Strategic FPL Planning: Player Metrics and Fixture Analysis

Key Quotes

"I very nearly wild carded right at the end of the gameweek, but thankfully talked myself off the ledge and feel not hammered now about the upcoming gameweek."

Mark explains that he was close to using his "wild card," a special transfer that allows significant team changes, but decided against it. This indicates a moment of strategic deliberation where he weighed the potential benefits of a complete team overhaul against the risks and decided to maintain his current squad.

"So yeah, just going back on the transfers, we spoke last week about how high we were of David Raya, Virgil van Dijk, and sold both of them before a nil-nil draw, which is typical FPL."

Mark recounts a frustrating transfer decision where he sold two players, David Raya and Virgil van Dijk, only for them to subsequently achieve a clean sheet (a nil-nil draw). This illustrates the unpredictable nature of Fantasy Premier League (FPL) and how seemingly logical decisions can be immediately undermined by game outcomes.

"If in doubt, always just get an Arsenal defender and don't overthink things. That's one of the key lessons from this season."

This statement from Mark offers a pragmatic piece of advice based on his FPL experience. He suggests that when uncertain about defensive transfers, opting for an Arsenal defender is a reliable strategy, implying that their defensive unit has consistently provided good returns throughout the season.

"The narrative at the moment is that Saka is not worth the money. 10.2, and Rice is at 7.3. They both have coincidentally, they both have seven assists. They both have four goals this season. A def con, Rice is more your man there. He's getting 10.3 def con points, so he's got to get to 12. But Rice is overperforming, but not by much, only by a goal involvement. So he's expected to get six goal involvements. He's got, you know, way more than that, but it's only the expected goal involvement delta. He, he, he sort of should hand back a goal involvement and assist or a goal. Saka meanwhile is underperforming by about three."

The speaker analyzes the value proposition of two Arsenal midfielders, Saka and Rice, by comparing their current performance against their expected statistics. The analysis highlights that while Rice is slightly overperforming his expected goal involvement, Saka is underperforming significantly, suggesting that his current output is lower than his underlying metrics would predict.

"Harry Wilson, you mentioned earlier, he's 5.9, still very cheap. Outstanding six assists and seven goals. But, and here is the but, here is the but, like with Rogers, he's a massive overperformance. So he should, his expected goal involvement for the season should be around six, but it's, as we said, it's six alone with assists, seven more goals. So he's overperformed by nearly four to five goal involvements according to the expected goal involvement delta stats there."

This quote focuses on Harry Wilson's performance, noting his low price and strong statistical output in terms of goals and assists. However, the speaker immediately qualifies this by stating he is massively overperforming his expected goal involvement, indicating that his current success may not be sustainable based on underlying data.

"Bruno Guimarães reminds me the season where we're looking at Milivojevic got about 10 penalties for Palace, and he got 10-pointers every week, and you never had him, and it was painful. And Bruno Guimarães is that really annoying asset if you don't have him."

The speaker draws a parallel between Bruno Guimarães and a past player, Milivojevic, to illustrate the frustration of not owning a consistently high-scoring player. This highlights how certain assets, despite not always being the most obvious picks, can deliver reliable points, making their absence from a fantasy team particularly painful.