Will We Have A Season?
Covid cases increase in EPL as new strain takes hold in England.
If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know I’ve been in a weird headspace of late which is strange because nothing stressful at all is happening in the world. Time is certainly finite and it is important to use your time well; its also important to make time for fun, so here I am. I started this thing as a way to stay connected with the amazing community that sprang up around Togga, and grew into a world-wide collection of managers playing on various platforms. Lately that’s taken a pretty, pretty sizeable backseat to, well, everything else. If you’re only here for the FPL advice, probably not the right spot for you but I appreciate your support nonetheless.
Anyway,
So for the rest of this one, probably no overt politics - unless we can have a recall election of David Moyes or pass some sort of resolution requiring Said Benrahma is sold to an EPL club that will play him 75+ minutes every match. After all, all politics is local (to my fantasy team).
COVID-19 isn’t political - ah ha! I got you there! It’s a virus and viruses aren’t allowed to hold office or vote (yet, I’m sure Pfizer is lobbying hard). The rise in cases globally is staggering and the B117 variant is projected to become the dominant strain in the next three weeks. This is really bad for society at large and sports in particular.
Why is this so bad? Well, apart from the sheer volume of cases, the B117 strain appears to be more easily transmittable, patients appear to have a higher viral load, the virus itself is replicating in the throat and has a mutated ‘spike’ protein which is better at invading the body. It is entirely possible that the current protocols and protections which are based on the early and still dominant strain may not prove effective at limiting spread of this new strain. And lets face it, may are often ignoring the protocols anyway.
This is going to have major impacts on Premier League football. Liverpool just played a cup match against an Aston Villa side that didn’t have the manager, the first-team management staff, and the first team. Last week we had a record high positive tests (40+) from the Premier League, and just this morning it was announced that mid-week and weekend matches are being rescheduled because of those positive tests. A further 36 positive tests were reported today for players and club staff. Per Sky Sports
The Premier League confirmed Spurs will instead play Fulham at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium at the same time on Wednesday. The match was originally postponed on December 30. As a result of the re-arrangement, Fulham's match against Chelsea moves from Friday to 5.30pm on Saturday, while Villa vs Everton moves from Saturday to midday on Sunday.
This means there are still six (6) matches in game week 18 and sixteen (16!) in GW19, for now. The Premier League has been hit or miss in how they’re handling the decision-making and timing so be ready for additional match moves, delayed matches with no announced reschedule date, and eventually for matches to be cancelled outright.
FPL leagues need to be discussing this now. If you’re in a friendly home league without much on the line, COVID-related cancellations and scheduling will result in some strange score lines. If you play in a bigger league - either with bigger prizes, with pro/rel, with penalties for table position, etc - you need to agree to how you’ll handle these issues moving forward. Most, if not all, of the current draft platforms are not designed to handle significant match rearrangement any way except for the default: a match gets scored in the week when it is rearranged. If that is acceptable to you, great! If it’s not, read on.
Many leagues - including several leagues I play in - have voted midseason to add additional bench spots, add COVID/INJ spots to hold unavailable places, or voted to return league buy-ins in the event the season is cancelled/postponed. The arguments for doing this are simple: managers have had rosters decimated and it’s really unfair for competition to have a manager who can’t field a roster without dropping top 50 players. The arguments against are equally valid: managers who’ve already had to make those tough choices are being penalized now and managers at the top of the league are able to horde more talent, making an already thin waiver-wire near two-dimensional.
I don’t think there’s a good solution out there and anything that does get changed mid-stream must be done in compliance with your league bylaws or constitution. I would not count on any help from draft platforms at this stage, either out of limited ability given their coding, finances, or staffing, or an unwillingness to see fantasy soccer players as an audience worth catering to. Feel free to use the comments here to discuss questions, concerns and offer your leagues solutions so that others can use that as guidelines.
Traditional injuries continue to mount. Everton are without striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin (hamstring) for their midweek clash at Wolves. Richarlison is also facing a late fitness test. This is bad news for Carlo Ancelloti who was looking forward to a full-strength side following the recovery of both Leigh-errr, sorry, LUcas Digne and James.
Digne immediately returns to the top tier defenders - where he’ll be joined shortly by Leicester’s Ricardo Pereira - and James remains in the second tier of midfielders where he is excellent but some way short of elite. While Digne is 98% selected, Ricardo is only at 81% and at least one manager who reads this has been successful scooping him off of the free agent pile this week. Take a look.
