Gameweek 13 Preview

Team Attacking Forecast

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Team Defensive Forecast

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Individual Player Forecast

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In anticipation of the inevitable "why do you hate van Persie" questions, I thought I better add a quick note on his unexpectedly low ranking here.

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The key difference the model sees between van Persie and Rooney is simply the percentage of United's chances he has accounted for when playing. Rooney sits at 29% in home games while van Persie comes in with a useful 20%, which based on United's forecast 14 SiB gives Rooney a forecast 1.3 shot advantage. Rooney also enjoys a distinct advantage in SoB, though given the low likelihood of those turning into goals, that doesn't have a huge impact. This all translates to a relatively slim, but not insignificant, 1.4 point lead and thus likely some scorn for these electronic pages.

If I'm honest, if I owned both players and hadn't looked at the above data, I would undoubtedly have captained van Persie but while many are quick to point to the drawbacks of stats, the above numbers are fairly self explanatory and thus I feel fairly confident standing behind them. Rooney currently has 2% of the captain vote at Fantasy Football Scout, to van Persie's 66% but I'm sure you can find your own 'following the crowd' quote here depending on how you feel about the above analysis. Any logical suggestions as to why van Persie might actually be better than Rooney would be more than welcomed below or at @plfantasy.