Ahead of Gameweek 11 there was much deliberation amongst Fantasy Football managers about whether it was wise to field both Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez against a West Brom defence that has looked relatively strong this season. With Harry Kane hitting form and the similarly priced Wilfried Bony of Manchester City, Everton’s Romelu Lukaku and Southampton striker Graziano Pelle having great fixtures and underlying statistics, something had to give.
While I felt it was too early to turn my back Vardy or Mahrez against West Brom, deciding whether to keep bench or sell one or both from Gameweek 14 (MUN, swa, CHE, eve, liv, MCI) will be a more difficult decision.
The Case for Keeping Vardy
Vardy’s high goalscoring returns look sustainable in the long term because (in contrast to strikers such as Anthony Martial earlier in the season) his goals have come as a result of more shots, and therefore more shots on target per game as opposed to a sky-high conversion rate.
*minimum of 5 appearances.
Comparing Vardy’s shots per game to shots on target per game ratio it is close to the trend line (Vardy is represented by the dark green dot to the right of Agüero), so he’s not shooting more accurately than one would expect for a striker. What’s more he averages more shots on target per game than any other player in the league this season.
*minimum of 5 appearances
Comparing Vardy’s shots on target per game to goals per game ratio it is also very close to the trend line, so he has scored the number of goals you would expect of a striker from his shots on target so far this season. Unsurprisingly he averages more goals per game than any other player in the league this season. As long as Vardy keeps getting a similar number of chances to score per game we should expect this goalscoring run to continue.
The Case for Keeping Mahrez
The Algerian’s high-goalscoring returns look sustainable for the same reason as is the case with Vardy. As you can see in the graph above, his shots on target per game to goal per game ratio is also close to the trend line, but what about his assists? When comparing his chances created with assists per game again Mahrez falls close to the trend line between the two variables, suggesting the assists he has returned are due to him creating a similar number of chances per appearance as players like Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva, of Manchester City. As long as he keeps up this creativity we should expect him to continue accruing assist points at the same rate.
What about during tough fixtures?
Clearly Mahrez and Vardy are two of the highest scoring players in the game and are bang in form with returns backed up by solid underlying statistics, so why would anyone consider selling or benching them? Well from Gameweek 14 they have a tricky series of fixtures, facing several sturdy defences (MUN, swa, CHE, eve, liv, MCI).
Ahead of Gameweek 11 there were murmurings of discontent among the FFScout community about the prospects of fielding both Mahrez and Vardy against the often watertight West Brom defence. Though I personally wasn’t ready to bench either I did feel less confident of returns from both than I had in previous weeks. Come 5pm on Saturday when Mahrez and Vardy had defied the odds and had scored three goals between them against West Brom I felt some analysis was in order.
When comparing the underlying statistics for both Mahrez and Vardy in Gameweek 11 to those from Gameweeks 1-10 I expected to see a reduction in the underlying statistics. On the contrary, chances created, shots in the box and shots on target, amongst other statistics, were incredibly similar for both Mahrez and Vardy compared to previous weeks. As just one game is an incredibly small smaple size it will be interesting to see what happens against Watford next week, if Mahrez and Vardy can boast similar underlying statistics again then it would seem that they’re fixture-proof.
Season Keepers?
Considering Vardy and Mahrez currently cost just 7.3 and 6.6 respectively and that many managers brought them in for 0.5-1.0 less, they offer serious value. Considering the dearth of low price players who are performing (such as Ayew and Payet) and the failure of many in the premium bracket, most managers could arguably afford to leave both on the bench for the odd tricky fixture and play a fourth defender. I certainly won’t be selling Mahrez or Vardy until I see a drop off in goals, assists and underlying statistics.
As always please do join in the discussion below or on twitter. You can check out bubble charts courtesy of T3T here.
8 years, 6 months ago
Fantastic article. I may have benched Mahrez, but I'm mighty glad I haven't off loaded him or Vardy after reading that.