Premier League 2015/16 Lessons In Hindsight, Gameweek 6

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 6 saw the start of European games having an effect on teams in the Champions League as well as the Europa League.
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 6

Results:

48 points with 2 hits. With a Gameweek rank of 975k, I rose a little to 2.8m with 2 hits accounted for.

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
McCarthy	90	90	Save Pts	Solid perf	>3 Saves	5 Saves	Deliver
Sagna	90	90	Chance of Attk	Active	C	8C, 3KP	Gem
Lovren	90	0	CS	Benched	Def Stats	Benched	Flop
Francis	90	90	Chance of CS & Attk	Def good, attk too	C, KP	4C, 2KP	Deliver
Sanchez	90	74	Attk	Affected by Red	KP, S	3/0S, 0KP	Unlucky
Sterling	90	65	Attk	Quiet	KP, S	0S, 2KP	Flop
Ayew	90	86	Attk	Outplayed	KP, S	0KP, 1/0S	Flop
Mahrez	90	90	Attk	Outplayed but starred	KP, S	2/2S, 3KP	Deliver
Aguero	90	90	Attk	Active	S	5/1S	Unlucky
Gomis	90	80	Attk	Outplayed	S	4/2S	Unlucky
Wilson	90	75	Chance of Attk	Solid perf	S	1/2S	Deliver
Romero	90	0	Bench	Benched	Bench	Benched	Flop
Westwood	90	90	Chance of Attk	Outplayed	KP	3S, 0KP	Flop
Olsson	90	0	Bench	Benched	Bench	Benched	Flop
S. Taylor	90	0	Bench	Benched	Bench	Benched	Flop

Verdict

Delivers: Francis, McCarthy, Mahrez, Wilson

Unlucky: Sanchez, Aguero, Gomis

Lucky: None

Expected/Outplayed/Outshone: Westwood, Ayew

Flops: Westwood, Ayew, Sterling

Not Playing/Injured: Lovren, Olsson, Romero, S. Taylor

Gem: Sagna

1 Line reviews of players:

• CHE 2-0 ARS: Sanchez started bright but was affected by red card
• SWA 0-0 EVE: Gomis and Ayew quiet
• STK 2-2 LEI: Mahrez delivered on 1v1s against Wilson, but team suffered
• TOT 1-0 CRY: McCarthy stars again
• MCI 1-2 WHU: Sterling by Yaya, Sagna active but not involved in goals, Aguero good also
• BOU 2-0 SUN: Francis one of the stars
• LIV 1-1 NOR: Lovren screwed over by the switch to 3-5-2
• AVL 0-1 WBA: Villa outplayed, Westwood quiet

Afterthoughts

Captaincy:

• While the popular captain's pick was Aguero vs. West Ham at home, perhaps capping against the division's whipping boys was the best strategy here instead of going for a form pick at home. 
• If I were to choose my captaincy according to the worst defenses, I would've capped against Sunderland (11), Chelsea (12), Norwich or Bournemouth (9) before Gameweek 6. 
• Logically, a Bournemouth or a Liverpool captain made the most sense here and since I wasn't too keen on capping Aguero; I could've done Wilson so there's another lesson to be learnt here.

Among the kneejerk picks:

• Martial, Pelle and Ighalo's braces didn't convince me enough to buy, I felt. Among my 3 strikers only Gomis was faltering and based on fixtures, Gomis to either Ighalo, Pelle or Martial seemed like a sideways trade.
• Mane's two assists as well as Mata's goal caught my eye more. With Sterling and Ayew looking like flops, those were two transfers I was very tempted to make.
• A West Brom defender also came under consideration as they kept 2 in 2 now; I backed the right horse but didn't pay enough for it and I should've bought Dawson, without a doubt.
• Payet, a bandwagon I chose to ignore last week, picked up another assist and I have to state that I still wasn't convinced. What would tip the scale I wonder....

This Gameweek I felt was a reminder of how form shown after the transfer window closes is relatively reliable compared to GW1-2.

• Sagna, Ighalo, WBA def, Martial, Mata, Mahrez and Payet all brought their form into GW6.
• Losing streaks I felt weren't a good indication, but we should look at them anyway.
• Chelsea, Stoke, Bournemouth, Swansea and Liverpool all bounced back while Villa, Sunderland and Newcastle fell further behind. Could I have called all 3 clubs whipping boys as early as Gameweek 5?
• Probably not. Prior to GW6, 6 clubs were two points within each other - NEW, SUN, STK, CHE, BOU, AVL. Could I have backed against all 6 teams for the weekend? 
• Backing Arsenal against Chelsea made sense despite it being at the Bridge.
• Backing WBA against Villa..... was reasonable too.
• Bournemouth and Sunderland played each other, so it was tough to tell. Bournemouth had the better performances though, so it could've been a good reason to back them.
• Backing against Stoke by capping a Leicester form player.... something to note for next season.
• Backing against Newcastle by rolling with Watford was something I certainly didn't think about, considering Watford had only scored 3 goals up to that point. Too unpredictable for me.
• So out of 6 teams, 3 had similarly strengthed matches while I picked correctly by backing against Stoke (Mahrez) and Chelsea (Sanchez). Maybe I should've picked up Ighalo instead of Gomis...

On the previous week's picks:

• Mahrez worked out. 
• Pedro to Ayew gave me mixed feelings. 
• On one hand, I definitely overrated Swansea by doubling up on them despite only scoring 7 goals in 5. 
• I also refused to buy Payet; since Man City's situation is unstable and I already had Leicester covered, I had Palace, Everton and Norwich to look through - I wouldn't have picked from any of the 3 teams yet.
• In the end, I probably should tell myself to save the transfer if I can't pick out any candidates I really liked.
• Azpi to Francis was.... wow. Francis delivered and that consolidated my belief in my own research, but the manner that Azpi got his Clean Sheet was harsh when viewed in hindsight. I was very sore; perhaps I could've done Olsson to Francis instead.

Action Taken

Replacing players: 

• Lovren's non-starting status I gave the benefit of the doubt since the result against Norwich didn't favor them. Instead, I decided to address two bigger issues - Romero and Olsson.
• Olsson to Evans was a corrective action I should've done the week before.
• Romero to Myhill was an action that I believe came with the news of Foster's injury. With good fixtures all the way to GW12, at least the Myhill selection was for the long term. Why didn't I buy him after GW4 again?!?!?!?

Chasing form:

• From the attackers, Mane, Mata and Payet were 50/50 hits. After fixing 2 issues however, I decided to delay those moves to give Ayew/Gomis and Sterling one more chance.

The final lineup for GW7 looked like this (with 1 hit)

Myhill (EVE)

Sagna (tot) / Evans(EVE) / Francis (stk)

Sanchez(lei) / Sterling(tot) / Mahrez(ARS) / Ayew(sou) 

Aguero(tot) / Gomis(sou) / Wilson(stk)

Bench: McCarthy / Westwood / Lovren / S. Taylor