Fixture Analyser Updated

Today we have updated our Fixture Analyser so it now displays from GW4 through to GW13. We've also made some small tweaks to the numbers driving it behind the scenes. Most notably we've decreased Tottenham's attack rating so they are no longer ranked amongst the top group of teams but have bumped up their defence rating too. 

You can check the Fixture Analyser out in it's usual place on the sidebar or follow this link,

Best Attacking Fixtures
Not a great deal has changed with the updates. Of the top clubs Liverpool and Arsenal are still the two to enter into a very strong run of attacking fixtures right from GW4 up to around GW10.  Players like Giroud, Walcott and Sturridge should have a place in your team by now and Ozil or Coutinho on your watchlist.

Amongst the lower ranked clubs, Swansea and Hull's immediate fixtures look the brightest. There's some cut-price potential in Hull's Robbie Brady (mostly from set pieces) and Swansea's players like Michu, Bony and Hernandez will be worth some investment in the next few weeks.

Best Defenisve Fixtures
Manchester United embark on a run now where they should not concede too often,Vidic at £6.0m is going to look very affordable. Tottehnam also have a strong run of fixtures for their backline. Kyle Walker looks the top player amongst them but if Dawson can keep his place he's a steal at £5.0m. Arsenal and Liverpool also offer promise but City look to be in for a real test of their defensive nous.

Fixture Analyser Updated with Defence

These two Italian gentleman would be very proud of us today. We've updated our Fixture Analyser so that it can now be used to assess the difficulty/ease of fixtures from a defensive perspective rather than just being all about the goals.

You can find the updated Fixture Analyser in it's usual place on the sidebar. 

As a reminder the strength of fixtures is based only on the opposition. If we did not do this lesser teams would get a very bad deal. By normalising the teams you can see the fixture strength relatively. If you see Hull with a "good fixture" remember that this is just good relative to how good Hull are.

Also remember the Fixture Analyser allows you to view the average fixture strength for 3GW and 6GW ranges as well as the more traditional 1GW range.  

A fixture that is highlighted Best/Good/Poor (blue/green/orange) indicates the strength of that fixture AND the subsequent fixtures dependant on the GW range selected.

We'll bring you our own insights into teams to look at and those to be wary of both in attack and defensively in separate posts on this blog.

New Fixture Analyser is Live

Our new fixture analyser is live and you can find it on the sidebar of the blog. Currently it displays the attack ranking of individual fixtures and 3GW and 6GW fixture streaks. We'll be updating it very shortly with Defensive Rankings and will no doubt tweak the underlying team numbers as the pre-season unfolds.

What are Fixture Streaks?

We discussed this idea a couple weeks back in this post and ran a poll whose results were vastly positive when we asked if you'd find it useful.

Typically a fixture matrix will highlight only an individual fixture based on it's difficulty. This is useful for picking out good/bad single gameweeks here and there but the fixture list is naturally randomised so comparing one clubs range of fixtures to another's becomes a bit subjective.

With Fixture Streaks we are basically averaging a range of fixtures and indicating the overall strength for that range. 

An Example

Fixture Streaks

This is something new we are working on. When we look at our fixture matrix, or any fixture matrix for that matter, we often find it's not all that easy to see what we want to see.  It's clear that teams like United and Arsenal have the best chance of goals but we know that anyway without need for a matrix. It's easy to glance through the immediate list of games for the weekend ahead and we are also able to see where there's a plum individual game on the horizon.

What is not easily see is which sides have the best run of fixtures over a series of games.  Once you start looking at the fixture list over a spell of 3-6 games it's becomes a jumble. If you "sort" the fixtures by expected goals scored the result just puts the top scoring clubs at the top and you've learnt nothing.  The fixture is indeed jumbled up! It's randomly generated (mostly- Sky Sports we are looking at you!) and it's typically difficult to compare one clubs run of games to another's in terms of difficulty.. 

With Fixture Streaks we want to provide additional information to the current matrix.  We want to :

1. # Rank a series of club's fixtures in difficulty relative to other ranges through the season - e.g. Team X's games through GW8, 9 and 10 is the BEST run of fixtures for any club ALL season.
2. # Rank fixture difficulty for each club relative to other fixtures for the same club - e.g. Team B's fixtures GW12-17 is it's Worst run of games this year.

Here's are some examples for the first 10 gameweeks of the season, using goalscoring values:

• # Manchester United have the very best 3 GW fixture run of all teams in GW8-10:  SOU(H), STO(H), FUL(A)
• # Arsenal's Best 5GW run of games in from GW1-5: AST(H), FUL(A), TOT(H), SUN(A), STO(H) and this is the 4th best %GW run of any team.
• # Thes best 2GW fixture run from the promoted clubs is GW6-7 for Cardiff: FUL(A), NEW(H)
• # Liverpool's WORST run of 3 games is GW1-3: STO(H), AST(A), MUN(H)

We would also create a visualisation for this, here are some example graphs of relative 3GW fixture strength:

Relative 3GW Fixture Strength (GW3-10)

How does this sound? Is this something that would add value to the fixture list?

Please vote and ave your say. Help us to help you get the most out of FPL.

Do you think Fixture Streaks would be useful to YOU?

• Yes
• No
• Don't care

Freeblogpolls

More polls: Free polls

Fixture Data GW1-6

As mentioned yesterday the raw data is available from which we've determined the fixture rankings. This includes the average goals scored and conceded both home and away last season. The promoted club's data has been modified proportionally to how they get on in the Championship last season and how promoted teams typically do in their first season.

See our previous post for our own user-friendly version, but check out the raw data on Google Drive and copy and paste this into your own spreadsheets if you want to have a play around.

2012/13 Fixtures Spreadsheet GW1-6

2013/14 Opening Fixtures Preview

CLICK TO VIEW LARGER

Here's our Fixture Strength Preview for the first six gameweeks.  

Green Square = Home game versus opponent's who concede a lot
Yellow Square= Away game agaisnt easy opponent or home game agaisnt hard opponent
Red Square = Away against hardest opponents
Green Font = Home at medium ranked opponent
Yellow Font = Away at medium opponent

Highlights

• Chelsea  Three easy fixtures in the first six games, and the likelihood of a double gameweek with involvement in some European thing. They travel to Old Trafford and Goodison too but don't worry about that, it doesn't mean they won't score.
• Man City   Pellegrini's new side will host Hull and Newcastle in the first few weeks as well as travelling to Villa & Cardiff. Not super, but better than many others.
• Newcastle  If the Magpies can sort some of their problems out over the summer they could have a decent start with Hull and Fulham and West Ham to visit St. James early on.

Later this week we'll provide some more precise calculations about the opening fixture schedule and  decipher some early rotation options with Palace and Hull offering a decent match up at first glance.