Pro Pundits

Stats or the Eye Test – Which is better for FPL?

Throughout history, there have been many examples of intense division; Roundheads versus Cavaliers, North versus South, Beatles versus Stones, Leave versus Remain, Laurel versus Yanny, the list goes on.

But few subjects will have inspired the kind of fierce debate than the question of which is better for making FPL decisions; Stats or the Eye Test.

Proponents of the Eye Test; the idea that you need to actually watch football to do well in FPL, or at least that it is beneficial, often view Stats aficionados as nerds and somewhat artificial football fans who would probably be playing Fantasy K-Pop as long as it involved a pivot table.

They are often heard saying things like “Do you even watch football?” in a pejorative tone towards huddles of Stats fans, nervously and nasally talking ‘xG’ in what they believed to be an FPL safe space. 

Supporters of Stats; the opinion that underlying statistical information provides as good if not better view of football for the purposes of making FPL decisions, view proponents of the Eye Test as knuckle-dragging luddites who probably own a Greggs rewards card and reminisce for the ‘glory days’ when watching Saint and Greavsie on a Sunday afternoon was enough FPL research to give you ‘that edge’.

Okay, so all of this is maybe a little hyperbolic for the purposes of creating dramatic tension and, in reality, we all probably sit at least a little across both camps, but the question does remain as to which is better for making FPL decisions; Stats or the Eye Test and this is the question I’m going to try and address here.

The Eye Test

You would think that watching football would be an obvious benefit when it comes to playing a game that involves making football-related decisions and, indeed, many of the best FPL players out there, and several FPL champions no less, credit their success to the amount of football they consume.

It’s true that watching football can offer a lot to your FPL game as it provides the viewer with a broader understanding of football tactics and strategy and how these function, interact or conflict in order to increase or decrease a player’s chances of scoring FPL points.

Much of this is often difficult to pick up in stats alone, an example perhaps being Leicester’s Jamie Vardy (£9.7m) and his famous goal-scoring runs of the past, which occurred despite him seemingly taking barely any shots on goal. 

The manner in which Leicester played, and Vardy’s own style of play, combined to create a scenario where heconsistently overperformed against his stats. Now, you could argue that Vardy is now regressing but, it remains true that, had you been going by underlying stats alone even this season, you mighthave missed out on a run of 14 goals in 12 games.

These statistical anomalies occur at both ends of the pitch. For example, in the past six Gameweeks, Liverpool have allowed more shots than Chelsea and Manchester City, yet they have conceded only a fraction of the goals. Indeed Liverpool have made more defensive errors than all but three other Premier League teams this season and yet they have by far the best defensive record. The fewest defensive errors conceded? Watford.

So, you might surmise from this that you can’t believe stats and you can only really trust your own eyes. But can you actually trust your own eyes? The inherent cognitive biases that can influence an FPL manager’s perspective have been discussed on this site before and they will, in all likelihood, distort our visual perceptions of a player’s performance.

For example, when sitting down to scout a player in a football match, ‘confirmation bias’, or our tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms our existing views or expectations, will almost inevitably come into play. 

If you’ve decided that you want a player, you will probably pay greater attention to the good things that the player does. If you’ve decided you don’t want a player, or it’s difficult for you to get them, you’ll probably focus more on the bad things, or dismiss the good things (like a hat-trick) as ‘unsustainable’.

Then there’s the question of the sample size for the Eye Test and ‘belief in the law of small numbers’ which is the biased belief that a small sample will be accurately representative of the larger picture.

Concluding that a player offers attacking threat and thus “passess the eye test” could, in fact, be credited to as little as one or two memorable instances in the match a person just watched, not to mention that it is just one match and that we have yet to factor in the opposition.

Anyone who has watched a football match and thought “Ooh, Luke Shaw is getting forward a lot…” and brought him in on that basis can probably attest to how misleading our perception can be.

The key problem with the Eye Test is the general uncertainty as to what is actually being tested and, even moreso, what it even takes to pass the test. It has no objective standard and, by any scientific measure, the ‘eye test’ would be considered about as reliable as the average office printer.

Stats

So are stats better? Stats do have some advantages over the Eye Test, in particular that they offer a scalable means of interpreting football matches. Stats can distill hours upon hours of football into easily-digestible and objective data, offering a consistent platform for making decisions.

