Fixture Analysis – 2017/18 – A Guide To Rotation

As we near July and the launch of all the major Fantasy games, we begin to step up our pre-season preparations and analysis of the fixture list, in particular.

We’ll start by exploring the basic principles involved in fixture rotation – a strategy practised, or at least used, by many Fantasy Premier League managers when considering initial squads.

The Concept

Selecting assets according to fixture rotation is a strategy that can only be applied to squad-based Fantasy games. It’s also often restricted to the assessment of goalkeepers, defenders and assets in the budget end of the market.

The idea is to simply find a couple of low-cost players whose fixtures dovetail, either to offer successive home matches or, at the very least, a prolonged spell of favourable opponents. This allows for the selection of one player – with the other asset benched – to guarantee us a home encounter or a strong fixture.

A rotation policy tends to focus on the acquisition of budget options, mainly because many Fantasy managers will resist benching mid-price assets.

Those playing games limited to just a starting XI – such as Sky Sports – won’t need to turn to this strategy. But for Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers, rotation can be a useful variable to consider when compiling an initial squad and, as we will see, it can be effective.

Above all, it can help maximise the points returns from two budget options – freeing up funds for big investment elsewhere.

Has home advantage become less reliable?

In previous seasons we’ve played down the effectiveness of acquiring a pair of players – in goal or defence – that alternate home fixtures.

The consensus was that a home match was becoming less reliable as a guarantee of points. However, the data from 2016/17 appears to contradict that opinion.

As the table below illustrates, last season was something of an outlier when it comes to the likelihood of defensive returns.

The percentage of home clean sheets was at 61% – higher than it has been over the last five seasons. Elsewhere, the percentage of goals conceded at home dropped from 44.7% in 2015/16 to 42.9%.

While in 2015/16 there were eight clubs who conceded more or the same number of goals away from home, last season we saw just one team achieve this – champions Chelsea.

Antonio Conte’s defence conceded 17 at Stamford Bridge and just 16 on their travels. Every other team conceded fewer goals in home matches.

We have to conclude that, when it comes to predicting clean sheets, the home fixture strengthened last season.

It also seems that the reliability of clean sheets has become slightly easier to predict, with evidence again suggesting that home advantage became more of a factor.


Clean Sheets – Home and Away split

Looking at the table, only five teams – Chelsea, Liverpool, Hull City, Manchester United and Manchester City – failed to produce more clean sheets at home than away.

Aside from relegated Hull, this was mainly due to their record being so strong on the road rather than down to huge failings at home. Certainly Manchester United and Chelsea presented outstanding potential both home and away.

Manchester City are clearly a unique case – they have now produced more clean sheets away from home for two successive seasons and that could be a factor to consider heading into the new campaign.

Further up the table, Spurs reigned supreme for home defensive reliability, building on their 2015/16 performance. The likes of Everton, Arsenal, West Ham and Stoke City also strengthened – all would be handy providers of defensive assets this time around should they extend their home form in 2017/18.

For more analysis of clean sheets from last season, we highly recommend Giggs Boson’s recent community article.

2016/17 Home Rotation

By default, there should be ten pairings that alternate home fixtures perfectly. These are often decided by geographical proximity, created by the need to spread police resourcing.

So Arsenal/Spurs, Everton/Liverpool and Manchester United/Manchester City are always destined to rotate in this way – barring any fixture postponements later in the season.

However, these are rarely popular combinations when it comes to rotation because of the price tags associated with their assets.

The other pairings – as mentioned in a hot topic by Ludo – are the more likely source to guide our rotation selections.

However, since Ludo’s post, we’ve lost two of those pairings due to the re-arrangement of early fixtures. Southampton’s visit to West Ham United – previously scheduled for Gameweek 2 – has now been switched to St Mary’s.

This means that the combinations between Bournemouth and Southampton and Watford and West Ham are now flawed in terms of offering 38 successive home matches. They are, of course, still worthy of consideration.


Perfect Home Rotation Pairings

The team pairings listed in the table can provide the foundation for any rotation strategy. However, it is worth stressing again that it pays to look beyond the simple concept of home fixture rotation and consider fixture difficulty – this can often reveal stronger combinations.

The Stopper Solutions

Arguably, a rotation policy is most effective when applied to the goalkeeping position.

This is because many FPL managers like to overlook the option of the expensive ‘one-stop shop’ option in goal, seeking out mid-price and budget solutions that can perhaps work in tandem according to fixture.

The FPL scoring system seems to promote this tactic, with save and bonus points proving such a crucial factor.

This was highlighted by Tom Heaton’s appeal in 2016/17, with the Burnley skipper ranking top for goalkeepers with 149 points, despite claiming just 10 clean sheets.

Priced at just 4.5, he trailed both Chelsea’s Thibaut Courtois (16) and Spurs’ Hugo Lloris (15) for shut-outs but easily surpassed them for save points and bonus. Heaton collected 32 points from saves and 21 bonus – dwarfing Courtois (13 and 0) and Lloris (15 and 6).

The conclusion is that cheaper goalkeeping options can better their expensive rivals through saves and bonus points, thus promoting the use of two low-cost assets in rotation.

A guarantee of pitch-time is another factor that promotes the strategy. Barring unfortunate injuries, there is every chance of forming a partnership that can see us through a long period of the season.

From the off, FPL managers will no doubt be assessing the merits of the Brighton/Huddersfield Town pairing. Both will surely offer 4.5 keeper options, with save points helping to cover for a lack of clean sheets.

