Scout Report – Allan McGregor

I think you could well be right Daniel. I'm still a great fixture believer, particularly early on when no form has been established.

12-14?

Maybe 2/3 max for me but using an uber defence is just a way of filling in positions until you can afford to upgrade after January, when most of the big sides' clean sheets occur.

I went uber at the start of last season and I regretted it all the way to the Jan WC. Never really produced the points I wanted and I was constantly hampered with injuries and players getting dropped to the bench. I nearly sure I had a few weeks at the start of the season I couldn't field 11 players!

I invested more money in my DEF on the Jan WC and the points rolled in!

7.0...5.0...4.5...4.5...4.0

This is what I'll prob start with this season.

but you can have injury problems and rotation problems with higher priced defenders. If you pick the right players cheapies can work. Plus it allows you to spend big upfront, where you are more likely to score points.

Great post whatever peoples views.
Sad thing is, once season starts, longer posts will get ignored more as pages move quick and many cant spend the 2 minutes to read such posts.

Defence value is really tricky. Last year i had a pile of 4.5s and it failed me. One rival started with rafael and ivanovic and scored big.

He got a tad lucky on both i though. Start of season, neither was nailed on. Thats where i messed up. I got tomkins, fabio to name 2. Neither held a place down.

The stategy i think is not to pick prices first and fit names in, but to pick players first and then select those who look good value from them.

But only take those who will 100% play AND... Not be replaced by transfer window closing. I signed Green, then in came Cesar. Huge error.

I may get a big club full back as they get forward more, but on the whole, I plan to spend cheap in defence. All the top players seem to.

Great post Daniel.
I agree with everything apart from the 12 - 14 transfers bit. Probably more likely to be 6 -8 but your premise stays the same.

I'm ignoring cheapie rotation this season (apart from GKs, where it is very useful). Concentrating on favourable fixtures in the first 10/12 GWs for my cheapie defs and to hell with H/A rotation. Real value can be found in the FIXTURE based rotation, regardless of whether your cheapie is H or A.

For eg, some of these rotations could leave you with the choice of playing a Hull def at home to Newcastle or a Norwich def away to Hull. The conventional wisdom would say play your Hull lad, but form could dictate the opposite, thus throwing the classic H/A out the window.

You're a legend Daniel 😉

Sticky the beJaysus out of this post

This is a reply to Daniel's post, but I have zero confidence that it will end up in the right place as HC decidedly doesn't like my mobile browser.

A great post, Daniel. Should be obvious, but gets glossed over a lot around these parts. However, the value of having outperforming ubers cannot be overstated, desire your correct assertion that identifying them from day one is nigh on impossible.

A general strategy I will be going with this year is to start with a mid-high price defense and reliable 2nd tier attackers with the exception of 3 captain choices. Then, I will begin using my transfers to free up cash from my back line and redirect it to the high performing attacking players as both the outperforming ubers and best big hitters identify themselves.

This strategy will give me more points while I suss out the moves to be made than one where I find myself with a crap defense and (as Daniel wrote) need to spend a bunch of transfers to get it sorted.

You are absolutely right to point out the shortfalls or oversights regarding any ubers. It is particularly relevant at the start of the season where its difficult to judge nailed on players. I think people have to be careful when considering going all out on a 5 way uber rotation at the back. Their general unreliability can cause a massive strain on a squad potentially resulting in the need to wild card early or spend points to fix the team.

*spiderm4tt disagrees *

Morning all,

I see we have a hot topic trying to destroy the merits of even considering a Uber

Can I say one thing;

How about a BALANCE argument please.

I think people have presumed that the most important thing when picking an Uber is the price. It isn't. It is the same for if you are picking a defender at 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 million, How nailed on is that player? If an Uber is available with nailed on players then there is relatively no more risk to your transfers than there is to picking any player as any player can become injured.

Just a quick reminder that the Uber I have put forward to the community, isn't full of 4 mil players.