Stats can offer insights that are effectively invisible to the naked eye and help FPL managers to identify undervalued assets, predict form and, indeed, over-performance in a consistent manner. Stats can boil seemingly impossible questions such as; ‘who is the better Liverpool asset; Sadio Mané (£12.2m) or Mohamed Salah (£12.8m)?’ into objective stats, and they can do it in seconds.

Of course, certain stats are better than others. I’ve spoken before in this column about the significance of opportunity over ability for predicting goal scoring form and others have highlighted the strong correlations between stats such as ‘big chances’ and ‘shots in the box’ and goal scoring returns.

Stats such as xG and xGC, while not quite perfect, offer an instructive basis for making predictions and, with the introduction of things such as player heat maps, stats are offering an ever more complete view of a football match.

 1

Stats are also accessible. You don’t need to know your Lindeberg from your Lyapunov or your chi-squared from your psi-squared to make good use of statistical data. This site itself collects, distils and refines stats into many easily-usable forms and offers things like the Rate My Team tool which allows managers to just plug players in and let an algorithm do the rest. Stats in FPL have never been so plentiful, accessible or user-friendly as they currently are.

So, stats are better then? Well, not necessarily as many of the aforementioned challenges that problematise the Eye Test also apply here too. Anyone who has ever run two players through the Comparison Tool has probably experienced the tendency to cherry pick the stats that support the player who, deep down, they really wanted to get in the first place (confirmation bias again). 

Indeed, the value of stats are highly conditional; you need to be looking at the right stats, in the right volume and in the right context. For an example of how misleading stats can be, just look at any early season bandwagon and how they came to be thus. Typically they involve people making judgements on a player based on one or two matches with little consideration given to factors such as to the opposition, the player’s level of motivation, the possibility that they are an unknown quantity and thus harder to mark and, broadly, the conditions for sustainability of the form that they demonstrate.

Stats are also very easy to skew. Players who have exceptional games, sendings off, injuries, all these things and many more can disproportionately influence how player or team stats might appear. Despite the developments in xG, I’ve yet to see any stat that can reliably distinguish between a striker having an off day and a goalkeeper having a worldie as well as the Eye Test can, so we’re still some way, I think, to being able to fully and reliably ‘watch’ a match purely in the form of numbers, Matrix-style.

Football, I’d argue, is a much more challenging game to quantify statistically when compared to more linear, turn-based sports such as baseball (which has practically had its genome mapped it is so statistically rich) given the number of variables at play and, while it might seem like there are ‘too many’ stats in FPL, the lack of depth in those stats is actually a pretty big challenge to their utility. In FPL, we are almost always looking to make judgements on sample sizes that would be too small for any valid statistical test. In fact, it’s probably only when we get to this stage of the season where stats offer anything approaching reliability. So, when we talk about stats in FPL, we are really only ever talking about something that is directional and probably never conclusive.

Conclusion

A combination of both the Eye Test and Stats is the right way to go

Inevitably, there are advantages and disadvantages to both Stats and the Eye Test and both rely enormously on how we use them and the extent to which we can control the influence of our biases while doing so. Because neither the Eye Test nor Stats can tell the entire story individually, we have to conclude that it is the combination of both that is ideal. 

Having said that, I do think that it is significantly easier to remain objective when looking at stats versus a football match because stats tend to provoke far less emotion than the act of watching football does. I also think that we are moving towards a point of sophistication in stats where the marginal benefit of watching football versus just using stats will probably be quite small, possibly to the point where it may even be detrimental from an FPL-perspective.

What do I mean by this? Something people tend to find interesting about my FPL-winning season is that it came despite me watching almost no football at all that year (out of circumstance I stress, not because I don’t like watching football!).

The assumption is, generally, that this would be a huge disadvantage, however, I’ve come to believe that it may actually have been a big advantage. Because I wasn’t watching football, I was able to make all sorts of decisions that I’d normally struggle to make. I never worried about picking players playing against the team I support, I never picked a player because I wanted to feel more invested in a game I was watching and I never conflated what I wanted to happen with what was objectively more likely to happen.

Because I wasn’t watching, none of this really mattered.

