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The Numbers Game – Opportunity Knocks

Fantasy managers are always looking out for any indicators of a player’s future success. Some, like increased game time or a team’s new attacking philosophy make total sense. Others such as a player’s performance in a single Gameweek or past success against any given opponent are a bit of a stretch. The final category is filled with hunches, feelings and long shots, often fuelled by adult beverages, and usually leading to ill-advised Friday night transfer binges.

One way of predicting goals is to look at the amount of opportunities a player is receiving, and what he’s doing with them. For anyone who has even casually glanced at a game of football (never mind hardened Fantasy managers like yourself), that sounds obvious but it’s a factor which is consistently ignored in favour of ‘form’ and the fact a player had a ‘big’ game the previous week, even if his lone goal came about somewhat fortuitously.

Taking last year‘s data (for forwards only), we see a correlation of around 88% when comparing total shots to goals scored (excluding penalties) and 90% when comparing only shots on target. This can be used as a predictive tool as players who are getting chances, but not putting them away will, on average, start to improve over time assuming they continue to receive the same opportunities in the future.

There are two careful, and important, distinctions to be made though.

Chris Glover Creator of the plfantasy blog, providing a stats focused approach to fantasy football. Exiled to Canada but still prefer my sports played on grass rather than ice. Follow them on Twitter

1,509 Comments Post a Comment
  1. The Mousa is Loosa
    • 12 Years
    12 years, 2 months ago

    Who to captain, Bale or Rooney?

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    1. Dynamic
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 12 Years
      12 years, 2 months ago

      Rooney.

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      1. The Mousa is Loosa
        • 12 Years
        12 years, 2 months ago

        I'm hesitant, I've been burned a few time by him so far....

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  2. Tadpole86
    • 12 Years
    12 years, 2 months ago

    January 13 at 8:29 pm
    TADPOLE86 SAYS:
    hi all! I need some help! this is my team:
    Sorensen/mignolet
    Richards/Enrique/Dawson/shotton/Simpson
    bale/Valencia/silva/benarfa/mclean
    ADe/rvp/aguerro
    considerations at the moment are downgrading a aguerro to upgrade benarfa or McLean. I could change benarfa to nani/mata and Valencia to Dempsey. downgrading ADE isn’t really an option as I got him for £8m. I would have 6.1 (nani) or 6.9 (mata) for the third striker. any other more imaginative ideas also welcome too!
    any thoughts very welcome!

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  3. Dynamic
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 12 Years
    12 years, 2 months ago

    Will Evans play tomorrow?.

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  4. Reacher
    • 13 Years
    12 years, 2 months ago

    Evans and a spurs def or Jones and a cheap deender

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    1. GunsnRoses
      • 12 Years
      12 years, 2 months ago

      evans & spurs

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  5. is_there_nanibody_out_there
    • 12 Years
    12 years, 2 months ago

    Clichy & Smalling or Richards & Evans

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    1. GunsnRoses
      • 12 Years
      12 years, 2 months ago

      Richards >clichy
      evans=smalling
      so 2nd one IMO

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  6. mr. inconspicuous
    • 14 Years
    12 years, 2 months ago

    Will Given play this weekend? I currently have him over Vorm

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    1. GunsnRoses
      • 12 Years
      12 years, 2 months ago

      Rare chances to appear as a sub so you can keep him against Everton 😀

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  7. wigsandwags11
    • 13 Years
    12 years, 2 months ago

    i want to WC but my team value plummets from 105.8 to 2.1 maybe just a few tweaks instead

    vorm
    Simpson R Taylor Louis en

    Nani Bale VDV Walters

    Adebay Sturridge RVP

    Westwood , de laet , Brown , De laet

    .8m in the bank 1 ft and a wild one

    VDV to Dempsey ? but i never like getting rid of the dutchman he's too good when he's fit
    prefer to sell Bale when VDV is fit and switch between the two but i only get 8.6 for Bale , maybe i should sit on it for one more week with spurs hoping to whip wolves today .

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  8. champoz
    • 14 Years
    12 years, 2 months ago

    Welcome to FFS Chris - great write-up!
    No offence to the scout team but this analysis is just what I needed during my WC week and ongoing.
    Midfielders next?

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