It’s worth noting that there is a third strategy available: the option of selecting a single team and backing both first choice and reserve stoppers.

This can work when either injury or lack of form plays a part in the respective team’s selection in goal. Last season, for example, West Ham rotated between Adrian and Darren Randolph, and selecting both would have guaranteed cover of the Hammers keeper position.

Build from the back

Before selecting goalkeeper pairings, it is vital also to consider what’s on offer from their respective defences. While you may decide that budget and mid-price keepers is the way to go, there could be defensive options in those sides that can provide some attacking threat at a similar price point.

As an example, a Ben Foster pairing with Lukasz Fabianski would offer perfect home coverage throughout next season via the West Brom and Swansea City pairing. However, with Craig Dawson and Alfie Mawson available in defence as possible alternatives – as a pair or more likely as individual selections – their goal threat could sway your decision.

In many ways, it’s best to settle on your defensive selections first. Find those who can fit a rotation strategy who may also offer up the potential of attacking returns. At that point, revisit the goalkeeping spots and scan the coverage options that remain.

We should also be prepared to revise our rotation pairings once the season begins.

Each year we see injury or a surprise team selection decision unearth a budget gem, and these players should certainly be our targets when considering rotation – even if it means scrapping our initial pairing.

Three-way rotation is another consideration at this point. Arguably, by grouping a trio of cheap defenders who offer at least one strong fixture between them, we give ourselves greater flexibility when deploying a three-man defence alongside two heavy-hitters.

The principle is the same: you’re seeking out three teams that combine to always ensure either a home match or a favourable opponent over a prolonged number of Gameweeks – or even across the entire season.

Attacking Flair

Rotation in the attacking positions is worth investigating but, due to the rapidly fluctuating form in midfield and attack, it is arguably far more difficult to settle on a pairing, even for a short period.

There is the option to rotate the fourth and fifth midfielders in our squad, having recruited three heavy-hitters. This can also be extended to include the third forward and work as a three-way rotation, or it can be a restricted to a fifth midfielder working with a third striker.

The pairings listed above all offer possibilities for attacking rotation – not least Brighton and Huddersfield and – for those willing to splash the funds – perhaps a Matt Phillips/Fernando Llorente job share to exploit the West Brom/Swansea City pairing.

That proposed partnership help illustrate the perils of a rotation policy, however.

Phillips claimed two of his three double-digit hauls away from home, while Llorente earned 13 points away to Liverpool. If you commit to the idea of rotation – particularly in attacking areas – be prepared for some frustrating Gameweeks.

We will touch on the possibilities when we discuss specific rotation pairs in follow-up articles.

Appraising Last Season’s Pairings

So can rotation pairings deliver results?

Checking back 12 months, in addition to an equivalent to this article, we looked at four solutions in detail.

These were Crystal Palace and West Ham United, Bournemouth and Watford, Hull City and Middlesbrough and Burnley and West Brom.

In the articles, we promoted the rotation these teams offered up to Gameweek 20 – the point where the second FPL Wildcard became available. Only one of these pairings put forward – Bournemouth and Watford – offered perfect home rotation.

The table below lists the number of home matches used and the clean sheets gained up until Gameweek 20.

As we can see, the results are hardly spectacular and, interestingly, it’s the Bournemouth and Watford partnership that came out on top for clean sheet returns.

On first glance then, had we embarked on a rotation of goalkeepers or defenders based on these pairings, by Gameweek 20 and the second Wildcard, we’d almost certainly be hatching exit plans.

However, on closer inspection, the partnership between Bournemouth and Watford emerged as an outstanding prospect when we focused on two specific assets.

The Holebas/Smith Combination

By pairing Jose Holebas of Watford and Adam Smith of Bournemouth – two 4.5 targets – we could have achieved a very strong return over the season.

Simply electing to play the defender with the home fixture over the 38 Gameweeks, the partnership would have produced 136 points in total. That’s a better tally than the top-ranked 4.5 defender – West Brom’s Gareth McAuley – who produced 130 points.

In a nutshell, by rotating these two players, you would have gained the equivalent of a defender who ranked fifth overall in the FPL standings – just six points behind Kyle Walker, who cost 5.5.

It’s certainly not unrealistic to suggest that we would have considered this pair of full-backs given their price point, although their nine assists combined – all recorded in home matches – is perhaps an unexpected return.

Having said that, we’re overlooking the fact that we would have missed out on Holebas’ biggest haul of the season – the 15 points away at Middlesbrough. Feasibly, we may well have elected to play the Watford defender for that fixture, boosting the pair’s final tally further.

This success story goes some way to confirming that rotation can work. However, like all our decisions, it still relies heavily on the correct player selection. Certainly, Smith and Holebas benefited from those home assists, ranking top for that metric in home matches among FPL defenders.

Using the Fixture Ticker

While the Holebas/Smith pairing promotes the use of simple home rotation, we must also strive to look beyond these and consider fixture difficulty.

As of last season, we added a new rotation feature to the members’ Fixture Ticker that certainly aids this process.

By selecting any team in the Ticker and hitting “Sort by Rotation”, you will now see teams ranked according to their suitability for rotation with the highlighted team.

You can apply this using both the attacking and defence filters to analyse rotation pairings in attack and defence. Be sure to check out this chapter of our preview movie to see the rotation feature in action.

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be presenting our guides to some of the strongest rotation pairings on offer and discussing the potential assets available when considering the keeper slots, defensive set-up and even options in the final third.