Premier League 2015/16 Lessons In Hindsight, Gameweek 14

Premier League 2015/16 Lessons In Hindsight is a series that forces me to look at the ugly face in the mirror and determine what to let go of past history and what to bring into next season. Gameweek 14 saw me turn on my mistakes, buying Lukaku, Ozil and makeweight Stanislas decisively.
Results & Analysis: This format has been done before.

Projected Score	Actual Score	FPL KPI	Verdict
Good	Good	Good	Deliver
Good	Bad	Decent/Good	Unlucky
Good	Good	Bad	Lucky
Good	Bad	Bad	Flop
Bad	Good	Good	Gem
Bad	Bad	Good	Unlucky
Bad	Good	Bad	Lucky
Bad	Bad	Bad	Expected

Gameweek 13

Results:

62 points with 2 hits. The 900k Gameweek rank raised me plummet to 2.2m overall.

The rule is to keep the Delivers and the Gems, Monitor the Lucky and the Unlucky, and drop the Flops.

Player	Minutes		Influence		Numbers		Verdict
	Exp	Act	Predicted	Actual	Predicted	Actual
De Gea	90	90	2 points	Outplayed	2 Points	3SOTC	Expected
Bellerin	90	90	Chance of Attk, CS	Poor perf	C, KP	4C, 0KP	Expected
Sagna	90	90	Chance of Attk, CS	Unlucky	C, KP	3C, 1KP	Expected
Evans	90	90	Chance of CS	Outplayed	Def Stats	6SOTC	Expected
Ozil	90	90	Attk	Solid perf	S, KP	5/2S 2KP	Deliver
KDB	90	90	Attk	Solid perf	S, KP	1/1S, 5KP	Deliver
Delofeu	90	85	Attk	Outshone	S, KP	3KP	Expected
Mahrez	90	90	Attk	Solid perf	S, KP	1/1S, 1KP	Expected
Aguero	90	63	Attk	Outshone	S, KP	2/1S	Flop
Lukaku	90	90	Attk	Outshone	S, KP	4/2S	Deliver
Vardy	90	90	Attk	Solid perf	S, KP	1/1S	Lucky
McCarthy	0	0	Benched	Benched	Benched	Benched	Benched
Stanislas	90	90	Attk	Lucky	S, KP	4/2S, 2KP	Gem
Francis	90	90	2 Points	Outshone	C, KP	4C, 0KP	Expected
Bertrand	90	90	2 Points	Outplayed	C, KP	1C, 1KP	Expected

Verdict

Delivers: Ozil, KDB, Lukaku

Unlucky: None

Lucky: Vardy

Expected/Outplayed/Outshone: De Gea, Bellerin, Sagna, Deulofeu, Mahrez, Francis, Bertrand, Expected

Flops: Aguero,

Not Playing/Injured: McCarthy, 

Gem: Stanislas

1 Line reviews of players:

• LEI 1-1 MUN: Leicester typically counterattacking, Man United beaten by Vardy
• BOU 3-3 EVE: Francis & co. adventurous, Deulofeu & Lukaku outshone by Barkley. Stanislas lucky
• NOR 1-1 ARS: Ozil starred, Bellerin poor
• WHU 1-1 WBA: Evans outplayed
• MCI 3-1 SOU: KDB shone alongside Sterling, Aguero quiet. Sagna conceded from 1 error, Bertrand outplayed

Afterthoughts

Captaincy:

• Running through the same process:
• Capping against "worst defenses" brought up SUN, BOU, NEW
• Now owning a Stoke or a CRY player, I could've capped Lukaku which was a reasonable choice. Definitely 4 points lost there.
• Best of the rest: AVL, LEI, WHU, NOR, CHE
• Without WAT, MUN, WBA, or TOT attackers, Ozil was the other potential captain's choice. Definitely a biased decision capping Aguero here..
• Other considerations: 
• Think a Lukaku or an Ozil cap would've been the best choice here. Both had form and best fixtures of the week and capping Aguero was certainly a home-game and prestige-biased mistake.

Among the kneejerk picks:

• Bolasie, Barkley and Spurs' defense were considered this week as they delivered pretty convincingly on a pure FPL basis.
• Barkley was hard to move in because of his price difference with Deulofeu but Bolasie was seriously considered for his fixtures. However, with Stanislas' emergence and having Lukaku as Everton coverage, I was pretty confident that KDB would outscore him in the long run.
• Spurs' defense was considered after yet another blank from Bellerin. At the time of writing, both centerbacks were only 5.5 or less and they had a beautiful run of fixtures coming up.

Lessons I learnt from this Gameweek included:

• Around this time of the year, goals scored is also an OK indicator for captain's choice. I just have to factor form into the picture and I should get a consistent points return over the long run.

On the previous week's picks:

• Lukaku, Stanislas and Ozil all delivered. I think playing the All out attack chip here would've made sense, now that I think about it.... This certainly cannot be planned for, so I'm thinking that AOA should be used as an emergency rather than something to plan for.

Action Taken

Replacing players: 

• Aguero's injury made things incredibly simple - Kane was an easy pickup, but could I become greedier? Apparently I sold Mahrez....
• Even more surprisingly, I didn't buy Bolasie. Instead, I picked up David Silva as coverage for Man City to take advantage of their decent fixtures.

The final lineup for GW13 looked like this (1 hit)

DDG (WHM)

Sagna (stk) / Bellerin (SUN) / Bertrand (AVL)

Ozil (SUN) / KDB (stk) / Silva (stk) / Deulofeu (CRY) 

Kane (wba) / Lukaku (CRY) / Vardy (swa)

Bench: McCarthy / Stanislas / Francis / Evans