The RMT would look like;

5 - 4.5 - 4.5 - 4.5 - 4

A quick look at the minutes played proves my point further with 5 players starting price at 5 or below and 5 players, 5 or above.

Top ten defender by minutes played;

Baines
Shawcross
Williams
Lowton
Ollson
McCauley
Johnson
Walker
Jagieka
Huth

(FYI, Is it the same 5,5 split for the next 20)

The other thing to point out about the claim of 14 transfers, the Uber is designed to get you to the Jan WC(19GWs) where you can then load up of the Big Hitters at the back as this is when statistically the big clubs have an increase in CS. It also has a designed two transfer points where of course you can break the Uber and convert it to a 2+2+1 or even a 2+3 but you don't even have to wait till then as you can break the Uber whenever you want the same way as any other defender combination. To think you are locked in an Uber trying to fix injury after injury is ridiculous.

If we want to flip the argument on to the traditional defender formats, how many big hitters failed to deliver in the first half of the season?

Baines?
Kompany?
Terry?
Cole?
Vidic?
Lescott?
Clichy?
Richards?
Vermaelen?
BAE?
Vertonghen?

The only three I can remember that did consistently hoover the points up for their price was Rafael, Ivan and Zaba. The three that were quoted as the Uber breakers. There is an argument that even Zaba hoovered more points up in the second half of the season.

Now even though it is coming across that I am hell bent of owning an Uber, I will be the first to play a 2+3 at the back if the budget can stretch to it. a Baines/Vertonghen/ Three way is my preference. I have shown enough three ways on these boards to prove that statement. What I don't like is a long winded post with no evidence or stat based theories trying to destroy a perfectly good option for the community. The winner last played an Uber

Cheers

You're right about the risk in chosing a cheap defender, but good continuous research should make you more able to navigate in that market. Yes, I expect unexpected transfers, but I'd do the same when chasing for points for players in form.

This is what I said in yesterday's discussion on the Uber defence;
"3.3 - 3.8 is a great average (Tommy suggested this is the avg you can expect per defender), and pretty similar to my findings which included BAPS/goals/assists/CS.

However - a quick reality check. I took a quick look at Azpi and GJohnson's points when they played easy games home and away (below top 7 basically) and that gave these results
- G Johnson 4.96 ppg vs easy teames home and away (cost 6.0 start of the season)
- Zabaleta 4.19 ppg vs easy teames home and away (cost 6.0 start of the season)
- Azpi 4.16 ppg vs easy teames home and away (cost 6.5 start of the season)
These three guys avg 4.43ppg together.

So with a 4 - 4.5 defender you lose out on 0.63 - 1.13 points per defender = accumulated for 3 defender backline is 1.89 - 3.39 points lost on the entire defense when going for the Uber vs modest heavy hitters like Azpi/Zab/Johnson. But you have saved at least 4.5 million to spend elsewhere."

In conclusion, if you can live with the risk and stay loyal to the strategy when it seems to going to FPL Hell. Maybe, just maybe, you should have 1 semi big hitter like Zab / GJohnson to keep you safe.

This is a great post, although it's addressing a philosophy nobody has proposed in the first place.

Tommy & myself have been suggesting that money could be saved to spend on attacking players by not buying big hitters or lots of mid priced players at the back.

Never has it been proposed to pack the team with 4.0m defenders.

My analysis showed that 4.0m defenders was a waste of time if you wanted points, but there is the benefit of course of getting a better attacker. It was established teams who had a poor season that might be the place where value is found.

As for the confusion on what an uber is, I would propose that it's simply a defence where nobody plays every week, as it's designed around rotating fixtures. What you spend on that uber is up to the individual. Cheap uber vs mid priced uber etc.

Tommy's uber had three transfers which led me to come up with an alternative featuring no promoted teams, who could see you through to the Jan wildcard with no transfers (apart from those forced upon you).

The price of those defenders would mean that when a transfer came along you would have options on the replacement.

I keep asking myself if I am brave enough to select an uber. I'll check back in when the player list is released and I can see how it looks 🙂