Avoiding the Drop

As we near the start of the season, I’ll be taking a look at each position in fantasy and giving you a breakdown on the top players, who to look for, etc. as well as how the position scores points and other  important things new players should know. Remember you can get all your info, and join our league right here. Last week we took a look at Defenders, this week: Midfielders

We’ve looked at the somewhat boring positions, where guys are more reliant on their overall team than themselves to score fantasy points, and now we turn our attention to the more exciting positions, where players are actually scoring with some regularity. This is where the meat of your scoring comes in though, so its important that you pick the right guys for the job.

Scoring:

Playing: 1 point for playing under 60 minutes, 2 points for playing more than 60
Goals: 5 points per goal scored
Assists: 3 points
Clean Sheet: 1 point for a clean sheet for a player playing more than 60 minutes
Yellow Card: -1 point
Red Card: -3 points (includes yellow card points)
Bonus Points: 1-3 points, again totally random
Penalty Miss: -2 points for missing a penalty

Again, I’ve organized guys into a spreadsheet and am using this formula to create some sort of value for each player:

fantasy points/(minutes played/90)= points per game (ppg)

One thing that shouldn’t come as a surprise to people is the fact that midfileders score much higher on this list, but they also tend to cost more, so it makes some sense.

Last Seasons Top Players:

Frank Lampard, Chelsea (226 points, 12.5 million, 6.24 ppg): Frank is obviously one of the top midfielders in the game, that’s not going to change. He had an incredible season last year, and should prove to be the centerpiece for Chelsea again this season. Here we see bonus points actually start to pay off as Lampard scored 46 last season, giving him a considerable chunk of his points just from being the best player on the field.

Steven Gerrard, Liverpool (216 points, 12.5 million, 7.41 ppg): Again, no surprise here. Basically everything I said for Lampard remains true for Gerrard. However the one big thing you notice with the two is the fact that Gerrard has a much higher ppg, obviously Gerrard missed more games than Lampard, which leaves us in an interesting situation. If Gerrard played as much as Lampard things would probably even out a little bit in terms of ppg, as Gerrard would have a greater probability to have off days, or just not get as lucky. But the fact remains that Gerrard scored only 10 points less, so the advantage of Gerrard far outweighs Lampard because in the 7 games less that he played, an average midfielder from your bench should score about 30 points.

Dirk Kuyt, Liverpool (193 points, 9.5 million, 5.48 ppg): Kuyt comes with a moderately high price tag, but as the 3rd highest scorer he still comes in at only the 5th highest priced player and a huge drop in cost compared to Gerrard and Lampard. He comes in still at one of the higher ppg’s between the midfielders and defenders, but was only 2nd behind Lampard in terms of minutes played. In Kuyt you get a player that’ll get a lot of minutes and points, but won’t break the bank.

Andrei Arshavin, Arsenal (87 points, 11 million, 7.88 ppg): Arshavin is here as a slight exception. He only played 11 games, but scored what would be equal to 261 points if he had played about 33 games. Whereas last season he had 1-2 games where he did little in terms of scoring, this season he’ll have 9-10 of those games which would obviously lower his score. His score also includes his 4 goal performance at Liverpool and he’s not going to have anything near 3 games like that again this season. He does however provide some value as he should still produce something similar to what he did last season, but still costs 1.5 million less than Gerrard or Lampard. I’d expect him to be in the top 3 scores next season.

Stay Away From These Guys

Again, I could easily put a couple of crappy guys here that just aren’t good, but you know not to pick them, so here are some quality players you’d do best to avoid.

Frank Lampard, Chelsea (226 points, 12.5 million, 6.24 ppg): Yes, Frank was the leading scorer last season (technically Ronaldo was, but he’s not around anymore) but his price is so high and he’s got way less value over Steven Gerrard. When I was doing my number crunching, I came up with a number that was really only useful for comparing players of the same price, and Gerrard came out well higher than Lampard. Plus Gerrard has averaged out to be better than Lampard over the last 3 years. Chelsea’s got a lot of options on the field as well, where Gerrard is Liverpool’s option. Lampard isn’t a particularly bad choice at all, but if you’re leaning towards one or the other, Gerrard is the better value.

Ashley Young, Aston Villa (153 points, 8.5 million, 4.32 ppg): Young was one of a couple of  Aston Villa players that played out of their minds fantasy wise in the first half of last season and faltered in the second half. He comes up near the bottom of the ppg pile for midfielders, and there are players at or below his price that fared better or very close to what he did last season. Villa lost Garreth Barry as well so Young might not have the benefit of having a good CM in there to allow him to go on the attack as much.

Garreth Barry, Manchester City (162 points, 8.0 million, 4.31 ppg): New transfers are so hard to judge, Barry could come in and benefit an insane amount from all the other City firepower being more closely marked, or he could wind up not getting much because he’s standing at the top of the box while everyone else is firing their shots on goal. I’d really be weary of anyone on Manchester City for the time being, nobody has any idea who’s going to emerge as their star player, and until we do it’s best to just avoid them. However I do think Steven Ireland will probably benefit the most from the added attack and would be a better buy over Barry even though he costs 1 million more.

why do they make him wear his age on his shirt?

Best Buys: Value players 7 million and under

Geovanni, Hull City (126 points, 6.0 million, 4.50 ppg): Geovanni’s score benefited hugely from a massive first half, and then Hull slipped and so did he. He also saw a lot less playing time in that period. While I don’t expect Hull to be very good this season, I don’t see them being really bad either. Geovanni is easily one of the better players Hull has, and I’d expect him to collect a good amount of points this season. For the price he’s the best option available.

Danny Murphy, Fulham (150 points, 6.5 million, 4.06 ppg): I picked Murphy for this spot over Clint Depsey simply because he scored more points, he also used a lot more minutes to do so and has a lower ppg than Dempsey, but there is such a small gap between them that in the end taking slightly fewer points for not having a bench player come in is probably best. This is the opposite arguement I made for the Gerrard/Lampard arguement, but these two are half the cost, and you can’t have everyone needing to be subbed every week.

Phil Neville, Everton (140 points, 5.o million, 3.91 ppg): Neville is here for exactly the same reason Titus Bramble was in this spot last time, he’s extremely valuable. He plays a lot of minutes and costs almost nothing. I wouldn’t rely on him to score a ton of points but he’ll be a consistent source of points and should be solid most of the season.

Ryan Giggs, Manchester United (102 points, 7 million, 6.09 ppg): I’m primarily mentioning Giggs for one reason, and if you’re a regular reader to this site you know what it is.  If not, just search thefuseproject’s archives and you’ll soon find out. Giggs has a similar problem that John O’Shea had last week. He scores so much, but he just doesn’t play enough. If you’ve got the money to put him on the bench, then do so, when he plays he’ll score, but he’s not going to be out there a whole lot.

My Top 5 Midfielders:

1. Steven Gerrard, Liverpool (216 points, 12.5 million, 7.41 ppg): No sense in not having a top midfielder on your squad, and he’s probably the best.
2. Andrei Arshavin, Arsenal (87 points, 11 million, 7.88 ppg): Should be close to the top 5 this season, but at a better cost than the rest.
3. Mikel Arteta, Everton (129 points, 8.5 million, 5.16 ppg): He was hampered by injury the past two seasons, but if he’s healthy he should be quality.
4. Dirk Kuyt, Liverpool (193 points, 9.5 million, 5.48 ppg): Second tier price for a top 3 player.
5. Geovanni, Hull City (126 points, 6.0 million, 4.50 ppg): Cheap and he should produce pretty well this season.

So what do you think?

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