Not watching football stripped much of the emotion and many of the biases from my decision process, leaving just the cold hard facts. I wouldn’t want to live like that forever, but I can’t deny that it probably helped that season.

It’s unlikely that many managers will stop watching football for the sake of their FPL team but we can become more conscious of the emotions and biases that might affect our use of the Eye Test, and indeed Stats, for making FPL decisions and seek to manage or compartmentalise these things.

If you use Stats, make sure you’re remaining objective and that you’re looking at the right stats, in a large enough quantity and in context. If you are an Eye Test aficionado, mentally separating the football that you watch for entertainment or team loyalty and the football you watch for research may improve your game. And if you are an Eye Test ‘purist’ who eschews stats entirely, you might want to consider giving them a shot or risk handing an ever growing and ever more accessible advantage to your opponents.

1,279 Comments Post a Comment
  1. lifes a pitch
    • 10 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Who is the best mid for 9m or less? (Have grealish already)

    1. Holmes
      • 10 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Richarlison, Martial

    2. Cahill
      • 13 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      barnes?

    3. Stormbringer22
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 4 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Consider keeping an eye on Bruno as well. Too early to tell, but keep an eye

    4. Phlajo
      • 4 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      I like a punt(ish) on Maddison after the city game... Norwich, Villa, Watford, Brighton - and even after those 4 it still looks good.

    5. ShaunGoater123
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 9 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      hard to answer without knowing rest of team. for me probably either Barnes/ Martial / Traore
      -

    6. Pieterke30
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 7 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Bruno or Barnes for me.

  2. Big Ronnie
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 10 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Auba to Jimenez this week? Would do the transfer next if i don't this week.

    1. Stormbringer22
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 4 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Exactly what I am doing myself

    2. ShaunGoater123
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 9 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      i'd wait a week personally

    3. Phlajo
      • 4 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      I'd wait

  3. sonsational
    • 6 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Would you
    A. Start DCL against arsenal away
    B. Start Adama against norwich home

    1. Phlajo
      • 4 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      B

  4. -GK22-
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 11 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    GTG £4.2m in the bank, no transfers

    Bench okay?

    McCarthy
    TAA, Boly, Baldock
    KDB, Salah (c), Traore, Fleck
    Jimenez (vc), Firmino, Ings

    Gazza, Grealish, Lundstrum, Holgate

    1. DantheManinaPan
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 10 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Playing Fleck over Grealish is questionable

  5. Maximus Bonimus Pointimus
    • 14 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Love the Vardy caveat that he could be regressing

    If having a baby, getting injured & missing penalties is regression, then he may well be 🙂

    1. Phlajo
      • 4 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Indeed, things could easily have been very different! Happy owner (for now) myself

    2. Le Bluff
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 12 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      You have to expect him to find form again soon. Fixtures bring form, and they have some great fixtures on the horizon.

      79 and 90 minutes in his last 2 outings. Hopefully he's getting back up to 100%.

  6. Le Bluff
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 12 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    McCarthy
    TAA / Boly / Lundstram
    Grealish / Mane / Salah / KDB / Martial
    Vardy / Ings

    (Button, Lascelles, B Williams, Greenwood). 1 FT and 0.3 in the bank.

    Resigned to the idea of not getting in Jimenez as it would rrequire too much surgery or taking Vardy out.

    Thinking of Lundstram > Charlie Taylor? Decent fixture this GW and next, and he plays in GW 31. Still don't fancy Lundstram to start, and he'd be gone next GW anyway. I also don't really fancy a clean sheet for Lascelles, or for Brandon Williams to start.

    Dyche talking up Charlie Taylor here too: https://www.burnleyexpress.net/sport/football/disparaging-comments-gave-burnley-extra-fuel-beat-southampton-admits-boss-sean-dyche-after-criticism-charlie-taylor-1742318

    1. DantheManinaPan
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 10 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Looks good to me

    2. Fulchester's New Centr…
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      I think you have answered your own question.

      1. Le Bluff
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 12 Years
        4 years, 1 month ago

        Thanks both. Will be my third defensive transfer on the trot but they've worked out well so far (Lascelles CS vs Norwich, and Boly CS vs Leicester). Hopefully the trend continues!

