Now that the season is over and we can look back with fondness – or regret in some cases, I am sure – we have the time to digest just how successful of a fantasy year it has been. So I figured now would be the most appropriate time to let you, yes you the Fantasy Football Scout readership, know how well you have done for each other these last few months. What follows is a little bit number-crunching and analysis of just how well our Captains Poll turned out this season…
To start things off slowly let us look at exactly how our armband favourites have turned out on a week to week basis. The poll was resurrected from gameweek 4 onwards this season, and here is the spread of points returns of the top captain choice each week:
0-3 points: 4 time
4-7 points: 10 times
8-11 points: 9 times
12 points or more: 12 times
What we can see is that right off the bat the selections you make week in week out more often than not will reap rewards when it comes to fantasy points. 34% of the time this season the leader of the poll has returned at least 12 points, and another 26% of the time a still highly successful scoop of 8-11 points was brought home by the top candidate each week.
Another 29% of the time still the prime candidate has returned from the gameweek with an acceptable if unexciting score ranging from 4 to 7 points. Only 11% of the time this season has the top dog in the poll managed to return what would usually be deemed an unsatisfactory return for a captain of 3 points or less; basically showing little to no progress on the expected returns of a player getting at least 60 minutes on the pitch.
One of these low scoring instances also included the unfortunate circumstance where Andrei Arshavin had topped the poll with Arsenal due to face two opponents in gameweek 20, but thanks to the freak bouts of snow we faced this winter one of the said games was later postponed – and an almost inevitable return of at least four points for Arshavin ended as the gameweek finished rather unceremoniously and abruptly, leaving the little Russian on only 2 points having played just one fixture.
The most successful selection of captain (unsurprisingly) was that of Wayne Rooney in Manchester United’s double fixture in gameweek 22 where he managed to score a whopping 32 points at home to, the now relegated, Burnley and Hull. In the ‘regular’ single fixture schedule Cesc Fabregas’ return of 22 points against Blackburn was the best return from a player topping the poll. The average score of the poll leader across the 35 weeks was a very strong 10.23 points – a praiseworthy figure there without a shadow of a doubt.
But sometimes the leader of the poll isn’t always a runaway selection, what of those players who came in second, or third? Well, if we were to average the scores of the top 3 picks each week the figure still stays strong and high at 8.63 points a week. To be able to have an average that high still not only shows the strength, but depth of knowledge of those voting in our weekly polls – it’s not too often the collective is caught short.
If we decide to weight the poll results (i.e. top choice score is multiplied by 3, second choice score by 2 and third choice score by 1 before everything is averaged out) to allow the assumption for expected returns on less popular choices to be lower, then the average increases even higher to 8.98 points a week.
What we can quite plainly and pleasantly analyse from all of the above is that the fantasy managers at large using Fantasy Football Scout, more often than not, pretty much know where to find the good egg in amongst the fantasy crowd each week.
A job very well done to all those who have contributed with your honest votes over this last year, good going guys.
(it must also be noted that in the above whenever a captain selected in the poll failed to make an appearance in the gameweek their score was not accounted for in the records and calculations).