Nothing changes. One Gameweek down and a section of us are already berating the Fantasy Premier League bonus points, questioning their award – venting frustration that the shining performances of our own players have been ignored.
We had such high hopes; the inclusion of the EA SPORTS Player Performance Index as the system that powered the bonus awards was expected to offer clarity – to reward those players who obviously stood out over 90 minutes. However, perhaps that’s an unrealistic goal; perhaps there always be a section of us destined for despair when the bonus is dished out.
From the evidence of Gameweek one, it’s clear that our love/hate relationship with the FPL bonus could very well continue – the Saturday night bafflement transferred to Monday morning, when this season’s statistically powered points arrive. Time will tell.
Having contributed the first Gameweek review at the Fantasy Premier League site, we got a glimpse as some of the statistics that contributed to the EA SPORTS PPI Gameweek totals. That brief dalliance and crucially, from the PPI totals already poured into the game from Gameweek One, a number of theories on the factors that will influence this season’s bonus point distribution have been developed further and a few more questions raised.
Hitting the Target is Crucial…
There were several PPI point totals that caused concern – in particular Fernando Torres earning 0 for his display at Stoke, Victor Moses also fetching 0 for his showing against Wigan and Andy Carroll’s -10 picked up in the 1-1 with Sunderland.
These players appear to have a couple of key factors in common and it’s perhaps the Carroll PPI which offers the most obvious guide. It appears that off target goal attempts are costly and can outweigh more positive factors and dent a players’ PPI – particularly when that player’s team fails to win the game.
Andy Carroll had many attempts on goal against Sunderland, of which only 1 found their target. His missed attempts appear to be the key factor behind his miserable day one PPI return. This was presumably compounded by the fact that Liverpool only mustered a draw against Sunderland.
Both Victor Moses and Fernando Torres also “wasted” opportunities in matches that their teams failed to win. While we’re unaware just how this is weighted against their total PPI, it appears that failing to hit the target with a goal attempt can seriously begin to dent your PPI total. Had Liverpool, Chelsea and Wigan won their matches, the PPI of these players could well have been boosted significantly.
With that in mind, Fantasy Managers may need to identify those players who gamble on firing in efforts from range – or are perhaps wasteful in front of goal.
The latter is a given – why would we invest in players who often found Row Z from six yards? Players like Clint Dempsey and Nani, however, are renowned for taking pot shots from range – it could be that, by doing so, they will damage their PPI score and, if they fail to find the net in a game, seriously hinder their chances of fetching FPL bonus points.
It could be that the algorithm is fed statistics that incorporate the nature of the missed goal attempt – it seems unlikely though and Carroll’s Gameweek one PPI appears to indicate the costly nature of wasted opportunities.
The Spread of Bonus points will be wider…
It didn’t take long to discover this. Immediately in Gameweek one we had a match at the Britannia which served up a spread of bonus across a group of players with Ashley Cole earning the maximum 3 points, while four players – John Terry, Jon Obi Mikel, Ryan Shawcross and Asmir Begovic, all collected 2 points. The Wigan vs Norwich game meanwhile saw seven players earn bonus – five earning 1 point each.
The spread was impossible to predict – created by a ties in overall PPI scores. Such an event will take some getting used to but appears to indicate that players that were previously overlooked by the PA representative (Mikel in particular) now have the opportunity to earn bonus recognition if they put in a statistical shift. A good thing? Probably.
With this in mind it’s inevitable that the overall total of bonus points dished out this season will increase and will perhaps increase quite considerably. It’s unknown how often these ties will occur but, given the apparent spread of the PPI totals in some matches, it appears like we could see at least one or two matches per Gameweek featuring such a spread – particularly in drawn matches.
Out of Position Players Could be even more valuable…
We know from the definition available on the Premier League site that the EA SPORTS PPI uses position as a weighting factor in its algorithm when it comes to clean sheets. We don’t know how much of a factor it is and whether a player’s position also influences the weighting of performance statistics. Perhaps actions that are atypical for a player’s position – a goal for a defender, a tackle for a forward – may well earn a stronger PPI return. With this in mind, we can only speculate that, if a player is played out of position, their PPI will be skewed.
For example, Gabby Agbonlahor, according to the EA INDEX statistics, put in an unnatural number of dribbles on the Villa left flank at Fulham. As he is classified as a Forward, these dribbles may have earned him a heavier PPI value than if he’d have been classified as a midfielder. As a result of his PPI return of 16, he nudged ahead of Shay Given, touted as man of the match at the Cottage, to 1 bonus point. Could it have been Agbonlahor’s position classification that helped him achieve this? Like so many of the theories discussed, we will need more Gameweeks to pass before we can firm this up.
The Bonus will remain unpredictable…
While a portion of the Gameweek one bonus awards appeared to make sense, as usual there was a decent size slab that left us puzzled and perplexed. The lack of bonus for Wes Hoolahan despite scoring at Wigan, the aforementioned snub of Fernando Torres at Stoke, these examples immediately spring to mind.
While we had the impression that the use of the EA SPORTS PPI would make the Bonus awards more predictable – perhaps even transparent, it’s already clear that this won’t be the case. We will still be nervously awaiting their arrival, unsure of their destination and left querying several awards each Gameweek.
While this will be scandalous when it affects us personally, from a distance it at least maintains the post Gameweek discussion that have become almost part and parcel of the FPL for many seasons.
For the purity and transparency of the game it’s obviously not the progress we expected – for fuelling banter and opinion however, it means little has changed. The whims of the man in the stand have been replaced with the cold secret of an algorithm – a new, faceless scapegoat for our failing Gameweek points tallies.
