Goalkeeper Pairs

The basic premise behind the goalkeeper rotation strategy is fairly simplistic but for further clarification please see the earlier post here.

The best pairs for the remainder of the season, ignoring price - to the extent that I only include 'keepers who cost 5m or less (actually 5.2m now Foster's value has gone up) - are as follows:

1. Gordon / Fabianski (9.3m)
2. Gordon / Begovic (8.8m)
3. Gordon / Harper (8.8m)
4. Gordon / Jaaskelainen (9.1m)
5. Gordon / Schwarzer (9.3m)
6. Schwarzer / Fabianski (9.6m)
7. Gordon / Green (9.3m)
8. Fabianski / Begovic (9.5m)
9. Gordon / Foster (9.7m)
10. Fabianski / Foster (10.0m)

You might start getting the idea that Gordon is pretty good value using my stats. This to be expected given the fact that Sunderland lead the league in clean sheets with 11, with no other keeper above having more than 7.

Given the lack of clean sheets this year and the unreliability of most of the defenses in the league, I would understand if some owners wanted to spend as little as possible on their 'keepers. With that in mind, here are the best combinations available for each price:

• 8.1m - Kingson / Al-Habsi - average goals conceded 1.33
• 8.2m - Gilks / Al-Habsi - 1.33
• 8.3m - Kingson / Begovic - 1.01
• 8.4m - Kingson / Begovic - 1.01
• 8.5m - Gordon / Kingson - 0.87
• 8.6m - Gordon / Kingson - 0.87
• 8.7m - Gordon / Kingson - 0.87
• 8.8m - Gordon / Begovic - 0.75
• 8.9m - Gordon / Begovic - 0.75
• 9.0m - Gordon / Begovic - 0.75
• 9.1m - Gordon / Begovic - 0.75
• 9.2m - Gordon / Begovic - 0.75
• 9.3m - Gordon / Fabianski - 0.67
• 11.2m - Hart / Begovic - 0.64*
• 11.4m - Hart / Gordon - 0.51*

*I have added Joe Hart here for reference, he is too expensive to be part of the normal GK pair analysis.

In my view the best combo is either Gordon / Kingson or Gordon / Begovic who are a significant upgrade over the next cheapest pair and significantly cheaper than the few options who rank higher (Joe Hart's dominance shows here but not enough to justify the extra 2.5m unless you're really flush with cash).

Having used my wildcard this week I am going for Gordon / Kingson. I am concerned by Blackpool's lack of home clean sheet but remember that they have only played 8 home games so they have 3 games in hand on some teams in which to improve.