Football 2013-14 – A Fantasy Analysis – Part 3 Forwards
by Andrew Crawshaw
To save Tony from Apoplexy, I am not going to repeat the introduction, You can find it here in Part 1 Defence and here Part 2 Midfield.
For clarity, I have included players who are listed on their Official Club Websites as forwards, bizarrely (to me) the paper include wingers as midfielders. I have also designated the players as either Wide Forwards (WF) or Centre Forrwards (CF) depending on where they would normally expect to play. The two strikers in a 4-4-2 formation would be both listed as CF; the one in a 4-2-3-1, or the middle player in a 4-3-3 would be listed as CF.
Arsenal
| Player | Position | Points |
| O Giroud | CF | 214 |
| L Podolski | WF | 103 |
| T Walcott | WF | 66 |
| A Oxlade-Chamberlin | WF | 61 |
| S Gnabry | WF | 32 |
| N Bendtner | CF | 22 |
| Y Sanogo | CF | 21 |
| R Miyachi | WF | 1 |
520 Points from our forwards, rather disappointing but reflecting our injuries. An excellent contribution from Giroud, one of only two forwards (and three players in total) to score above 200 points.
I expect more from Podolski and Theo next year and a greater contribution from the younger players Alex, Serge and Yaya. Bendtner will be gone and I expect Ryo to go on loan somewhere to develop.
Whilst I would like to see a major signing, Campbell joining us properly for the first time and Vela returning (if the reported £4m release clause in his contract is correct, it seems a ‘no brainer’ for a forward with 15 goals and many assists) should give us a far greater strength in depth, if Arsene can’t get exactly the forward he wants this summer.
Manchester City
| Player | Position | Points |
| S Aguero | CF | 180 |
| E Dzeko | CF | 180 |
| A Negredo | CF | 134 |
| S Jovetic | CF | 42 |
536 Points from Manchester City’s four forwards (their wide players are listed in their Official Web Site as Midfielders). Aguero and Dzeko level on 180 points and a solid contribution from Negredo. Toure from midfield with 213 was the only City player to score 200 plus points.
Liverpool
| Player | Position | Points |
| L Suarez | CF | 290 |
| D Sturridge | CF | 197 |
| R Sterling | WF | 133 |
| V Moses | WF | 41 |
| I Aspas | CF | 26 |
| L Alberto | F | 15 |
702 points from the Liverpool forwards with an outstanding season from Suarez netting him the highest score in Fantasy football of 290 points, Sturridge with the third highest score from a striker on 197 and an excellent contribution from Sterling.
Chelsea
| Player | Position | Points |
| S Eto’o | CF | 99 |
| A Schurrle | WF | 95 |
| F Torres | CF | 80 |
| D Ba | CF | 59 |
Paltry 333 points from the Chelsea forwards, well below par for a top team. Maybe Mourinho was right to moan about his strikers all season – but that is never likely to be the best motivational tool. No Chelsea forward with 100 points
Everton
| Player | Position | Points |
| R Lukaku | CF | 173 |
| K Mirallas | WF | 145 |
| S Naismith | WF | 96 |
| G Deulofeu | WF | 68 |
| L Traore | CF | 8 |
| A Kone | CF | 5 |
Fourth in the top five with 495 points, Lukaku (on loan from Chelsea) being the stand out performer with 173 (equalling the points from Chelsea’s top two centre forwards!). For me if Chelsea don’t recall him for next year they will be idiots.
So of the top 5 teams, Liverpool well in the lead with 702, City and Arsenal next with 536 and 520, then Everton on 495 and Chelsea the tortoise in this race with 333.
Best of the Rest
I haven’t tried to separate these out into Centre and Wide Forwards.
| Player | Team | points |
| W Bony | Swansea | 178 |
| R Lambert | Southampton | 173 |
| W Rooney | Man United | 172 |
| J Rodriguez | Southampton | 158 |
| L Remy | Newcastle | 129 |
| F Campbell | Cardiff | 128 |
| P Crouch | Stoke | 115 |
| E Adebayor | Spurs | 114 |
| Y Gouffran | Newcastle | 113 |
| RVP | Man United | 109 |
| A Weinman | A Villa | 106 |
| S Long | Hull | 103 |
| P Odemwingie | Stoke | 101 |
| C Benteke | A Villa | 100 |
| R Soldado | Spurs | 100 |
With the exception of Rooney, I would expect all of the top 5 teams to be looking at all of the players above Crouch. Southampton will have to work really hard to keep hold of Lambert and Rodriguez and Bony would be an excellent target if managers think he can repeat his first year performance. I would also include A Johnson from the Midfielder’s analysis as he is really a wide forward with a score of 134.
