EPL Week 34 Fantasy Team

Now that I've moved to a fully automated system for picking a fantasy team, I need to rethink what information would prove most valuable to other people. I can no longer report my own reasoning behind choosing the team since I'm not doing any reasoning.

Essentially, choosing a team has two parts. First, you need to guess how many points each player will earn. Second, you need to figure out how to fit the most expected points into one team.

To help with the first part, here are my top 15 players by expected number of points:

• 5.845 — J. Terry (CHE)
  
• 5.624 — K. Richardson (SUN)
  
• 5.525 — W. Rooney (MAU)
  
• 5.456 — R. van Persie (ARS)
  
• 5.226 — Nani (MAU)
  
• 4.863 — R. Meireles (LIV)
  
• 4.862 — B. Ivanovic (CHE)
  
• 4.689 — P. Bardsley (SUN)
  
• 4.668 — F. Lampard (CHE)
  
• 4.452 — S. Kyrgiakos (LIV)
  
• 4.412 — M. Skrtel (LIV)
  
• 4.247 — F. Malouda (CHE)
  
• 4.234 — R. Van der Vaart (TOT)
  
• 4.206 — R. Giggs (MAU)
  
• 4.175 — D. Campbell (BPL)
  

This list is not perfect, of course, and you should apply your own judgement as well. As one example, Kyrgiakos is unlikely to play, even though he is neither injured nor suspended. Dalglish just hasn't been picking him recently. As another example, this is based on results from weeks 20 through 32. But perhaps you think a player is doing much better now than they were on average over that period. In that case, you may rate them higher.

As for finding the best way to fit players into your team, I have no useful advice. I let my computer figure out the team with the maximum number of expected points. However, for your reference, here is the team it chose:

• Forwards: W. Rooney (MAU), R. van Persie (ARS), D. Campbell (BPL)
  
• Midfielders: Nani (MAU), R. Meireles (LIV), R. van der Vaart (TOT)
  
• Defenders: J. Terry (CHE, captain), B. Ivanovic (CHE), K. Richardson (SUN), P. Bardsley (SUN)
  
• Goalkeeper: P. Reina (LIV)