Our regular Virtual FPL round-up looks back at the weekend action and summarises the injury news, forthcoming fixtures, highest scorers, top Fantasy managers and more.
READ MORE: How to sign up and play Virtual FPL
SCOUT NOTES
(The full results from Gameweeks 10 and 11 are available via the Virtual FPL fixtures page or the game’s Twitter account.)
Home and Away
Home advantage does count for something in Virtual FPL – but not a great deal in some respects.
Sides playing on their own turf average 17 attacks per match so far in this simulated season, with visiting teams racking up a mean of 15 every game.
Only Leicester City and West Ham are currently registering more team attacks per fixture on their travels but there isn’t a huge chasm between the averages of any of the 20 Premier League sides, home or away.
The same generally goes for attacks conceded, although there are a few yawning gaps between certain teams’ numbers.
Arsenal, for example, currently average twice as many chances conceded away from the Emirates – but they have, crucially, played free-scoring Liverpool and Manchester City on the road, which will account for the disparity.
Thanks to TopMarx for his assistance with this – you can see more of his work in the stats tables further down this article.
Clean sheets are still mostly arriving for home sides, however: 71.4% of the 49 shut-outs that we’ve had so far this season have been registered by the hosts.
Liverpool’s Fixture Swing
Tuesday marks the final favourable match of Liverpool’s excellent run of dozen games, with a tough-looking sequence of fixtures to follow.
Many of us will have a triple-up on the Reds but should we be thinking of downgrading ahead of Gameweek 13?
Liverpool have recorded 111 more attacks than any other side this season and have conceded 40 fewer chances than any of their rivals, too.
However, they have also yet to play a single fixture marked as ‘red’ (i.e. the tougher ones) on Ragabolly’s ticker.
Will the more difficult nature of these matches make that much difference, though?
We approached the subject of this in a previous article and our findings haven’t changed a great deal since then – that is, attackers are arguably more fixture-proof than defenders.
These are the current team attack averages per match based on fixture difficulty:
| Fixture | Avg attacks per team per game |
| Purple | 11 |
| Red | 14 |
| Grey | 17 |
| Green | 16 |
There really isn’t a lot to separate the results above, with there being little between the tougher (red) fixtures and the easier (green) ones.
However, looking at attacks conceded, the results go more the way of the match difficulty:
| Fixture | Avg attacks conceded per team per game |
| Purple | 35 |
| Red | 23 |
| White | 16 |
| Green | 12 |
The likes of Virgil van Dijk (£6.5m) might be more dispensible than Mohamed Salah (£12.7m) for the Reds’ upcoming run, then, although Liverpool’s backline – and Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.8m) in particular – do themselves carry a significant attacking threat of their own.
Mahrez Benched Again
Any notion that Riyad Mahrez (£8.4m) could provide adequate attacking cover for the more expensive Raheem Sterling (£11.7m) and particularly Kevin De Bruyne (£10.6m) seems to have been put to bed for now.
The Algerian was benched in both of Manchester City’s games at the weekend and has only started two of the Citizens’ last six fixtures.
While he could easily be handed a start and plunder points on any given Gameweek, the match-to-match uncertainty will surely see his ownership figure of 17.37% drop further in the games to come.
Perez OOP
Jamie Vardy (£9.6m) picked up an injury on Saturday, allowing Ayoze Perez (£6.2m) an ‘out of position’ run-out up front for Leicester City.
The vFPL midfielder duly delivered a 15-point haul at Watford and will surely get another crack at leading the line on Tuesday when the Foxes take on Aston Villa at home.
Vardy returns from injury on Thursday but Perez has been delivering the goods even when the premium Leicester striker has been present, racking up 45 points over the last four Gameweeks.
No Virtual FPL asset is in better form over the period studied.
Not Too Late to Jump on Alonso and Doherty
Marcos Alonso (£6.1m) and Matt Doherty (£6.3m) served up 15-point hauls in Gameweek 11, underscoring their premium defender appeal.
The Chelsea left-back was someone we had previously picked out as having an excellent run of games and in Southampton, Burnley, Brighton and Newcastle, who the Blues face between now and Gameweek 17, Alonso will play the four sides who have scored the fewest goals in the division.
Wolves and Doherty, meanwhile, also face three of those teams between now and Gameweek 18, as well as enjoying matches against Watford, Aston Villa and Norwich.
The Hendersons Will All Be There
Sheffield United face Manchester United in Gameweek 12 and, unlike in real life, Dean Henderson (£5.2m) will be available for that fixture.
To keep things relatively simple, on-loan players are eligible to face their parent clubs in Ragabolly’s Fantasy game.
Wilfried Owning
Quietly going under the radar is Wilfried Zaha (£6.8m), who has scored in each of Crystal Palace’s last three fixtures.
His attacking involvement figures are on the modest side (he is joint-16th among midfielders for this statistic) but he would at least seem to have security of starts on his side, as an ever-present in the Palace XI.
On top of that, he also has good short-term fixtures.
The Eagles’ next three matches are against the clubs currently in the relegation zone, with West Ham and Bournemouth the sides with the worst two defensive records in the division this season.
VIRTUAL FPL PREMIER LEAGUE TABLE
UPCOMING FIXTURES
TOP SCORERS/ASSIST-MAKERS
STATS TABLES
Our spreadsheet that details team attacks (both for and against) by Gameweek and overall might now look slightly different to you – that’s because Fantasy Football Scout contributor TopMarx has taken over proceedings and given the document a much-needed facelift.
As well as the basic numbers that were previously provided, users can now see averages for each grade of fixture difficulty and the figures for home and away games.
The fixture difficulty rating colour (according to Ragabolly’s ticker) is reflected in the relevant Gameweek.
The updated standings are below:
TopMarx has also updated his interactive player stats spreadsheet after the weekend’s matches, meanwhile.
The stand-alone spreadsheet can be accessed via this link, with Fantasy managers able to make their own copy by selecting “File>Make a copy”.
INJURIES AND BANS
Four players picked up injuries at the weekend, with Jamie Vardy (£9.6m) among them.
The Leicester City striker’s absence is a short one, however, and he’ll return on Thursday.
Jan Bednarek (£4.4m), Conor Coady (£5.0m) and Allan Saint-Maximin (£5.4m) were the other Virtual FPL assets to succumb to fitness issues, while George Baldock (£5.1m) was sent off on Saturday and still has another two matches to serve of a three-game ban.
Bruno Fernandes (£8.5m) will, like Vardy, be back in Gameweek 13.
RANKINGS
Eddie Campbell is a non-mover at number one in both the overall Virtual FPL standings and in our Fantasy Football Scout mini-league.
Yippy is up to second in the overall rankings, while Andy King and FPL Sausage both climbed into the top ten after excellent Gameweek 11 scores.
As well as Eddie Campbell, another three managers above – Basil1977, MCR Reds and Aritravo – are all signed up to our mini-league.
Mr Hindsight is back on the summit of Greyhead’s Great and the Good league, with the league creator himself dropping to second.
Legomane is currently first in the Mods and Cons mini-league, meanwhile.
You can join the Fantasy Football Scout mini-league by entering the code 9RV4A via the below link.
3 years, 11 months agoTearing it apart like in the real game