Having discussed the basic principles of rotation in our introductory article shortly after the Premier League fixture list was released, we now put the idea into practice.
Our first article on rotating pairs looks at Bournemouth and Crystal Palace, whose fixtures dovetail perfectly throughout 2018/19 and offer an unbroken run of home matches between now and the end of the season – barring postponements and rearrangements, of course.
The pair recorded a miserable seven clean sheets on home soil between them last season, but with the fixtures falling the way they have – and given both clubs’ favourable starts in the first few months of the season – many Fantasy managers will nevertheless be rolling the dice on the two sides’ previously porous defences.
As well as examining the various rotation options in the backline, we will also look at any possible budget/mid-price assets in midfield and attack that could be interchanged in the same way.
The Fixtures
Although the “perfect rotation” extends all the way to Gameweek 38, in keeping with previous articles of this type we will not look far beyond the first half of the season. Gameweek 20 is the last round in which the first Wildcard can be deployed so we will take this as the cut-off point for this rotation analysis.
As before, we will split the 20 fixtures into two banks of matches.
Gameweeks 1-10
CDF, whu, EVE, SOU, LEI, NEW, CRY, WLV, SOU, ful
Gameweeks 11-20
MUN, new, ARS, BUR, HUD, whu, LEI, BHA, CDF, CHE
Although an uninterrupted sequence of home matches can be achieved by rotating Bournemouth and Palace assets, we have opted for an “easier” away fixture on four occasions. The home fixtures on offer in Gameweeks 2, 10, 12 and 16 are against one of the “big six” clubs, so in these instances we have gone with the other team’s away match.
The fixtures in Gameweeks 1-10 are particularly appealing. An away match against West Ham United in Gameweek 2 might prove to be the trickiest test for our budget defenders and goalkeepers, although the Hammers did have the joint-worst defence in the Premier League last season and the fixture offers hope for any budget Bournemouth midfielder or forward we may be considering.
Gameweek 11 might be the time to bail out of this combination, or else find another Premier League club to latch onto as part of a three-way rotation – more of which later. The international breaks tend to be popular periods of downtime in which FPL managers deploy their first Wildcards and any Fantasy boss using this chip in the October break before Gameweek 9 might be tempted to jettison their Palace and Bournemouth assets at this point.
All in all, though, just three encounters – all of which are at home – with sides who finished in the top six in 2017/18 is not a terrible sequence of fixtures.
In Practise
Charlie Daniels (£4.5m) and Aaron Wan-Bissaka (£4.0m)
While the likes of Lee Peltier and Jan Bednarek were among the first names to catch the eye in the £4.0m bracket after the FPL price list release, Palace’s Aaron Wan-Bissaka has quickly established himself as an excellent option in the bargain bin of defenders.
The 20-year-old product of the Eagles’ academy has started all three of Palace’s pre-season friendlies so far and looks, at this early stage, to be Roy Hodgson’s favoured choice at right-back ahead of the more experienced Joel Ward (£4.5m).
While Patrick van Aanholt (£5.5m) is an alluring candidate with his undoubted attacking threat (the Dutch full-back scored two goals in the 6-1 win over Halmstads and was on target on five occasions in the final ten Gameweeks of 2017/18), a saving of £1.5m on a fellow Palace full-back is a significant one.
Wan-Bissaka started six matches in a row between Gameweeks 28 and 33 (and seven overall) last season. During that half-dozen run of matches, the young defender didn’t have a single effort on goal and created only two chances. That last figure was one more than van Aanholt recorded during the same period, but the former Sunderland full-back had eight attempts on goal and ten penalty box touches (Wan-Bissaka had one).
Owners of Wan-Bissaka would, then, not expect anywhere near the amount of attacking returns that van Aanholt promises. Palace’s defensive form at the end of 2017/18 offers hope for Wan-Bissaka’s clean sheet prospects, however: only Liverpool (five) kept more shut-outs in the last eight Gameweeks than Palace (four).
Bonus point magnet Mamadou Sakho (£5.0m) and James Tomkins (£4.5m) are pricier alternatives to Wan-Bissaka, should the youngster’s first-team place be in any doubt come Gameweek 1.
A drop in price from £5.0m partly explains why Charlie Daniels is currently the third-most popular FPL asset in defence. The Bournemouth left-back is available at £4.5m for a reason, though: the Cherries registered a joint-worst six clean sheets in the Premier League last season. Daniels was three goals, four clean sheets and ten bonus points down on his returns in 2016/17, too.
