Purple Haze

‘Purple haze, all around

Don't know if I'm comin' up or down’

International Break (IB) time is a welcome respite from what was a fast & furious opening four GW’s. A time for reflection, what did I do right? What did I do wrong? Where can I improve? This is the first IB of 3 prior to the perennial hectic Christmas period!!! Four more GW’s to the next IB which is sandwiched between GW8 & GW9 with the 3^rd IB sandwiched between GW12 & GW13 and the confirmation from @BenCrelin that Liverpool & West Ham have a BGW in GW18 reassures me of my strategy to hold my initial WC as long as possible.

So how did my ITB strategy hold up in the opening stretch of this year’s FPL Season? Success, flop or back to the drawing board?

As previously revealed my FPL starts have always been slow and last year was no different. At the same stage in 18/19 my OR was 1,583,627, TM=3 and £100.9

My goal for my ITB strategy was to halve those stats and be in a position of confidence going into the next phase of games. From that perspective I can only view my opening 4 GW’s as a success, OR=627,395, TM=4 and £101.4 but it could have been better! Is that selfish? Is that unrealistic? No and here is why?

Comin’ up or down…… the opening sequence of games can sometimes paint a false picture as the margins of error are vastly exaggerated due to low points deltas across the field of play. A great tool “Compare Rank” by @fplAnalytics highlights that I am only 21pts from the Top100k, a place I want to be by Xmas. Give it a go, it brings some positivity from those dreaded red arrows, https://www.fplanalytics.com/compareRank.html

⚽ Looking Back ⚽

This year’s opening was more challenging than last years for a number of reasons, 5ATB was a popular pre-season formation & no Premium FWDs, and so a good start was there for the taking?

The rise of the Budget FWD (Pukki, Abraham, Barnes.A, Haller, Wilson.C) and their performances attributed to a sense of relief in not going Premium at the top. No clear template and goals galore wiped out those precious CL’s, apart from GW1, which amounted to high gains for those willing to take early risks.

My ITB strategy was all about risk aversion in the early days, surveying the landscape while trying to keep in touching distance of the top 500k with a chance to launch an assault on the top 100k, then 50k, 10k etc.

⚽ Positioning those Pieces ⚽

“The straight line, a respectable optical illusion which ruins many a man.” Those famous words from Victor Hugo are never more apt when applied to FPL. How many debates have been thrown up in August? Salah or Mane, Sterling or Aguero, Pukki or Abraham, TAA or Robbo etc?

I’m a strong believer in decision-making with long term plans in mind, we can’t all have every single bandwagon every GW so some tough decisions are needed. Heh who said this game was easy?

So my FPL team management reminds me of playing Subbuteo in my youth and moving all those pieces into the right positions to eventually reap some rewards against my opponents.

                                                         Figure 1: Subbuteo Days

Common sense is telling me that my DEF is the area that is letting me down and the overhaul needs to start here or does it?

If only I could have added Jota to the list of Budget FWD’s above then perhaps I could have made it 4 GW’s above average instead of only 3. The opening sequence of OR’s were 458,690, 438,002, 234,302 only for GW4 to drop me back to 627,395. I had 1.4M ITB and instead of correcting the backline I opted to jettison Mr. Jota and bring in Abraham over Haller for two reasons: Chelsea’s upcoming run of fixtures and despite Frank’s current travails they do look like scoring goals.

With the ITB, and having made my move for Abraham it effectively gives me 2 whole weeks to analyse my DEF strategy. The obvious FPL assets that are hurting me TAA & Digne can easily be brought in but it would seem more like a sideward move for VVD & Coleman. Time for analysis in depth.

⚽ Statistical Power ⚽

An element of my game which I am trying to improve is the use of statistics in the game. Two aspects I am looking it with a view to fine-tuning my team are the excellent Premier Fantasy Tools @PremierFantasyTools and in particular their FPL Team Analyzer.

The 2^nd area is more attention to predictions for games from e.g.  https://fivethirtyeight.com/ , the following is a representation of the result outcome per GW which shows and overall 58% correct prediction for the first 40 games.

⚽ Biochips Predictions ⚽

Speaking of predications I am adding a section each month and asking 3 guest FPL players on Twitter to represent Rogue’s 3 Biochips i.e. Gunner, Bagman & Helm to provide their predictions for the following categories:

   

        Monthly Maestro (Top Scorer over calendar month)

        Cech Mate (Top Keeper)

   Bandwagon (Next Pukki)
  Tom Daly (Biggest flop)

So for September we have @FPL_Bully, @FChieftan, and @ohheyystranger with their deliberations.

BioChip	FPL Player	Monthly Maestro	Cech Mate	Bandwagon	Tom Daly
Gunner	@FPL_Bully	Sterling	Ederson	Wilson C.	Ryan
Bagman	@FChieftan	Aguero	Ederson	Abraham	Pukki
Helm	@ohheyystranger	Sterling	Lloris	Haller	Pukki

According to @ohheyystranger “it's hard to look beyond Sterling for Sept's run of games, especially for the Norwich and Watford game. Norwich has conceded 8 goals home and away, and Watford 7.” Both @FPL_Bully & @FChieftan, “City with fixtures against Watford and Norwich. Jesus out injured. KDB laying them on a platter. Pep demanding City chase down the points gap with Liverpool.” tend to agree that it has to be City assets. @FPL_Bully going as far as to predict the returns for Sterling “Top points scorer in Sept Sterling-4 goals 2 assists”

With two home games in September, some definitive thoughts from @ohheyystranger “I expect the Spurs man to come up tops in those two fixtures against CRY and SOU. 4.3 saves per game, which is higher than Adrian, Ederson AND Pope. Earned an additional point for 8 saves against City despite conceding 2. The clean sheets will eventually come.” Although both @FPL_Bully & @FChieftan, were in agreement in the previous category both opt for Ederson here.

“Sept's run of games against Villa (H), Man Utd (130 Million pounds and still leaking goals) and Bournemouth (a goal a game). Looks potent and built for the Premier League.” seals the option of Haller for @ohheyystranger but of the four categories this is the one with the greatest divergence between all 3 BioChips. However some strong convictions from @FChieftan, on this one, “I think if Tammy Abraham scores in August against Sheff United a lot will start jumping on him and his price will rise significantly.”

“Pukki I'll be bold and call this one. I will be the first to raise my hand up if I get this horribly wrong. Norwich face Man City, Burnley and Crystal Palace in Sept, and despite his exploits against Liverpool and Chelsea, I highly doubt the City backline will be generous. August was and is his month, but I do expect a short hangover period where he goes on a dry spell.” Certainly a bold statement from @ohheyystranger but surprisingly he’s not the only making this statement with @FChieftan weighing along the same lines “He is over performing his stats. He may get some assists but Norwich still have very tough fixtures especially against Man City.” @FPL_Bully seems adamant about who will come out top in this category going against the other two “Biggest bellyflop in Sept Brighton in general. Ryan in particular”

⚽ Next Update ⚽

Back prior to October games so until then enjoy the FPL madness, interact with the Community and remember rule no.1 “Play your own game”.

#RogueAgainstTheMachine @FplRogue

Credits: @BenCrelin @fplAnalytics @PremierFantasyTools https://fivethirtyeight.com/ @FPL_Bully @FChieftan @ohheyystranger