        Would like to make a more attacking transfer but I'm happy with my front 7, and finding it hard to ditch Grealish or KDB.

  7. Saka Rice
    • 9 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Any nice people out there that can help me? I have 2FT, 0.3ITB and I don't know what to do?

    Pope/McCarthy
    VVD TAA Lascelles Egan Stephens
    Salah KDB Martial Traore Hayden
    Aubameyang Ings Jimenez

    PS I already used my WC

    1. ShaunGoater123
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 9 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      team looks nicely set up.

      i'd be tempted to switch hayden out for a 5th midfielder who plays regularly. Dendonker if you don't want a selection headache, or a slight upgrade to someone else if you don't mind rotating each week or want a bit more strength in depth

    2. Stormbringer22
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 4 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Wouldn't change a single thing.

    3. Fulchester's New Centr…
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Replied about 3 hours ago.

      Good username.

    4. Hazardous1983
      • 13 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Same dillemaz

    5. Our Man Charlie
      • 13 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      that's a real nice team imo I would bank the 2ft for next week

  8. Pieterke30
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 7 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Do we all agree going for Jota instead of Jimenez is a bad idea?

    ... prefer Raul myself but picking Jota instead would allow me to keep Grealish for one more game. Talk me out of it please?

    1. Stormbringer22
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 4 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Jota is a trap imo. Jimi more consistent

    2. Fulchester's New Centr…
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      What would Admiral Ackbar do?

      1. Stormbringer22
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 4 Years
        4 years, 1 month ago

        IT'S A TRAP! 😀

  9. Stormbringer22
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 4 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Can't help but feel like this would be a very good game week. Have a feeling of optimism. Have probs just jinxed myself and would be injuries and low-scoring players all around 🙂

    1. Fulchester's New Centr…
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Break a leg

      1. Stormbringer22
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 4 Years
        4 years, 1 month ago

        Cheers! Good luck to you as well

  10. Fpl Richie
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 8 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    As a Traore owner with stupid Dendoncker sitting in my bench. What's the best thinking? I can't really justify a hit for removing dendy.

    A. Get a defender (probably Boly)
    B. Get Jimenez

    1. Fulchester's New Centr…
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      VVD and Jim

      1. Fpl Richie
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 8 Years
        4 years, 1 month ago

        Cheers fulchy. Your advice has been great lately.
        Still a bit undecided on pool defender choice because Robbo isn't owned in my main MLs

        1. Fulchester's New Centr…
          • 6 Years
          4 years, 1 month ago

          If you can afford it then do it, but I prefer the flexibility of the money ITB plan.

  11. tbhogal
    • 14 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    DCL or Kun out for Jimenez guys?

    1. Fulchester's New Centr…
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      How many you got playing next week? I'd keep Kun for now if poss.

    2. V-2 Schneiderlin
      • 13 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      wondering this too - tempted to take Kun out for Jimi (with next week a consideration)

  12. DF
    • 10 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Son to Traore for -4 looks alright, but Cantwell comes on if I hold.

    Cantwell +4 or Traore?

    1. The 12th Man
      • 10 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      I have the same issue I can do Son > Traore -4 but if I hold Son I can play One of Mooy,Lascelles or Williams.

      Think I’m going to make the move anyway as I want Wolves players in long term and want a Leicester player from next week.

      1. DF
        • 10 Years
        4 years, 1 month ago

        I'm gonna hold back. Can't see me making more than a couple of points and I could get lucky with Cantwell.
        GL

    2. Fulchester's New Centr…
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Worth it in the long run

  13. wanaj84
    • 8 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Son to martial (-4)
    Or just play rico/hayden

    1. Fulchester's New Centr…
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Take the hit. Doubt Son is getting better any time soon.

  14. rodragon
    • 5 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Is Taa Robbo Doherty too much money in defence??