For Arsenal Bony, Lambert or Lukaku would be my choices of the Premier League players, plus Campbell and Vela.
A smug observation – Crouch with more points than RVP or Spurs’ two top forwards, Adeyabor and Soldado.
Corrections from Part 1 Defence
Goalkeepers
The table is correct, Howard got more points than Szcz, so the first paragraph in the text should have read :-
“P Cech scored the most points as a goalkeeper closely followed by Howard and Szczesney. The fact that two of the top three shared the Golden Glove award gives a further pointer that the Fantasy points do actually bear some resemblance to actuality. Hart and Mignolet were significantly adrift of the other three. Of the second choice keepers in the top five, Fabianski and Pantillimon at the top of the pile with Schwarzer in third.”
Here is the table for Centre Backs – the text was correct, but the table disappeared
| Team | Name | Points |
| Arsenal | L Koscielny | 146 |
| Arsenal | P Mertesacker | 145 |
| Arsenal | T Vermaelen | 37 |
| Man City | J Lescott | 52 |
| Man City | M Demechielis | 104 |
| Man City | M Nastasic | 50 |
| Man City | V Kompany | 105 |
| Liverpool | D Agger | 87 |
| Liverpool | K Toure | 65 |
| Liverpool | M Sakho | 38 |
| Liverpool | M Skirtel | 112 |
| Liverpool | S Coates | 0 |
| Chelsea | B Ivanovic | 149 |
| Chelsea | D Luiz | 73 |
| Chelsea | G Cahill | 151 |
| Chelsea | J Terry | 137 |
| Everton | A Alcaraz | 10 |
| Everton | P Jagielka | 90 |
| Everton | S Distin | 115 |
| Southampton | J Fonte | 123 |
| Hull | C Davies | 122 |
| Man United | P Evra | 114 |
| C Palace | D Delaney | 108 |
| Stoke | G Cameron | 100 |
- What the “How many years since” mantra actually means
- Good old fashioned refereeing from Probert. Ref review of FA CUP FINAL
- Every Arsenal transfer story all on one page
- Five things for Pochettino to do before he is sacked in December 2015
- The season’s impression: Wojciech Szczesny
Enjoyed this series Andrew. The forwards…..Giroud….not a bad player is he! Not saying we don’t need strengthening up there from without or within nor am I saying he is perfect in all aspects of his game, but OG has done very well for us over the last two seasons.
You are right, maybe expect a bit more from Poldi, he is certainly capable
The only problem with Giroud occurs when the ball is delivered to his feet….and this happens quite frequently in Arsenal’s close passing game in the last third of the field.
When he is not holding up play for his colleagues, he is a finisher but NOT a dribbler and this defect lets him down a bit.
Mandy Dodd,
You know where I stand where Giroud is concerned. It’d be hypocritical of me to start flaunting the Fantasy Football score of Ollie because I have very little regard for them based on my utter contempt for the journalists whose player ratings is used to compile them.
On the other hand, I have always been a staunch defender of the guy even when there is no figure showing him to be second only to Suarez in effectiveness. The amount of unfair abuse that the guy has taken is beyond my comprehension. And the constant call for another striker is borne out of covetousness and shortsightedness of the modern fan.
Giroud may not score 30 goals in a season but Arsenal does not really need a 30 goal a season striker (although it would be nice to have one). The way Arsenal plays, the goals will usually be spread out amongst the attacking players. Giroud is very well suited to that format and that is why he is so instrumental to the team.
I have pointed out a few times around here the irony of those who follow up criticising Giroud with a panicky whinge about what would be the fate of the team if he gets injured. Why would the team miss a player that they continuously complain of as being useless?
Olivier Giroud is a fantastic player and I am very grateful and happy that he wears Arsenal’s red and white.
@nicky – that makes Giroud definitely a ladies man as he is the footballer that doesn’t dribble before he shoots!
Agree Bootoomee, very glad we have him. He is good for 20 to 25 goals a season..or who knows, maybe even more next season? But he does a lot of other things as well, amongst other things, a great record for assists…as we saw at Wembley! and any forward we sign this summer will surely be to support rather than replace OG. Goals, assists, holding,up the ball, helping the MF and defence, physically very robust, mentally strong, never gives up…guess it adds up to more than the fantasy league points. But fortunately, wenger clearly sees this and rates the man.
