Metrics – The Gameweek 33 Wildcard

After a disappointing and low-scoring start to the Gameweek, it’s time to lose ourselves in a dose of metrics with the focus on the latest rash of Wildcards.

But first I would like to start this article with a few thoughts on the purpose of these pieces and the data they expose.

There was a recent Hot Topic discussing the use of metrics and statistics to analyse the moves of top managers, and I wanted to add a few points to the discussion.

For me, every time the game updates after the deadline, one of the first things I do is to scan my rivals’ squads to learn who they brought in, who they captained and if they used any chips.

It’s a common practice, and I believe that there are two main reasons why we look at competitors in this way.

Firstly, competition is a big part of why Fantasy games are so compelling and addictive.

Knowing what I am up against before the matches kick off gives me another perspective during the moments of triumph and frustration that occur throughout the Gameweek.

Secondly, a view on the moves and decisions of the teams around me can help decide my own planning. It can give me more information about what differentiates my squad from rival managers.

I don’t mine this information to copy their teams, in fact, most of the time, it means the very opposite.

I use it to look for strategies that I could only identify after knowing exactly what I’m up against. Metrics allow me to build a picture of behaviour and decisions around me and I use that to shape my own strategy.

Your rivals are not just mini-league managers; we’re competing against every active team.

Looking at ownership of players, templates of Wildcards and captain picks mirrors how we check on our friend’s teams in mini-leagues, but on a larger scale.

It provides the fun and anticipation during the actual games and could also help decide on a strategy to beat the average and inform on risk and reward when considering transfers.

Some managers claim that ownership data is useless, and while picking a player just because he is highly owned is not a strategy that I endorse, it’s not the metrics that are behind such a tactic. They just provide extra information that each manager can use in their own way.

As an example, while I happily invest a good amount of time creating and looking at metrics, I avoided Romelu Lukaku on my Wildcard plan, despite knowing that he has a relatively high ownership and would be a probable captain in Gameweek 34.

Instead, I went for a differential strategy of tripling up on the Manchester United defence, which is against the established template.

However, paying attention to metrics has helped me articulate my plans this season and has assisted in my first ever top 10k rank placing, which, fingers crossed, I now hope to maintain.

So, metrics are just like any other statistics. They are a way of organising a look at manager behaviour in the past to help us plan for the future, using our own methods and thinking.

That being said, now let’s look at this Gameweek 33’s statistics.

Once again the Wildcard chip proved very popular as managers bid to prepare for the Double Gameweek 34. Overall some 93858 Wildcards were played.

We have seen that last week 21.53% of the top 10k managers (and 15.87% of the top 100k) chose to activate the chip.

This week, we have a smaller crowd with 11.03% of the top 10k putting the chip in play, as part of 9.79% in the top 100k .

That raises the total percentage of second Wildcards used in the top 10k and top 100k to 75.07% and 71.02% respectively.

So there are still a quarter of the top managers who have kept their Wildcard for the later stages of the season.

Many factors have changed since last week, and the managers who delayed the refresh certainly had more information at hand.

Mohamed Salah’s injury scare and the speedy return of his Golden Boot rival Harry Kane are two very important shifts in the landscape that occurred since Gameweek 32.

So, let’s look at how the most selected Wildcard team has changed.

There are some notable differences between the two teams.

Salah is only selected by 43.25% of the Wildcards as opposed to 99.5% of last week’s chips.

Many Gameweek 33 Wildcarders dropped him and opted for Kane instead; indeed a hefty 77.2% chose this route.

Salah’s lower percentage seems to be balanced by a surge of interest in Jesse Lingard (43.6%) who is the enabler to fund the Kane move.

Meanwhile, Romelu Lukaku and Jamie Vardy both make their way out of the template Wildcard team so that Kane could come in.

This leads to a higher ownership for Ashley Barnes (55.8%), which is also a knock-on for his stunning goal at The Hawthorns – his fourth in four Gameweeks.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is the most chosen forward claiming 77.8% of Wildcards, with a probable planned shift to either Kane or Lukaku to come ahead of Double Gameweek 34.

While the goalkeeping positions remain settled for David de Gea and Matthew Ryan, the defence sees a drastic change.

The main difference is that new Wildcarders have decided to ignore Manchester United backline. The unexpected benching of Eric Bailly in Gameweek 32, along with the return of Phil Jones, threatens the starting role of Chris Smalling and has proved a major deterrent.

Some 60.2% of managers opted for Ben Chilwell as they cheap route into Leicester’s defence, though the template doubles up here to also include their skipper Wes Morgan.

Along with Burnley’s Matthew Lowton and James Tarkowski, that Leicester pair clearly proved vital for freeing cash for the potential swap from Aubameyang to Kane and Lukaku.

Finally, the Andrew Robertson pick of Gameweek 32 Wildcard is replaced by Chelsea’s Andreas Christensen who is perhaps seen as more assured a week later. Marcos Alonso is therefore omitted to save funds for the expensive frontline.

So, the strategy prefered by Gameweek 33 Wildcarders is to double up on cheap defenders of Burnley and Leicester to splash the cash elsewhere.

Now, let’s delve deeper by looking at the club breakdown.

We see that Spurs assets showed a significant boost in selection this week, with confidence in Kane, Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli booming ahead of their Double Gameweek 34.

Meanwhile, interest in Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal has declined.

Moving on to this week selection statistics, it’s Aubameyang who is most captained in the top 100k managers, with 41.1% of the managers now waiting on his potential haul against Southampton on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the 18% who captained Kane will be bitterly frustrated at the Match Centre decision to hand Christian Eriksen’s Spurs’ second goal earlier today.

The ownership of Salah dropped this week to 83.11% (started by 72.8%) in the top 100k and 81.7% (started by 71.2%) in the top 10k, compared to around 99.5% last week.

With his possible return for the Champions League on Tuesday, it will be interesting to see if Salah sales continue.

Finally, we present the team with players with the highest effective ownership – which is the regular ownership plus captaincy – in the top 100k.

Many of the players in this line-up have already failed to produce today, like Firmino, Kane, Heung-min Son, Riyad Mahrez and De Gea. Others failed to even feature such as Salah, Robertson, Rob Elliot and Ben Davies.

That all points to where we started this article: this looks destined to be a low scoring Gameweek for many.