and a front 3 of Pedro, Hazard, Willian.

No stats to back it up but I think Alonso gets forward far more with Willian on the pitch.

S.M.B.

greedygoblin wrote: »

It's all from this season. They assign ICT scores for each game. If you click on a players history they give the ICT scores there alongside the BPS. The headline value they have for each player is a cumulative score; so they just add up all the index values for that player from GW1 up to the present gameweek. This is the value I've used for each player to generate the plot above. It might be more useful to look at the average ICT index for each game, or a running average of the last 3/4/5 gameweeks. It might provide a bit more of an idea of who is in form or not.



Do you mean ICT against points/minute? Or a players value?
Below is what the ICT against points/minute looks like; much the same except the further to the right the better this time. PPM is probably more intuitive. One thing to note is that the ICT figures for Spurs/ManUtd haven't been updated for GW3 yet, which skews the numbers a little for their players. Also Trippier missed GW1 so only has an ICT index for GW2, which maybe reinforces the argument to use an averaged ICT index value instead.

Thanks for the detailed response and going to the effort of plotting that chart.

I thought ICT may have been based on last years stats as opposed to a cumulative figure for this season. I'm assuming this number is one of the main contributors for the price tag of a player in the following season. I actually meant to write Minutes Per Point as per your original graph but got it backwards by mistake. While PPM may be more intuitive I don't think it makes a massive difference.

It would be interesting to see it averaged out though. Could be a really useful tool.

greedygoblin

S.M.B. wrote: »

I'm assuming this number is one of the main contributors for the price tag of a player in the following season.

It would certainly seems like there is a correlation there:

S.M.B. wrote: »

It would be interesting to see it averaged out though. Could be a really useful tool.

If I get the time later in the week I might try & do something with this. Curious to find out if it throws up anything.


That's enough graphs for one day. Don't want to spam the thread altogether like...:p

sheroman01

Ha, just noticed that Lossl made the FPL team of the week, and he only came on as a sub. Wonder has that ever happened before for a keeper.

extra gravy

FPL legend Clint Dempsey retired today. Those were the days.

-=al=-

Here here

That captaincy on the double game week a few years ago was the pinnacle of my fpl career :pac:

Dr. Bre

One of my fav captaincy was Walcott v Newcastle a few years back around Christmas. Think it was 3 goals and 2 assists. Actually Newcastle are my fav team to captain a player against!

Scorpion Sting

Dr. Bre wrote: »

One of my fav captaincy was Walcott v Newcastle a few years back around Christmas. Think it was 3 goals and 2 assists. Actually Newcastle are my fav team to captain a player against!

I remember captaining Hazard for his hat-trick against them 4 years ago as well.

km79

Benteke
Double gameweek
Hat trick in the second game midweek
A nothing game that I watched purely because of him

Scorpion Sting

Press conference times:

Pellegrini - 12:30pm
Hughton - 1:30pm
Puel - 1:30pm
Silva - 2pm
Jokanovic - 2pm
Hughes - 2pm
Dyche - Europa League post-match

NoviGlitzko

Dr. Bre wrote: »

One of my fav captaincy was Walcott v Newcastle a few years back around Christmas. Think it was 3 goals and 2 assists. Actually Newcastle are my fav team to captain a player against!

Did the same myself and it probably won me my league. No one else had him as captain. Definitely has to be my favourite!

RisingDamp

Madness to switch Salah out for Hazard for the next two weeks?

-=al=-

In my opinion, yes, but Hazard could also perform well over the next two