The abuse he gets is pathetic, shows the fickle for what they are, as has the likes of Ramsey. Target for the boo boys one year, Arsenals most loved the next. We have our share of idiots in the fanbase, like the ones on twitter now having a go at Sagnas family. Having said that, I do detect less hysteria now than at this stage in recent summers, amazing what a trophy does for some. Not saying the extremists will not reappear at any given opportunity, but just seems a bit quieter for now.
If someone wants to watch dribbling, y not stick with Gervinho who just dribble into dead ends…
The issue of Giroud is him failing to get some easy shots. He either have something wrong with his shooting or he lacks a bit of composure. I can not which is the case.
Look at the figures, he is not a bad player. One might like a super star but he is as good as it can be for a “non-star” striker.
I still see room to improve from him. He keeps pulling out nice shots and passes while screwing up. May be Wenger can find some one to help him. I don’t know.
It is quite hard to improve on this department.
Vela is another type of player but his end result won’t be much better than Giroud. At least not at the moment.
With suitable striker reserves, Walcott won’t be moved into the middle and he is out for a while anyway.
Sanago won’t suddenly give Arsenal 8 goals.
If Wenger buys both Vela and a star striker (40 millions at least…) that would use up a major portion of the money.
It is not that easy…. all those computer football managers….
“Sanogo won’t suddenly give Arsenal 8 goals.”
And why not? How can you be so sure?
I am looking forward to seeing Sanogo score 10+ goals next season. He is already giving defences problems and he has come close to scoring on many occasions. As soon as he gets his first one, he will score many more.
I prefer to support and show faith in Arsenal’s current players rather than fantasise about some “star” striker that we may never sign.
8 plus goals would be quite a return for someone who won’t get that many premiership starts. He’s a big effer who causes defenders to panic and make mistakes which lead to goals. Finesse (and prolific goal scoring) will come with experience . I’m looking forward to his second season.
Does anyone know if Bendtner has left yet?
Regarding Sanogo, I’m very optimistic he will start to score goals, and sooner rather than later.
He’s been inches away many times already. He’s shown he’s got good touch and vision which has enabled him to hold the ball up well under pressure and bring others in to play very effectively.
For one so young he has acquitted himself very well and gives every impression there is much more to come.
Sanogo did score against Everton, unfortunately the goal was disallowed, wrongly, by the ref.
Thanks for the series, very entertaining (despite me sharing Bootoome’s vision that fantasy scores are irrelevant, espcially in football [because in the NBA the algorithm is much more reliable]).
Anyway, it’s nice to see that at least the numbers give Giroud the respect he deserves.
re Sanogo – I am sure that he was in Arsene’s plans this year and his long term injruy (not mentioned in the same level as Ramsy and Theo) had also affected us. Had he started the season regularly, I am sure he would have been to get used to playing much earlier and contribute. We already seen how much he can contribute physically – a bit more confidence back and I am in the opinion that he is in fact one of the next big things.
Nice analysis, thank you. On to my current hobby horse the above suggests that the teams that played 4-4-2 more regularly were more effective. Liverpool (Suarez, Sturridge) and City (Aguero and Negredo at their home game against us for example). These two of course finished first and second.
We did play a bit of 4-4-2 towards the end of the season and I thought the Giroud/Podolski partnership looked better with Lukas playing more central. Also reverting to 4-4-2 improved us in the cup final immeasureably. When you don’t have much pace to play with out wider this seems to be a more solid and effective approach and I hope Arsene considers it more often next season (personnel dependent of course).
On another topic Bony would be a good fit for us and would be a viable alternative to OG. Leaving OG to play a whole season without a back up of similar ability would be a mistake, Bony has the attributes to play a similar game and has a bit more pace too. We shouldn’t have too much trouble enticing him away from Swansea either.
OG is a very good striker, if you review the first half of the season. Generally excellent performances. In the 2nd half, I think the burden of not being rotated and the late night activities derailed him somewhat.
Podolski, IMO, has been poor, because expectations of him is high. He is a big name, so much bigger than OG when he arrived at the Emirates but has since failed to be a consistent match winner. Will need to do better.
I don’t think Sanogo will be ready next season. In fact I wouldn’t even send him out on loan. He needs more time, on the training pitch, rather than the playing pitch. He has a lot of useful traits and ability, but he is too raw to be an effective goal scorer. In fact he is so raw he catches seasoned pros off guard since he is impossible to read. Polish him up, and send him off on a loan next season is what I will think.