Three Things I've Learned Playing Fantasy Football

One great thing about fantasy football is that it keeps you focused on what actually happens on the pitch (goals, assists, clean sheets) rather than overall impressions. It's not that impressions are irrelevant — they're not. But sometimes impressions are wrong. And by keeping you focused on what actually happened, fantasy football leaves you in a better place to spot wrong impressions.

Here are three wrong impressions I have spotted, based on experience playing fantasy football.

1. Hard working but unflashy players are often underrated. Examples: Dirk Kuyt and Andrei Arshavin.
   
   Both Kuyt and Arshavin get described as players that aren't good enough for the teams that they are on. Whenever I hear this, I get very annoyed because I know from experience that both players deliver points.
   
   Analyzing this is a bit tricky because players on better teams should provide more fantasy points (because those teams score more and have more clean sheets). One way to put things on the level though is to divide by the number of goals scored by the team.
   
   Specifically, let's look at the following: how many points does a player earn for each goal scored by the team. This is a measure of how important that player is to the team in scoring goals. (Recall that a player can get points either for goals or assists. Assists count for 2 points while goals count for 4-6 points, depending on position.)
   
   Here's what we discover. Over the last 15 weeks of the EPL season, Dirt Kuyt is #1 amongst Liverpool players in terms of fantasy points per goal in games he has played. He ranks higher than Gerrard, Suarez, Carroll, Meireles, you name it.
   
   You might complain that these stats are skewed by the fact that Kuyt scored a hat trick a few weeks ago. Okay, suppose we remove Kuyt's hat trick all together. Guess what? He's still #1.
   
   No one will be surprised to learn that the highest ranking Arsenal player according to this measure is Robin van Persie. He is a goal scoring machine. But who ranks #2? Is it Fabregas or Nasri or Walcott? Nope. It's Andrei Arshavin. In addition to the 3 goals he has scored when in the starting lineup, he also has 3 assists.
   
   Another surprise in these results occurs at Tottenham. Again, the #1 ranked player is easy to guess: Rafael van der Vaart. But #2 is Pavlyuchenko, another underrated player. He ranks ahead of Crouch, Bale, and Lennon. In fact, he delivers twice as many fantasy points per goal as Bale, when each is in the starting lineup.
   


2. Pundits are overly eager to declare careers over. Example: Frank Lampard.
   
   When a team is doing poorly, pundits seem overeager to declare the team in need of rebuilding. And it seems like the first thing they call for is removal of the older players who are stars of years past.
   
   The primary example of this is Frank Lampard. I have listened to Tommy Smyth call for Chelsea to be rebuilt and Lampard tossed out on more than one occasion. Meanwhile, I pick him for my fantasy team nearly every week.
   
   Why is that? It is because Lampard ranks #1 in fantasy points per goal amongst Chelsea players. In fact, he delivers nearly 75% more points per goal than Drogba who is apparently "in form" once again at this moment.
   
   With all due respect, Tommy, Lampard should not be tossed out when he is the highest contributing Chelsea player in attack. To do so would be ridiculous.
   
   Another player who gets similar treatment is Roma's Francisco Totti. Tommy says it's time for him to step aside.
   
   I can't say much to this since I don't play Serie A fantasy football, but it does seem that Totti has been contributing quite a lot this year. Indeed, he leads Roma in both goals and assists.
   


3. Torres and Drogba can play together.
   
   The pundits also tell me that Ancelotti needs to give up trying to play both Torres and Drogba. These two cannot play together, they say, and since Drogba is in form, he should play while Torres sits.
   
   Yet from playing fantasy football last week, one statistic stands out to me: Drogba, playing on the wing, assisted in both goals. No player in the last 15 games has had 3 assists in one game, and only 10 other players that start on a regular basis have managed 2 in one game. Those players include Leighton Baines, Nani, Giggs, Rooney, and Arshavin — all players that are very effective in supporting roles. Clearly, Drogba is not ineffective on the wing.
   
   Contrary to the pundits, I think Torres and Drogba are likely to both start for Chelsea in the remaining matches, including the match this weekend at Manchester United.
   

One final surprising thing I noticed from this measure of performance: Leighton Baines ranks #1 for Everton, ahead of both Tim Cahill and Louis Saha. That's pretty darn impressive for a fullback!