Other opinions are available – acceptable, even – but where the Mean Reversion Machine project really falls down is chip usage. Adam and I had the same problem with Back of the NAV – sniff – when it came to the portfolio parallels we might remotely draw with the FPL game’s chances to Bench Boost, Free Hit and Triple Captain and the problem has only worsened this season now players are allowed to play each chip twice.
On the bright side, no contortions need be made this term with the Assistant Manager chip, which came with much fanfare – and left with little love lost – in the second half of last season. Forget the added complications and restrictions it introduced, the reliance it imposed on the performance of teams rather than individual players did seem to run counter to the spirit of the game.
Yet still we have those other three chips to navigate – now in each half of the season – and I remain largely devoid of investment-oriented inspiration. I seem to remember the BotNAV podcast attempting some half-hearted discussions about the Bench Boost being the equivalent of leverage while Adam and I simply enjoyed using the Free Hit as a one-week respite from our draconian, albeit self-inflicted, portfolio rules.
And in the end, it was all hypothetical because there were no actual FPL points or rankings at stake. This time, there are – and so, if the experiment is to have all the academic rigour this column’s long-suffering reader would expect, nay, demand of it, then I need to come up with something vaguely credible. And three times in the next seven gameweeks too.
Thus far, Bench Boost has been a problem – and not just because the leverage angle is pretty thin. To offer you the best possible reflection of the wider market’s buying preferences, I have had to include well-owned make-weights from the cheapest decile of players – and, with Guiu and King hardly nailed for Chelsea and Fulham respectively, the portfolio would thus be heavily reliant on a Burnley clean sheet for Dubravka and Esteve.
Now, however, with the recent demotion of Mo Salah from the index and the imminent prospect of five free top-up transfers to offset losing, well, Bryan Mbeumo to the African Cup of Nations, there is the chance of at least reinforcing the portfolio’s midfield and attack to coincide with Burnley hosting Fulham in GW16 or Everton in GW18. Then, after all that effort, maybe I won’t feel so bad reheating the leverage line.
I am also toying with the idea of the Free Hit portfolio consisting of players whose recent poor performance the data – probably, courtesy of Fantasy Football Scout – suggests is most likely to revert to the mean. That in turn led to the tenuous argument that, since Erling Haaland has scored at least once in nine of his 12 Premier League games this season but failed to do so last time out against Newcastle, there is further mean-reversion potential.
As such, we will use the Triple Captain chip on him versus Leeds this weekend, saving the Free Hit for further down the line. That does mean – as you can see below and, by definition, in common with many other teams – MeanReversionMachine will have numerous Arsenal and Chelsea players squaring up against each other, as well as a Manchester United attacker versus a Place defender.
“No major surprises to see Brentford’s free-scoring striker Thiago topping the ‘buy’ chart of the past week, ahead of a home game against Burnley, but four of the next five entries smack of knee-jerk reactions to last week’s hauls.
Source: Fantasy Premier League
I am inclined to think the index cannot do worse than last week – as evidenced below by the only scores of note being a yellow card-scarred clean sheet from Guehi, an assist and defcon points for Rice and a four-point cameo from Chelsea striker Guehi – but I have never been one for tempting fate. It may well prove to have been a better week to Free Hit but, without a finished portfolio analogy, Triple Captain is the way our chips must fall.
Finishing with our Herd-watch analysis of the biggest transfers of recent weeks, both in and out of FPL teams, there are some distinct signs of, if not irrationality, then at least less measured behaviour. No major surprises to see Brentford’s free-scoring striker Thiago topping the top-left ‘buy’ chart of the past week, ahead of a home game against Burnley, but four of the next five entries smack of knee-jerk reactions to last week’s hauls.
And, while Chelsea striker Joao Pedro appears in third place in the corresponding ‘sell’ chart – moved on by 320,000-odd teams after blanking last week against, well, Burnley – a quick look at the bottom right-hand chart shows the risks of betting against the Herd-watch regular.
Source: Fantasy Premier League
