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Wisdom Of The Crowd – Gameweek 2

Each week we are reviewing the aggregated predictions on Superbru’s Premier League Predictor game, using the collective Wisdom of the Crowd predictions to guide our fantasy football thinking.

Please join the FFS league here and add your own predictions to the data – the more there are, the more accurate the crowd should be (in theory).

Gameweek 1 Review

Firstly, an apology – after posting last week’s article, we found a minor flaw in the maths calculating Expected Goals, whereby the tally for the team predicted to lose was slightly too low. We’ve fixed that and corrected the Gameweek 1 data, and everything should now be accurate.

We have added ‘Mr Crowd Wisdom’ to the FFS league and inputted the aggregated predictions of the Superbru community. He had a pretty good start to the season, correctly predicting the results in six out of 10 matches – and he’s currently 10th out of 306 people, giving credibility to the theory that the collective wisdom is more accurate than most people’s individual predictions.

Congratulations to Graham Wood, who won the Yellow Cap (awarded to the best player in a round in each league) in the FFS league – ‘Grezzmond’ picked eight out of the 10 matches correctly, including two exact score picks, only missing the Liverpool draw and Chelsea defeat, like most people.

Here are the Gameweek 1 results in descending order of predictability

We can also review the Predicted Goals Scored and Conceded against the actual results, and it tells a bit of a story:

Clearly, the Crowd overestimated Crystal Palace in terms of both attack and defence, as well as Southampton’s prospects in attack – much to the dismay of those that backed the likes Wilfried Zaha, Patrick van Aanholt, Dusan Tadic and Manolo Gabbiadini in the first week.

Gameweek 2 Preview

Here is the Expected Goals chart for each fixture in GW2:

And here is the ranking of teams in order of Expected Goals Scored and Conceded:

Immediately, we can see that Manchester  United are predicted to score the most and concede the fewest goals this weekend, underlining Romelu Lukaku’s potential for the captain’s armband.

The Crowd predictions also suggest that doubling up in attack with Henrik Mkhitaryan or Paul Pogba could be profitable, whilst Antonio Valencia, Phil Jones and David de Gea appear to be the prime picks in defence. But could their judgement be clouded by Manchester United’s emphatic victory at home to West Ham last Sunday and the hope that will transfer to away games?

For those that prefer backing a home team, Liverpool are predicted to score at least two goals at home to Crystal Palace, which could bring their attacking options such as Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah into the reckoning.

In the budget bracket, the Burnley, Bournemouth, Huddersfield and Watford defences look like the best bets for clean sheets, say the crowd.

Is there anything else that catches your eye in these crowd predictions?

Don’t forget to join the FFS league on Superbru and make your predictions each week so that they are included in these data – the more knowledgeable people there are, the more accurate they should be in theory.

Good luck!

21 Comments Post a Comment
  1. J0E
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • Has Moderation Rights
    • 14 Years
    6 years, 7 months ago

    Thanks for this. I do wonder whether the crowd is overly influenced by the previous week's results rather than looking at the current set of fixtures.

    I know Fantasy managers certainly are with the clamour to draft in Mkhitaryan and captain Lukaku - myself included re the latter. 🙂

    1. Hutch_James
      • 11 Years
      6 years, 7 months ago

      Yep, only one set of fixtures to go on so far, so it's inevitable that those results will influence this week's predictions - same for fantasy managers as you say, but we'll learn more in GW2.

      Good luck!

    2. La Vida Latte
      • 14 Years
      6 years, 7 months ago

      Recency bias is a real thing...

      1. TopMarx
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • Has Moderation Rights
        • 11 Years
        6 years, 7 months ago

        How does form factor into Recency bias?

    3. The Point About It Is
      • 11 Years
      6 years, 7 months ago

      No Clean sheets predicted this week then......interesting

  2. Witty Pun: Not good at this…
    • 7 Years
    6 years, 7 months ago

    Arsenal Leicester 4-3 predicted by 90+% 0_0
    Smarter people than me then 😀

    1. Scrable
      • 6 Years
      6 years, 7 months ago

      It was the result only, not the score line

    2. Limited & Mediocre Mana…
      • 7 Years
      6 years, 7 months ago

      Result, not exact score

  3. CL4PTRAP
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 9 Years
    6 years, 7 months ago

    Great article, already evolved since GW1 with more information to digest. Kaku captain seems the right call once again.

  4. Chidi LaLa
    • 8 Years
    6 years, 7 months ago

    Excellent article. Kaku (C).

  5. muggaz
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 12 Years
    6 years, 7 months ago

    yep - really love this article and appreciate the effort you put into it Mr Honeybadger.

    1. Hutch_James
      • 11 Years
      6 years, 7 months ago

      Thanks Muggaz, hopefully interesting each week!

  6. muggaz
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 12 Years
    6 years, 7 months ago

    Personally, I am swaying between Firmino and Lukaku as (c) because I do prefer a home captain, but it's the early kick off and they are usually bad from a gambling point of view... I just think Palace perhaps look more shaky at the back than Swansea.

    1. THISISSPARTAprague
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 6 Years
      6 years, 7 months ago

      Benteke captain at liverpool, past player returning guaranteed to score especially against a defence as fragile as a china tea cup...

    2. Gnu
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 14 Years
      6 years, 7 months ago

      Me to. Really fancy the Firmino pick.

      1. THE SHEEP HUNTERS
        • 6 Years
        6 years, 7 months ago

        Just go with the flow mate. Yeh!

  7. FPL_JAAFAR
    • 9 Years
    6 years, 7 months ago

    In the end, escalation of commitment gets the better of us.
    Not me , im captaining gabi obviously.^^

  8. Papilo
    • 8 Years
    6 years, 7 months ago

    Nice to see these stats weekly. You have to indicate your favorite team, right? Would be nice to (after some more weeks) estimate and then control for fan-bias.

  9. DaisyDaisyDaisyDaisy
    • 10 Years
    6 years, 7 months ago

    People should be happy that they at least know Zaha is out - some managers might not have even come out with anything or a vague Pulis-type comment. Personally he has to go anyway - FDB has said he can't say when the comeback will be. It makes a transfer decision easy too.

  10. mattsmith100
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 12 Years
    6 years, 7 months ago

    Thinking of dropping to 3 defenders (Cedric, Valencia, Hegazi) with Luiz replaced from the bench by Can. Apprecate any suggestions.

  11. Captain Roberto
    • 6 Years
    6 years, 7 months ago

    I was using the Rate My Team simulator to compare Gomes and Elliot. I was surprised with it's proposal to bench Gomes 3 times when he had the highest projected score, GWs 3,6,&8.

    Why would it do that?