    1. Stormbringer22
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 4 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      I think so. Probs means your other 2 end up being non-playing defenders for £4m. I would say 2 premiums (TAA + Robbo for example) + a £5.0m + 2 playing subs at £4.2-4.5m each is the way to go

    2. Fpl Richie
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 8 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      They are all great. So its fine

    3. g40steve
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      No solid

    4. Fulchester's New Centr…
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Not if you can afford it.

  15. Hazardous1983
    • 13 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Wat to do.with.this any tips

    Mcarthy (button)
    Taa robbo stevens (lascelles lund)
    Kdb salah grealish traroe (perez)

    2 ft 0.4 in bank. I need to use 1 transfer to avoid losing it
    Ings auba jiminez

    1. Fulchester's New Centr…
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Lund to Taylor.

  16. Oggle22
    • 7 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Start Boly or Dunk?

    Cheers

    1. g40steve
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Boly

    2. Fulchester's New Centr…
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Really?

      1. Oggle22
        • 7 Years
        4 years, 1 month ago

        Both goal threats

    3. g40steve
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Cheers lads 🙂

  17. g40steve
    • 6 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    GTG?
    Any changes to bench?

    Pope
    Trent, Robbo, Boly
    C Salah, KDB, Mahrez, Traoré
    Ings, Vardy, Jimenez

    McCarthy, Maddison, Lundy, Soy,

    .2 itb

    1. Stormbringer22
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 4 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Fantastic team

      1. g40steve
        • 6 Years
        4 years, 1 month ago

        Cheers, four green arrows out of last five heading in the right direction 🙂

        1. Stormbringer22
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • 4 Years
          4 years, 1 month ago

          Nice one mate 🙂 Best of luck to you!

      2. Fpl Richie
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 8 Years
        4 years, 1 month ago

        True. B*st*rd 🙂

    2. Fulchester's New Centr…
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      'Lovely stuff!' Not my words G40Steve, the words of Sha... oh.

    3. Our Man Charlie
      • 13 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      nope looks good and all set

  18. Cahill
    • 13 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    team:

    Guaita
    TAA bertrand targett sidibe rico
    salah kdb martial grealish shelvey
    firmino vardy ings

    a) sidibe -> doherty (play rico v chelsea in 28)
    b) targett -> boly (play sidibe v united in 28)

    1. Fulchester's New Centr…
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      B when you put it that way.

      1. Cahill
        • 13 Years
        4 years, 1 month ago

        thanks mate - was all set on Doherty until I broke it down myself 🙁

  19. Cahill17
    • 4 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    I am new to fpl, what do you think of my WC team.

    Pope
    TAA Gomes Doherty
    Salah(c) KDB Fernandes Traore
    Jimenez Ings Vardy

    McCarthy Cantwell Steven Taylor

    1. Cahill
      • 13 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      delicious

      1. Cahill17
        • 4 Years
        4 years, 1 month ago

        Love the name!

    2. Fulchester's New Centr…
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Looks very good.
      Steven is Stevens (SHU)? I'd want play him this week.
      Not sure Cantwell is worth the extra over a 4.5ish 90 minute man anymore unless you have had him since he was that cheap.

      1. Cahill17
        • 4 Years
        4 years, 1 month ago

        Thank you, Sorry that is a typo, it's actually Stephens for (SOU)

        I would be buying Cantwell on the WC (so for full price) but my idea with him is I am thinking there is a good chance Norwich don't blank in GW31 and therefore if Liverpool don't blank either, it's an extra player for me not to play the FH.

  20. T.Henry14
    • 10 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    A) Maddison + Pepe/Alli/Bruno/Martial/Richa

    or

    B) Barnes + Mane (already have Mo&TAA)

    Want to do: Firmino&Son&Grealish to Jimenez&(option A or B)

    1. Cahill
      • 13 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      B by a mile, or more

      1. Keep Calm and Play On
        • 8 Years
        4 years, 1 month ago

        This

    2. Fulchester's New Centr…
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      B

  21. aidmata
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 8 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Ryan Button

    TAA Robertson Stephens Fernandez Soyuncu

    Cantwell Salah KDB Martial Maddison

    Vardy Ings DCL

    1FT with .5ITB - thinking Maddison to Traore? Thoughts guys?

