written by www.twitter.com/darraghFPL
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Well, it’s
as if we’ve never been away. The opening weekend highlighted its annual batch
of bargain bin assets as well as its overpriced disappointments. We saw players
such as Seamus Coleman, Ross Barkley, Luke Shaw and Danny Welbeck emerge while
the heavily relied platoon of Hazard, Walcott, Coutinho and Lukaku have all
disappointed to date (note: I’m writing this pre Chelsea v Villa). With the
majority of us bemoaning poor starts and underperforming big hitters, I hope to
create a silver lining for a turbulent week one and prevent any knee jerk
reaction from those who may have underperformed.
When it
comes to Fantasy Football, there have always been those polarising players
throughout the history of the game. The ‘is he worth it’ slogan has perennially
been attached to such wunderkinds such as skinny Ronaldo, Didier Drogba, Christian
Gareth Bale and this season it has climaxed with the undecided essentialness of
a certain Dutchman. However, these arguments rarely if ever focus around a
defender.
That is until the past two years when fantasy stataholics fell head
over heels for Leighton Baines. His price tag of £7.5 million has justifiably
deterred over 75% of us thus far and given his ‘un’ point showing against the
Canaries coupled with Seamus Coleman going points crazy, its easy to begin the
chorus of ‘I told ya so’s’ earlier than usual. That is however, until you break
the game down through the beautiful practice of statistics. Despite his low
points haul, Baines touched the ball 104 times, a whopping 46 times more than
his full back counterpart. This included 57 touches in the opponents half
compared to Coleman’s 37 touches in the same area. Baines created 6 key scoring
opportunities against the Irishman’s 2.
Whilst many may argue this is a small
sample size, it may be worth noting that 187 touches went down Everton’s left
flank compared with just 104 down the right. This follows on from the Moyes era
where on average 54% of Everton’s attacks came from the same flank, leaving
just 46% to be divided between the centre and right areas. While Coleman’s £5
million price tag will correctly attract new suitors looking to hop on the
Everton fullback’s success, it’s worth noting for us Baines owners that not too
much has changed just yet.
Another
fantasy protagonist this week emerged in the form of Edin Dzeko. Following in
the footsteps of pre-season greats such as Mauro Boselli, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake
and Danny Graham, Dzeko carved up preseason opponents with such gusto as to
warrant a 12% ownership in the game, 6% more than Sergio Aguero. After the 4-0
tonking of Noveauchâteau, many will jump ship from the modestly priced Bosnian
in favor of the proven yet vastly more expensive Argentine. Like an
inexperienced teen, this premature shift could hurt you further down the line.
Despite Dzeko’s 4 points being dwarfed by Aguero’s 12 beans, the former’s 14
penalty area touches was the most of any player this weekend, 6 more than Van
Persie and 3 more than penalty box dweller Christian Benteke. Furthermore, he
only had to wait every 11.6 mins per chance. That’s a blink of an eye compared
to Aguero’s 20.7 mins per scoring opportunity. In fact, only two forwards come
within 4 minutes of Dzeko’s timeframe and that’s the bourgeoisie owned Van
Persie (12.3 minutes) and the cameo appearance from Laudrup’s Boy Child, Bony M
(12.5 minutes).
Before you exclaim that this merely highlights Dzeko’s
profligacy in front of goal, his goal to shot conversion rating last season
(14.9%) was a full percent higher than his Argentine teammate. Last but not
least, Dzeko played a full pitch quadrant higher than any other forward this
weekend. If he can avoid rotation with Negredo for another two weeks, and
that’s a big “if”, he should average 3.2 goals if he continues with his chance
per minute ratio. Just remember to tell your inner teenager, it’s a marathon,
not a sprint.
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