The Great Fabregas Debate

It seems that the majority of things I have done wrong this season revolve around Fabregas. I have been on the Fabregas band wagon since his stunning appearances in the U-17 World Championship back in 2003 and this sometimes perhaps clouds my judgment. I am therefore only going to make statements below that are based wholly in fact.

Arsenal's run in
By my calculations, Arsenal don't face a single game from here on in where they are expected to score less than one GPG and only two games (@Tot and @Bla) are less than 1.5 GPG. They have 6 games in which they are expected to score at least 2 goals. Compared to the other top teams, we see Arsenal are very well placed:

Expected games scoring 1.5 GPG or less:

1. Arsenal 2
2. Man United 4
3. Tottenham 8
4. Chelsea 8
5. Man City 9

Expected games scoring 2 GPG or more:

1. Chelsea 8
2. Arsenal 7
3. Man Utd 7
4. Newcastle 6
5. Tottenham 2
6. Man City 1

When you consider the fact that Chelsea's goal scoring numbers are massively influenced by their insane start to the year, Arsenal look like slam dunk picks to score the most goals from here on in.

The problem is the Arsenal's goals are very fragmented throughout the team with 13 different players already finding the net this year. If we put aside the forwards for a minute and look at the midfield, I think we can quickly cut out Rosicky, Wilshere, Diaby and probably Walcott as either lacking the minutes or attacking prowess to be regular fantasy contributors. I liked Arshavin at the start of the year and while has has been pretty solid this year, he seems to be being rotated more and more with the return of Van Persie and given his high price I am cutting him too. Song has been very good value this year but for the sake of argument here I am going to exclude him as he is a rotation prospect rather than an every week starter.

That leaves, of course, Nasri and Fabregas who are the focal point of this piece. I am intrigued by how the two play together and how this will translate to fantasy points for the remainder of the season.

Positional play
Let's take three games, one in which Fabregas played without Nasri (Bolton), one in which Nasri played without Fabregas (West Brom) and one in which they played together (Tottenham).

Samir Nasri

 by Guardian Chalkboards


Cesc Fabregas

 by Guardian Chalkboards

Fabregas plays centrally regardless of who else is playing while Nasri is pushed wide to either the right (as seen above) or sometimes to the left when Walcott also plays. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (some of the best fantasy players are wingers) but it does mean you have to be careful which data you are basing your transfer decisions on. Let's look at some numbers:

Fantasy points per game

• Nasri playing without Fabregas: Nasri 6.86 PPG
• Fabregas playing without Nasri: Fabregas 5.33 PPG
• Both playing: Nasri 4.45 PPG, Fabregas 5.55 PPG

The one caveat here is that Fabregas has only played 3 games without Nasri so the sample size is a bit small to draw huge conclusions from but I think the Nasri data is fairly reliable and illustrative of what I was trying to convey a few weeks back when I suggested Nasri's value would diminish.

What drives fantasy points? Well a lot of things, but I like shots as a useful measure for midfielders and it usually illustrates they are in attacking positions, are given license to shoot and are more likely to wrack up bonus points.

Shots per game

• Nasri playing without Fabregas: Nasri 4.4 shots per gane
• Fabregas playing without Nasri: Fabregas 1.7 shots per game
• Both playing: Nasri 1.9 shots per game, Fabregas 3.0 shots per game

What's interesting here is that Fabregas gains while Nasri loses shots when the pair play together. This makes sense given Nasri's wide positions but the concern is that Nasri is not getting assists, with or without Fabregas. With Arsenal it's always hard to predict where the assist will come from as they don't tend to use typical attacking moves (like crosses from Baines straight to Cahill's head, or midfielder plays long ball to Crouch's head who knock down for Van der Vaart) but rather always look for the extra pass. Therefore being a 'winger' can hurt someone like Nasri's value as he loses his shots from the centre of the field but doesn't pick up too many extra assists.

Quality Games
I define a quality game as one in which a player adds 6 points or more in a game. Let's look at the percentage of quality games each player has notched:

• Nasri playing without Fabregas: Nasri 57% QG
  
• Fabregas playing without Nasri: Fabregas 33% QG
  
• Both playing: Nasri 27% QG, Fabregas 55% QG

As with shots, Fabregas benefits from Nasri's presence, while Nasri is again hurt by Fabregas.

Conclusions
If you are trailing in your league or want to make a push up the leader board I think Fabregas (7.8% owned) is the best way to achieve this. There is some downside with his injury concerns and the fact he can sometimes take up deeper position but he has top 5 potential and a low ownership which doesn't apply to anyone else right now.
Nasri been more immune to rotation than I expected but his form has declined nonetheless. If you want to go all in on Arsenal he still makes a great pickup and owning him and Fabregas would likely guarantee you at least some kind of return from them each week (if you owned them both you would have enjoyed 9 double digit weeks and just 2 bad weeks when they both played). The issue is whether you can afford Nani and Van der Vaart too who I still regard as close to must own.
I have been premature with Fabregas before but it's time to start taking risks so given his apparent fitness and his good form since returning I think now is the time to bring Cesc back to the fantasy lime light.