Why so many Fantasy managers continue to have faith in the Cherries’ full-back is that his underlying attacking statistics remain consistently high. Daniels recorded 30 key passes last season, while only five defenders had more touches in the final third than Daniels in 2017/18. The 31-year-old defender also performed better than the rest of the Bournemouth backline on the Bonus Points System, registering a better minutes-per-Baseline BPS average than his defensive colleagues.
Steve Cook and Simon Francis, who are also priced at £4.5m, are alternatives to Daniels and are owned by less than 1% of FPL managers. Cook scored on two occasions last season and featured in the top ten of centre-backs with the most attempts on goal (22). Francis, meanwhile, created only three fewer chances for his team-mates than Daniels and had a higher cross completion rate than the Bournemouth left-back.
Nathan Ake, meanwhile, would appear pricey at £5.0m, certainly playing for a team who recorded a clean sheet at a rate of less than one every six matches.
Asmir Begovic (£4.5m) and Vicente Guaita/Wayne Hennessey (£4.5m)
An alternative rotation pair would be the two clubs’ respective goalkeepers. The immediate issue with this approach is that we are not 100% sure which goalkeeper Hodgson favours as his first choice between the sticks. Both Guaita and Hennessey have featured in pre-season and, although Palace’s remaining friendlies may make things clearer in that regard, the Eagles have for several seasons now chopped and changed in goal; the last Palace goalkeeper to start more than 30 matches in a season was Julian Speroni in 2014/15.
While Begovic was an ever-present last season, he is a far from convincing option between the sticks: as well as recording only six clean sheets, his save success rate was the lowest of the 14 Premier League goalkeepers with 30+ appearances to their name.
Save points are a key attraction of a £4.5m-rated goalkeeper. Both clubs’ custodians did enough to register roughly one point per match last season, with Begovic averaging 2.97 saves per start and Hennessey/Speroni averaging 3.21 for Palace. Jack Butland’s league-best average of 4.14 saves per match puts those figures in context, however.
Three-Way Rotation
For those Fantasy managers dabbling in three-way rotation, there are a number of options available to help plug the troublesome Gameweeks.
Brighton and Hove Albion’s fixtures are fairly wretched for the first quarter of the season, but the Seagulls’ calendar eases up after the second international break.
Chris Hughton’s side are at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers, Leicester City and Everton in Gameweeks 10, 13 and 20, although the visit to Goodison Park in Gameweek 11 could prove as tricky as Bournemouth’s home match against Manchester United. Lewis Dunk and Shane Duffy are both available at £4.5m, offering as they do a considerable goal threat as well as clean sheet potential (Brighton kept ten shut-outs last season). Goalkeeper Mathew Ryan is also available at this price.
Leicester City’s fixtures, meanwhile, are a sea of “blue” in Gameweeks 2, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 20. The Foxes, however, are somewhat lacking in defensive assets below £5.0m this season, with all of their predicted starters (at this stage) in the mid-price bracket. An injury or two could though pave the way for Christian Fuchs and Wes Morgan, both priced at £4.5m, to start.
Attacking Rotation
With both clubs’ main assets up front (Wilfried Zaha, Christian Benteke, Josh King, Callum Wilson and Jermain Defoe) costing £6.0m or above, some Fantasy managers will deem their forwards too expensive a proposition to rotate. Given that Palace and Bournemouth have favourable starts away from home too, this would be a risky strategy.
Alexander Sorloth (at £5.0m, very much in the “rotatable” bracket) has one goal and three assists to his name for Palace in pre-season, though is still expected to be a bit-part player at best when the Premier League campaign gets underway. The big Norwegian striker’s below-par performance in the win over Oxford United would perhaps kill the Fantasy community’s collective hopes of a run in the first team for the budget forward.
The likes of Jordan Ibe (£5.5m), Ryan Fraser (£5.5m) and new signing David Brooks (£5.0m) are names to watch in pre-season for Bournemouth. With Junior Stanislas injured, the Cherries’ budget midfielders can stake a claim in the wide positions ahead of their appealing opening fixtures.
Fraser’s creativity statistics are particularly noteworthy, with the diminutive Scottish international posting a better minutes-per-chance created average last season than all of his midfield comrades.
Andros Townsend (£6.0m) would be an excellent rotation partner for Fraser – particularly if the Palace winger is played out of position as a striker, as he was towards the end of last season – although again, most FPL managers would baulk at forking out a collective £11.5m for a fourth and fifth midfielder.
All in all, then, rotation in midfield and attack looks like too expensive a proposition for Palace and Bournemouth assets – unless a budget gem like Jason Puncheon (£4.5m) suddenly rolls back the years in pre-season and presents us with a viable cut-price option.
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