Prospects of the Promoted Clubs

Today we are going to examine the prospects of the three promoted Clubs to get a general idea of what they can offer your Fantasy Premier League team. We'll take a look at the attacking and defensive record of promoted clubs from the last 7 season in their promotion-winning season and compare that with results from their subsequent first year in the Premier League. 

The two charts above show the general trend between number of goals scored and conceded in the Championship compared to the Premier League and barring a few outliers  it's a pretty reliable trend. So where do our three promoted teams fit in?

Cardiff City

The Bluebirds total goals scored of 72 is just below average for a promoted team (75) and their goals conceded is just a bit better, 45 compared to 42. So, overall they are pretty much an average promoted side. 

They're most prominent stat. is their goals conceded at home of just 15. This is very good and puts them on par with Newcastle 09/10 and Swansea 10/11, both of whom had returned excellent defensive points in their debut FPL seasons. 

Look out then for GK David Marshall and captain CB Mark Hudson, the latter a consistent goal scorer through his career. 

Hull City

Hull's attack can only be described as poor. 2nd worse in our sample of teams over the years (Birmingham 08/09. take that biscuit). Unless they sign some truly inspiring forwards stay away from their attacking players. You'd imagine that their defence must be a real strength then but it's not that hot either, relative to other promoted clubs, and worse than Cardiff's

We can't really see any FPL value in this team at this point. With a kind run of fixtures a GK or defender (Figueroa?) may be worth a sniff.

Crystal Palace

Palace's defence is one of the worst in iur 7 year sample for a promoted team so let's just leave that there and move on. Palace are the team that will garner the most one-night stands from fantasy football managers this season. 2nd highest goal scored (73) after Watford last season and an impressive 52 goals at home. 

Of course manager Ian Holloway has already earned our fantasy love from his spell with Blackpool and Charlie Adam's massive success as a £5m FPL mid. Crystal Palace's promotional record is remarkably similar (and slightly better) to Blackpool's of 09/10 so we simply expect more of the same from Holloway and his team this year.

		Home					Away
		W	D	L	GF	GA	W	D	L	GF	GA
2012/13	Palace	13	8	2	52	31	6	7	10	21	31
2009/10	Blackpool	13	6	4	46	22	6	7	10	28	36

Who to stick in your team then? Well at the moment, there's no-one. Their key players from last season are not available, top scorer Whelen is injured, Zaha has moved to Old Trafford and Phillip's loan spell has ended. They'll have to sign some players so keep your eye on our weekly Transfer Roundup for news on that.

Cardiff City & Andreas Cornelius

Cardiff's signing of Andreas Cornelius (cool name) means it's a good time to take a look at the prospects of this year's three new clubs to the Premier League which can so often provide unknown gems in Fantasy Premier League.

Cornelius is a big fella, 6'4, and has signed after scoring 18 goals in 32 games for FC Copenhagen who won the Danish Superliga for their 4th time in the last 5 years. This was practically Cornelius debut season having only made 2 appearances late on in the previous season. His stature has seen him used a target man but he has skills to be more than that. All in all then, he looks a very promising young talent.

Let's not get too carried away though. He's only 20, and at that age, and stepping up from the Danish League to the Premier League he's going to need some time. 

A statement that can be said of his new club Cardiff too. The chart below show goals scored by promoted teams in the Championship season compared to their subsequent first season in the Premier League.

Cardiff will do well to to score more than 45 goals this season (~1.2 per game) and Cornelius is coming from a team that scored 62 goals in total, where he scored 18. He'll do well to get double figures this season if you ask us.

We'll have more analysis and charts like this on the attacking and defensive prospects of the promoted clubs later this week.