One Goalkeeper Or Two?

Goalkeeper strategy is always keenly debated ahead of a new season. Most experienced Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers will look to spend a maximum of 9.5m on their keepers. But, how do you distribute that 9.5? Do you set your FPL team up with a couple of 4.5m keepers that can rotate? Or do you instead opt to spend more on an expensive stopper to play week in, week out, with a cheap, non-playing keeper to back him up? Here are the pros and cons of each strategy to help you make up your mind.

The Rotating Cheapies Route

Over the seasons this has tended to be the preferred route taken by many in the Fantasy Football Scout community. If done correctly it can easily yield 20+ clean sheets, as the Krul and Vorm rotation of three seasons ago proved. But with the constant potential for those unexpected away clean sheets (see Southampton’s Artur Boruc away at Liverpool or West Ham’s Adrian away at Chelsea during 2013/14), it also has the potential to go badly wrong.

The 2013/14 season has proved difficult from a rotation standpoint, as popular early-season options like West Brom’s Ben Foster and Boruc had spells on the sidelines with injuries. Meanwhile,  popular late-season options like Vito Mannone and Adrian did not start the season as first choice.

If we consider the popular 2013/14 Boruc and Mannone combination, the Southampton man kept 14 clean sheets in 2013/14 and Mannone 11. But due to surprise away goals there’s very little overlap. Take Gameweek 24 as an example, when most Boruc owners will have played him at home to Fulham and gained 7 points. However, that same week Mannone played away at Newcastle and scored 11 points. So that’s a 4-point swing against Mannone benchers and an overlapping of clean sheets. So straight away we lose one clean sheet from our potential maximum. Gameweek 32, when Mannone conceded at home to West Ham and Boruc kept a clean sheet at home to Newcastle, is another possible example.

The One Keeper Every Week Route

This season also saw the first real bandwagon for the one keeper every week route when the 5.5m priced Simon Mignolet was established as Liverpool’s first-choice keeper. Three clean sheets and a penalty save in the first three Gameweeks seemed to back-up the bandwagon and many Gameweek 3 wildcarders  were suckered into swapping Boruc for him. Mignolet went on to keep just seven more clean sheets in the subsequent 35 Gameweeks. In fact, with 16 clean sheets, Chelsea’s Petr Cech and Arsenal’s Wojciech Szczesny were top of the pile this season (an unusally low total to win the Golden Glove with). But Cech’s initial 6.5m starting price, coupled with the attacking threat offered by Chelsea defenders, meant he was never really on the radar for most. At 5.5m (the same as Mignolet) Szczesny was more reasonably priced. But with the goal threat and bonus points hoovering shown by Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker, Szczesny wasn’t really great value either. Boruc at 4.5m with 14 clean sheets was where the value lay here, and Fonte at the same price may have been a better choice than him.

The 2014/15 Season

• How many first choice keepers will be 4.5m next season? Kasper Schmeichel at Leicester, Tom Heaton at Burnley and possibly Lee Grant at Derby may be the only 4.5m starting keepers at the launch of FPL (we can but pray for a more reliable prospect such as Hull’s Alan McGregor to remain at 4.5m). Our options in that regard look limited, so we may have to go for a 4.5m and a 5.0m
• If doing that, why not go to 5.5m and get just one keeper to play each week? If priced at 5.5m, someone like David de Gea or Hugo Lloris could offer great value. If priced at 5.5m, many may steer clear of Mannone, a price tag of 5.0m may bring him back into contention though.
• The wildcard pick here may be Julian Speroni, with many considering playing the Crystal Pulis (sorry Palace) stopper every week. Personally, I think this is risky for away games, and someone like Scott Dann could be a better route into the Palace defence
• Keeper rotations can go wrong with the oft-benched away clean sheet, but one keeper every week could also go wrong if that keeper is struck down by injury.

Conclusion

There are many factors to consider when deciding how to split your budget on two keepers – both have advantages and pitfalls. Make your choice and stick with it as keepers are not the things to be spending those precious free transfers on. Keepers should be changed with your wildcard, if at all, which makes that initial call so much more important.