Digne’s value would like be higher with DCL in the lineup and James out of it (at least for free kicks) but most of his value is derived from the build-up play and not as much the final product. If the second-stringers are slightly worse at connecting for goals, that’s on them but shouldn’t impact the defender much. He’s a must start from the start - no need to wait and see if he’s still got it.
Fun fantasy stuff ahead! While we still have a season on going, it’s worth looking at moves that could be made. Joao Cancelo has been outstanding this year. He was one of the players I was quite high on despite his No. 56 rating in the defenders. The summer projectionists didn’t see him factoring in minutes enough to have draft day value and his average draft position never moved very high. Rated No. 2 in the mid-season ranks, Cancelo has continued to impress: he’s recorded 10+ points in five of his last six outings including 14.75 vs Fulham and 15.75 vs Southampton, both without the benefit of a goal or assist. His price to acquire is skyhigh - and rightly so - but he’s posting better points per match that Digne, Andy Robertson (who is finally back over 10 PPM) and Ben Chilwell. While many might prefer to have those three guys because of their regular minutes, the Portugese defender has played the full 90’ in six on the spin and 11 of the last 12. I think he’s an every week (or nearly) starter and seeing if you can land him in a deal isn’t buying high, it’s paying for value. Plus you get all that sauce for free.
So here’s where it gets fun. Cancelo has created 2.2 xA, and has made 24 key passes (xA via fbref and key passes via WhScored). His numbers are good - very good for FPL managers - but they aren’t the best in the league. And where the numbers are near the top, there are a handful of other names to keep an eye on.
Here are some defenders who have been getting it done with less fantasy spotlight: Kieran Tierney actually leads all Premier League defenders not named Robertson (3.2 xA) or Cancelo with 2.6 xA. Tierney just plumped something massive with his goal and an assist - securing the bag and 39.9 points) against West Brom. Easy opposition? Sure, but if we look back across his last four matches we see 10.25 at Brighton and 8.25 in the 3-1 win over Chelsea, then 6.5 in a 1-2 loss to Everton. In both the Chelsea and Everton match Tierney picked up yellow cards (and obviously didn’t get clean sheets).
Arsenal are level 10th in expected goals allowed (20.6) but have only kept five clean sheets all year; two of those were in their last two matches. I’m not suggesting Tierney is Cancelo, or even Cancelo-lite (now with MORE STEVIA!) But he might be a ‘buy high’ candidate if his manager thinks they’re selling you a dud. He’s not.
THAT COULD HAPPEN TO LITERALLY ANY ARSENAL PLAYER AT LITERALLY ANY TIME, THEY DON’T EVEN NEED TO BE PLAYING IN A MATCH. IT COULD HAPPEN WHILE THEY’RE GETTING KEYS OUT OF THEIR POCKET OR TYPING A PIN CODE INTO AN ATM. IT DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING WE DIDN’T ALREADY KNOW BY LOOKING AT THE SHIRT HE’S WEARING.
Cancelo, as noted above, has 24 key passes. Just one above him is West Ham’s Aaron Creswell. At 90% selected and averaging over 9 PPM, it’s unlikely he’s freely available; his manager may have been more willing to deal him four weeks ago when he followed up -2 pts vs. Palace with 0.25 pts at Chelsea. Aaron also gets some referred shine from being Hammers’ highest scoring OFPL defender (and at a very reasonable price!) but I’d keep an eye on acquiring him. This is especially true if he’s owned by the guy in your league who either a) drafted defenders too early and ended up with a few too many good ones or b) is always telling you how easy defenders are to find in Free Agency. Pick that fool’s pocket.
Quick note: Tariq Lamptey’s ownership has fallen below 80%, likely due to COVID concerns elsewhere on rosters and an ever-shifting time frame for his return. Pick him up; he’ll be back sooner than later and, especially if you play in a league with expanded bench spots, he’ll justify the roster spot before the season ends (fingers crossed it doesn’t end tomorrow, but if it does - hey this was still good advice!).
Ok, since there’s midweek matches - this will also be the Open Thread post. You got questions?
Hey gaffer, Ricardo Pereira and Jota are on our league's waivers, do you think its worth picking either of them up this week for a longer term investment?
Looking at picking up Tete...who would you drop out of telles, benrahma and havertz?