Pre-season finale

This blog is being created for the purpose of providing an information channel dedicated to uk Premier League Fantasy Football. This is borne out of an acknowledged, if suppressed, aching need to discuss and investigate further the statistics that increasingly encroach on and enhance our enjoyment of the beautiful game. Statistics are a relatively new aspect to our understanding of the game arming us with a double edged sword of enlightenment and ugliness. What human being deserves to be broken down into discreet units of data? Certainly not our beloved heroes who rise from the tunnels to slay our common enemy twice a week. And, yet how can we resist wanting to know that Steve McLaren justified Frank Lampard's position in the England team largely by the citing the statistic that Flumps had the highest percentage of completed passes than any other. Top flight managers have dossiers devoted to statistics such as this, compiled by technicians who have access to information supplied by chips implanted into every player who has signed a professional contract in the last 10 years. And we, the punters, are given slithers, teasers of information by our media overlords which leave us slathering for more.

One of the best and only ways to access 'more' information over the recent years has been through Premier League Fantasy Football supplied by Yahoo!. Yahoo! evolved the Fantasy Football game, smashing the information barrier. Many are now also supplying excellent, more in depth games, such as the Starting 11, and the Guardian. When I was a nipper, the only games available rewarded points for goals, assists, clean sheets, cautions and appearances. Granted, many such retrograde games still exist and you can still pay newspapers to allow you the pleasure to enter into their simplistic matrices. However, Yahoo first gave us the possibility of getting points for exciting new things like Shots on Target, Successful Crosses, Tackles Won and Blocked Shots to name a few. There was even a time when players were punished -0.03 points for each time they gave the ball away. This gave rise to an evolved meritocracy. In the old model, the perogative was purely to cram as many as the top teams players into your team as possible. Not that this isn't entirely the case now, but, today, the system rewards the obscure. Over the years, the likes of Graham Stuart, Simon Davies and Dean Whitehead have earnt relative success and a healthy respect through their abilities to accumulate successful crosses and tackles won on the sly. What hope for these totems to mediocrity under the old model?

The purpose of this small corner is to devote time and space to the understanding of the game. A community exists through the forums but there is a lack of in depth scrutiny.

The idea is to provide a platform for a collection of resources and insights derived from various sources and an archive of lateral statistical investigation. Anyone is free to ask or answer. There is no need for anyone to "sign in."

First question ..... Is anyone up for trying to explain Felipe Caicedo?