  22. Gunners in Haaland
    • 4 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Lund -> Doherty for a hit?

    1. Fit_to_drop
      • 4 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      yes if you are prepared to pay the premium that comes with doherty

    2. Keep Calm and Play On
      • 8 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      Maybe Boly instead of you want to save funds for elsewhere. Not sure I’d do either for a hit though

  23. V-2 Schneiderlin
    • 13 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    take Kun out for Jimi on a FT? Looking at fixtures this week and considering the BGW next week

  24. Maximus Bonimus Pointimus
    • 14 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Stats in the same breath will tell you to sign man utd & chelsea defenders due to their teams XGc's along with Liverpool, Man City & SHU defenders

    They'll tell you to avoid Vardy while he scores 100 points in 10 games due to shot quantities or touches in the box

    They won't tell you when he's having a baby, injured, or going to miss a penalty

    They'll tell you to avoid Pogba when he's in form due to his heatmap

    They'll tell you to sign Bernardo Silva at the start of the season due to having massive quantities of shots

    They'll tell you to sign Raheem Sterling due to high XG numbers

    They'll tell you that Tammy Abraham, Chris Wood & Gabriel Jesus are the strikers with the most Big Chances in the league (apart from Vardy!)

    They'll tell you that Kevin McGoldrick has 15 big chances (2 of which were in GW1, which had a combined XG of 0.41)

    On the flip side, they'll also give you such profound insights as - Sergio Aguero, Mohammed Salah & Sadio Mane are good FPL players, Liverpool's defence is good, and Man City's attack is good

    Sure, they can be used to provide some potential icing on the eye test cake, or even act as some form of caloric sustenance for those managers (and there will be many) who cannot invest the time to bake said eye-test cake

    And they can certainly be mildly interesting to browse & peruse at one's leisure - but long story short, and from an "overlying stats" (or FPL points) perspective you can never be sure when they're telling you the truth, and whether they're lying - and any results achieved by using them that are positively correlated to FPL points have a huge "placebo factor" as a result - simply because these statistics were actually never designed to inform FPL management decisions in the first place, and the sample sizes with which we have to operate within are so small (i.e. less than hundreds, if not thousands of Gameweeks) 🙂

    1. g40steve
      • 6 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      If you are lucky you will win FPL if not no chance.

      1. OverTinker
        • 5 Years
        4 years, 1 month ago

        Winning is a totally different thing but we play for winning our MLs and have a very good OR.

    2. OverTinker
      • 5 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      For me its been eye test and then fixtures and then stats to back up my decision. Using stats alone isn't a good idea.

  25. FPLord
    • 14 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    McCarthy (Button)
    Stephans Lund TAA (Söy Rico)
    Salah KDB Grealish Traore (Son)
    DCL Firmino Ings 2.3

    A. Save FT to be more flexible next week sorting out Son and Lund.
    B. Lund > Boly
    C. Rico > Boly

    I don't really fancy my SOT double up in defence against Grealish and with C I could bench Stephans, but then 2 freebies would be nice over the next couple of GWs...

    1. Keep Calm and Play On
      • 8 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      I’d stick with A, team looks good for this week

  26. Keep Calm and Play On
    • 8 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Morning all, GTG or make a change?

    McCarthy
    TAA-VVD-Lund
    Salah(c)-KDB-Grealish-Cantwell
    Kun-Vardy-Ings

    Button-Lacelles-Trossard-Williams

    Thinking Kun to Jimi and Lund to Boly next week

    This week Trossard to Traore and play him over Cantwell. Thoughts?

    1FT .8itb

  27. Purse83
    • 5 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Which is best for the next 4/5 weeks (Leicester players go in after City game this week):

    a) Perreira, Grealish, Firmino (St Maximin to replace Grealish in blank)

    or

    b) Robbo, Barnes, Vardy

  28. Purse83
    • 5 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Bottomed - appreciate comments guys.

    Which is best for the next 4/5 weeks (Leicester players go in after City game this week):

    a) Perreira, Grealish, Firmino (St Maximin to replace Grealish in blank)

    or

    b) Robbo, Barnes, Vardy (St Maximin to replace Barnes vs City)

    Cheers and good luck all!

    1. Your Doing It Wrong
      • 11 Years
      4 years, 1 month ago

      B

  29. Black Rabbit
    • 5 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Play Fleck or Maddison. Tia

  30. FantasyHero
    • 7 Years
    4 years, 1 month ago

    Start Lascellas?
    Bench order:
    Stephens Wood Hayden

    Looks fine?