Sunday, 15 July 2012

Fantasy premier league goalkeeper strategy advice and tips for all formats of the game

What's the best way of approaching the choice of goal keeper for your fantasy premier league team.. What type of team should the goal keeper play for and how much money should I spend are questions often asked by fantasy premier league managers.  I'll help solve these questions and give you some choices for this year.   This article will split the analysis in to 2 halves.  Firstly the single goal keeping format of the Sky Sports and Telegraph fantasy football formats and then the 2 goal keeper format of the barclays fantasy premier league and facebook fantasy premier league.  It will also give you some hints on who to choose this year.

Sky sports and Telegraph fantasy football

In these formats were only talking about having 1 goal keeper with no substitutes.  Neither have points for saves and both see reductions in points for goals conceded. I can sum up my advice here fairly simply for those who want to move on

PICK JOE HART!

Heres the reasons:

1.  One goalkeeping choice means you need to pick the best

With no save points and points deducted for goals conceded you need to pick the keeper of the best defence.  Otherwise you will suffer badly.  Having only 1 goalkeeping choice also means there is no where to hide for those games away to Arsenal or United for your cheaper goal keeping option.  

2.  City have the best defence.

 Ok they had 17 clean sheets compared to Man Utds 19 but in all other stats City are the winners.  No other team comes close to these 2 in defensive terms either in clean sheets or goals conceded.  I expect City to out perform United on clean sheets this year even with Vidic back at some stage.  There is no difference in Euro fatigue and City have better defensive midfielder protection (do Utd have any without Darren Fletcher?) plus a better goalkeeper.

3.  De Gea's position isn't safe.

I'm not just talking about SAFs annoying rotation habit when you're at home to Wigan either. Lets not forget if Lindegaard hadn't got injured he may have established himself as the number 1 goal keeping choice.  If you're a fantasy premier league manager playing the Telegraph format also remember that Hart is less likely to be rotated for FA cup games than De Gea.

4.  The value difference is minimal

In the Sky format here's how the top 4 most expensive keepers line up:

Hart - £6.0m
De Gea - £5.9m
Cech  £5.8m
Szczesny £5.7m

With those negligible differences fantasy premier league managers should buy Joe Hart.  By the way at the moment he is owned by 38.5% of fantasy premier league managers compared to De Gea who is owned by 6.15%.

Its a carbon copy  story in the Telegraph format:


Hart - £4.0m
De Gea - £3.9m
Cech  £3.8m
Szczesny £3.7m

Again at the moment Hart is owned by 34.2% of fantasy premier league managers compared to De Gea who is owned by 6.3%.  


So then Joe Hart it is

Barclays and Facebook format

There are essentially 2 fantasy premier league choices here.  Pick and expensive option with the cheapest possible backup or rotate 2 cheap keepers home and away.  In my strategy piece 23 rules 

  http://www.fantasyfootballgeek.co.uk/fantasy-football-strategy-how-to-play-23-rules/

I used the example of Joe Hart and another getting 166 points at a cost of £11m in the Barclays fantasy premier league format vs a rotation of Krul and Vorm with a Newcastle bias in conflict giving 180 points at a cost of £8.5m.  

This was probably an unfair comparison as Newcastle and Swansea had exceptional home form which bolstered these stats.  If you had rotated Blackburn and Bolton during the season you would have ended up with a grand total of 6 clean sheets if you were lucky.  Conversely, if you had banked on Cech as you're big hitter you would have seen a miserly 10 clean sheets.

If you believe that the best option is going for one elite keeper only then I would stick with Joe Hart.  If its possible to find a back up that plays at the minimum price then I would go for that as a back up rather than just pick anyone.  Don't go for Joe Harts back up at City as that will reduce the places you have in your fantasy premier league team for other City places as there's a limit in both formats to 3 players from each team.  

However on balance I don't see the value in spending a lot on keepers and my intention as a fantasy premier league manager is to go for the rotation

Rotation options

The idea here is to pick teams that fit together home and away.  Certain teams have to rotate home and away for police security reasons.  These are fairly obvious but are

Man City and Man Utd
Arsenal and Spurs
Chelsea and Fulham
Liverpool and Everton
Newcastle and Sunderland
QPR and Chelsea
Aston Villa and WBA

There are only 2 options here that are realistic for cheap rotation in fantasy premier league

Aston Villa and WBA
Newcastle and Sunderland ( I think this may be too an expensive an option this year though due to Newcastle and Kruls form from last year)

Using these teams are the easiest way for fantasy premier league managers to deal with this cheap rotation option.

While the fantasy premier league site is not open yet , in looking for other rotations for fantasy premier league managers to consider I have scoured the fixture list for the following teams that I think will give cheap options.  These are:

Aston Villa
Fulham
Norwich
QPR
Reading
Southampton
Sunderland
Swansea
WBA
West Ham
Wigan

 I have considered the rotation possibilities up to round 20 where it will be getting close to the January Wildcard in fantasy premier league.

Here are some of the best fits

QPR and Southampton 

Fits for all games.  I have reasonably high hopes for the QPR defence this year I think they didn't get the clean sheets that there stats deserved last year.   Robert Green should give some save points but may not be as cheap as some fantasy premier league managers would like.

Reading and Swansea

Again fits perfectly.  The  best defensive team in the championship by far, combined with Swansea who had  one of the best home defences.  Only problem is the price of Vorm and the loss of Caulker and Brendan Rodgers organisation

WBA and Villa

Perfect fit but Lamberts attacking philosophy and Fosters price may not make this worth it

Norwich and Wigan

Interesting one this and will be full of potential value for fantasy premier league managers willing to take a punt.  Will Hughton improve Norwichs poor defensive record of last year and will Wigans improvement at the end last year continue.   

Here are some near perfect fits apart from a 2 or 3 of games in the first 20

QPR and Wigan 

Again this would be a gamble on 2 potentially improving  teams by fantasy premier league managers.  QPR's purchase of Green and Wigans end of season form. Al Habsi is always good for save points as a fall back

Aston Villa and West Ham 

Fantasy premier league managers will still have to believe that Lambert can improve on his 3 clean sheets of last year with Norwich to go for this option.  West ham were the worst of the 3 teams defensively last year.
Fulham and Wigan

I don't see too much here unless Schwarzer has a massive price drop

Unfortunately no clear rotating winning option here for fantasy premier league managers so we will reconvene when the values are out for both formats



  



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