The Big Picture

2013, Year End

Since the inception of my blog proper, I managed to set up a system that was pretty high maintenance, but at least I was pretty happy with it. Fast forward a season and I'm pretty much back where I started, just with an extra mountain of knowledge regarding stats, and I'm finding myself trying to avoid making the same mistakes all over again.

With that in mind, I would personally like to fix my "Big Picture" a little - But first, a little background, so that in a year I can look back at this page and marvel how much I've progressed. I still surprise myself with my articles from last year.

Onto the important stuff then. Firstly, since the 12/13 season ended, my 2 sources of FPL data, Glover and SoT's websites have either moved on or stalled for personal reasons. As a result, I started going through my own statistical analysis, and to be frank I went pretty far with it, going through matches with a totally different view compared to the same time last year.

So after writing lots of match reviews and honing my perspective on matches, I've found a way to streamline my thoughts on who is doing well who who isn't. My observations and blog posts this season will be based on trends, which is something I did via inspection last season (case by case) but this season I plan to do something more long term, and I plan to tie this in with tactical shifts and whatnot.

SO, with the concrete actions, the first "statisical" observation I'll use is the Attack and Defensive rating of a team, and this relates to how effective defenses are keeping opposition out over 90 minutes. Perhaps I'll omit games with specific events that distort these numbers such as red cards or excessive injuries, but let's start with the easy stuff.

• The ratings of offensive and defensive units so far are pretty reliable in terms of relating stats to real life results - The inspiration came from Experimental 365's blog which touched on how often teams conceded shots and how easily they conceded goals. 
• Personally I will follow his style and come up something similar, but ON TOP of this I will seek to point out who's IMPROVING, which to me is more important. 
• So while I will TRY to not produce too many graphs, I will stick to the simple stuff and talk about who to get for the coming weeks, sizing up opposition matches while going with who's in form. 

The second part of the blog I'd like to work on personally is the tactical aspect of teams, as they do contribute pretty largely to improving or deteriorating stats. The most direct example is Liverpool's switch to a 4-2-3-1 improving their defence, getting their first clean sheet since... the last time they played 4 at the back without 4 centerbacks really. 

• For this bit, the aim is to do a "tactical" profiling on teams so that I can make notes and recommendations, perhaps based on upcoming opponents or identifying trends in the future. 

A long time ago...

While this blog has been created to track my Fantasy Selection system development, I'm probably thinking of permalinking several pages that will constantly be updated to be referred to later. Pages like Projections vs. Results and The Big Picture itself should probably have a separate page as well me thinks. Will attempt to pull this off and see how I can constantly update things.

So in my head, what I have envisioned is that I'll have posts pre-game and post-game, as well as their summaries in Pages (Tabs) that I will constantly update. In terms of posts, I will make:

• Post-Gameweek Scores and Verdicts based on Underlying stats with a final conclusion 
• Update defensive and offensive ratings for individual teams
• Trends from teams and who's performing

With the 13/14 season underway, until Chris Glover gets back from his honeymoon I'll be struggling to make projections, so I have decided to make my own and so this is my project for the season:

Currently Running:

• The Big Picture: This page will track system development, which will likely be this page itself. When to make transfers, how long I have kept/will keep players and whether I do so etc. 
• Resources: New (useful) articles come out everyday. Will be looking to keep track of season-long trends, such as individual team's defending/offense and such.
• Gameweek Summary: Who to monitor (in/out), Projected scores v actual scores, differential points maybe? The ultimate personal record of my Points, Watchlist, and ULTIMATELY Transfer History analysis

Long Term Projects (which will require a team):

• Individual Team FPL Analysis: This will probably be a long term project, because firstly new players will have small data samples, and well, safe picks are never safe. 
• FPL Transfer Myths: Rules for myself (and whoever that reads) to refer to for future seasons, such as "Buy the first Man United player that catches fire early season" and so on. These guidelines WILL be opinion based, (mostly mine), unique from team-to-team (or even managers) and will likely also involve formations and playing styles. 

That's all I can think of at the moment, but this will be updated as The Big Picture.