Goal Keepers - Trend Position Analysis

Goal Keepers - Trend Position Analysis

I have to admit I probably don't do enough trend positional analysis myself, I've written a few articles for a number of other website on how to do the analysis & last year had some good feedback from readers. So in an effort to improve my own standings, here is the first of four articles.

The analysis looks at the several different trend charts, from the whole of last seasons data. The Trend analysis is also good for spotting anomalies which can indicate value / form or perhaps over performance. Note that the charts cannot be looked at in isolation, much like you wouldn't rate a player on red or yellow card stats only, the links between the charts will be explained through out.

Price vs Points.
The charts are order by the 2014/15 start of season player price (blue bar charts) increasing right to right. i.e. Myhill, Elliot, least expensive. Hart, Cech Most Expensive. (Note keepers that obtained less than 10 points for the season were not included.)

The two charts are split by over & under 100 points, in prior seasons I've lumped all players into one Graph, however I really only want to pick from the players getting the most points (Over 100), hence the reason for the split, so that we could concentrate on these upper third players. This has caused the trend line to have a strong goodness of fit, nearly all points sitting close to the trend line.

Points to note: Out of the upper third of players only Howard, Szczesny out performed the rest of the group (Above line of fit.) Speroni can also just about be included in this elite group, these three player out performed all other goal keepers when considering Points for Value. (Its worth noting Arsenals have recently signed a new keeper, David Ospina from Lille a regular Champions League team in years gone by, which may effect Szczesny game time this year.) Hart, De Gea and latterly Migonlet, Boruc and Krul, did not perform as well as the rest of the elite group. (Note these players would have been standout performers if I had combined the under and over 100 point graphs, and would have been majorly valuable at last years prices too.) You might be surprised by Harts Terrible values for money, this can be explained by his omission from the City side, in the middle of last season, hence not justifying his overall price as most expensive goal keeper alongside Cech. (I'll re-mention Hart later, as I actually had him for a spell in my team last season, I'll explain why later.)

From the under 100 Chart, Vorm Foster & both West Ham Keepers Adrian and Jääskeläinen are stand outs, later we will look a the Min Played for Value, where these players will all feature. Myhill looks like he needs more game time for West Brom as he picks up the points when he plays (With Foster back likely to become an issue at some point in the season this looks like a very good choice for a backup keeper at £4m this season, if you are not averse to your reserve keeper warming the bench.) McGregor also look like standout, however his minutes charts should also be consulted.

Minutes vs Points.
Again the Charts are split, but this time, I've isolated the elite players (over 100 points,) and shown all of the players who gained above 25 points.The charts are ordered by the Total point over the season, increasing right to left. i.e. Tremmel, Harper, least Points. Howard at the top with the most points. (Note keepers that obtained less than 25 points for the season were not included, there were quite a few of these.)

It's getting late now, I'll pick this explanation up tomorrow, and include a few other graphs...

Watch this space.

Start of a New Season, Fixture List Check.

Fixture List Check

Start of a new season and where better to start than a review of the fixture list.
Which team has the best fixture start to the season? Who has the worst set of Fixtures to start the season?
Here is my view on the Teams with the best and worst set of fixtures for the first 6 games.

Simply United have by far the best fixtures, looking at there defense I wouldn't be surprised if there is one or two signings before the season start as they look a bit short of numbers, either way Louis Van Gaal couldn't have picked an easier set of fixtures to start the season.

Stoke, Sunderland and WBA are mixed bag, and whilst I'm not expected great things from any of them this year, it's worth noting that lady luck has been kind to them for the start of the year.

Chelsea are my personal favorites this year, other than the away games at Everton & City, there should be plenty of points picked up in the first few games, I'm expecting big points from Jose's men in the first two weeks.

Could it possibly be any harder for Leicester? Stoke and Palace away are not easy places to pick up points, whilst Albrighton & Moore look like snips at £4.5m & £4m, if they haven't picked up a win prior to GW7 the clash with fellow promotion rivals Burnley could turn out to be make or break game early in the season. It could prove to be a very hard season for the Foxes and those players who look like bargains could actually prove to be bad stock.

Man City's Fixture don't fill me with Joy, but I don't doubt there will still be plenty of points picked up by the City players over the first 6 games. Newcastle at the Etihad was the reverse fixture of last year's opening day game. 4-0 will be in the back of every Magpie fan's mind, I'm sure Shearer will mention it on MoD, anyone want to place a wager?

Life after Suarez Liverpool, are to set to visit Southampton on the opening day, the team they have literally pillaged in the off-season with Lallana, Lambert & Lovren swapping team for the opening day. I wouldn't be surprised to see one more player feeling like there on the wrong team on the opening day, with Schneiderlin and Rodriguez rumours on nearly every football website out there today. How will they cope without Suarez, well they will need to learn quickly, there are question marks over the squad, will they be good enough to make the champions league this year now they have to fight on European fronts too.

Villa and Everton will need to make the most of their supposed easier games, both having to entertain 3 of the Top 4 Champions Leagues side in the first 6 games. Villa's first 6 games are notably the same as Man Citys first 6, wonder who will do the better of the two teams?

Here's how I've come up with the scores for now, I will be updating this over the season, and building in improved logic for Home and Away Games. I've probably rated Newcastle a little too highly but there will be time to re-Analyse closer to the start of the season, when squads are a little more settled.

Team	Ranking
Man City	6.4
Chelsea	6.4
Arsenal	6.1
Liverpool	6
Man Utd	6
Everton	5.1
Tottenham	5
Newcastle	4.1
West Ham	4
Stoke City	4
Crystal Palace	4
WBA	3
Aston Villa	3
Southampton	3
Swansea City	2
Hull City	2
Sunderland	2
Leicester City	1
QPR	1
Burnley	1

Game Day Trends - Part Deux

Game Day Trends, The Follow up.

Hello Football Fans, you may remember an article I wrote all the way back in Game Week 9, on Game Day Trends, well this is the end of season follow up to that article. Back in GW9 after watching a handful of 'Bore Draws' I wondered if there was any pattern occurring relating to results on certain week days or if it was just my bad luck having just watched these games in the previous weeks.

After investigating the first 8 game weeks of the season I noted some surprising trends, at the time I wasn't sure if they were anomalies, so suggested that it would be appropriate to have a look at these details again, toward the back end of the season when the data set was larger.

From GW9 the 3 main points I picked out were:

i) Saturday, on average, means roughly a coin flip between a home win and any other result…ii) Sunday was the next best chance to guess a result: a draw is on the cards.iii) The swap in fortunes: A Saturday game means a home win is most likely. A non-Saturday, well the stars have re-aligned and now a home win is least likely!


Come Game week 37 and the surprising anomalies seem to have smoothed out. Saturday is still the best day to guess a result, Home win please. But the 'balance of expectation ' a Home Win, followed by  Draw and then Away win seems in line with 'expectation' across all days, (i.e. you would always expect a home win would to have great probability than and Draw followed lastly by an away Win. The large data set seems to make logical sense.) There is also a clear indication that there is greater chance of seeing a draw on a non-Saturday although this has come down from approx 20% to around 10% from GW9 to GW37, at least across all categories a chance of a draws come down (infer the season got better for viewing, not as many draws.)


Right so where do we go from here? I intend to go back at least one year & see if last season results were roughly similar.... I'm think it might be worth also collating teams in to Homogeneous Groups, i.e. Champions League Teams, Relegation Battler's etc and see if there are any nice grouping trends. I'm also beginning to wonder if there is a strategy for betting here (& of course a Fantasy angle, not that I'm a gambler,) but if it turn outs that the two season are similar in game day trends, then at points in the season such as GW9 we could hedge our selves predicting where the results will shift too.

Looking at the above table, the most obvious thing to do would be to start betting on Home Win's on a Sundays*, or structuring fantasy sides to have more player from team that play at Home on Sundays over the next few week. I need to give further consideration to the Balance of 'Expectation' assumption (as mentioned above) by checking this holds true for past seasons (watch this space.)


*Granted I have worked back word's here, i.e. GW37 data is not know before GW9 but the prior seasons data will help, hopefully there may be some consistency. 

@Mattistician