Set-piece specialists – what you need to know
Fantasy football players will most likely have noticed that there have been a couple of big stories almost sending twitter into meltdown in recent weeks .Firstly, Louis van Gaal’s surprise decision to hand Phil Jones corner kick-taking responsibility quickly followed by the Baines/Mirallas furore. In this article we will look at how significant set-pieces are in fantasy football parlance. Again, however, we must stress the importance of understanding the rules of the specific game you are playing. Penalty goals and assists will score differently in each game so make sure you are fully aware of the scoring system of your chosen game.
When we look at set-pieces there are 3 key areas we need to investigate: the potential for an assist from a corner kick, the frequency of penalty goals and the probability of a goal being scored from a direct free-kick in a dangerous area. Simple google searches should throw up numerous sites that list the players most likely to be given these jobs for a specific team for most of the major leagues but there are some additional things to watch out for.
However, to put some things into perspective let's look at an average Premier League round where you might expect 25 goals to be scored.Goal distribution ballpark figures might convert something like this
- 1 goal scored from a direct free-kick (4%), 2 goals scored from penalty kicks (8%) and 3-4 goals scored from corner kicks (13%). No doubt these figures will vary from season to season, league to league and team to team but more on that later. Taking each in turn:
Corners
Despite becoming the all-time record holder for assists by Premier League defenders Leighton Baines has only picked up 5 or 6 assists directly from corners since the start of the 2009-10 season.This doesn't tally with the figures above. So consider the following:
- Is he taking all corners from both sides of the pitch?
- Is he less effective with out swinging corners as opposed to in swinging corners?
- Does he play a number of short corners?
- Can Everton be classed as a side without a physical presence meaning they are less of a threat at corners than the norm?
So plenty of food for thought there! Phil Jones goalscoring record is poor for a player with such an imposing physique who should be much more of a real goal threat at set-pieces. Rooney was back on the job today so whether or not Louis van Gaal persists with Jones on corners in future remains to be seen but If he does and assuming United are close to the average for goals scored from penalties then using bookmakers as a reference to predict expected goals per game should enable you to ascertain how often he would pick up an assist. It certainly wouldn't be a shock if he was to be included in many fantasy teams for the next couple of weeks!
Some other things to watch out for
- teams who regularly take short corners (Barcelona)...check their headed goals percentage against a team like Atletico...huge difference!
- corners that are used to kill the game off when a team is protecting a lead...these tend to be taken short to keep the ball in the corner.
- the legendary Stan Bowles used to joke that he deliberately 'played' for a succession of corners so that he could listen to the racing commentary that some spectator was playing on his transistor radio...not sure it would happen these days mind!
Penalties
This is one area where Baines comes into his element and explains why he tends to be so expensive to purchase. Watch out for teams who tend to rotate their ‘takers’ though. Some clubs have had strange rules in the past whereby the ‘fouled’ player would not take the resulting kick. If your game involves European leagues take note of any club side that may use their goalkeeper for penalties and/or free-kicks. Paraguay’s Jose Luis Chilavert, nicknamed the bulldog for his fiery temper, scored 8 International goals in his career and even managed a domestic hat-trick on one occasion. Again, you can use expected goals per game as an indicator for the likelihood that a team scores a penalty in a given match.
Free-kicks
These goals tend to be fairly spectacular leading to a misconception that they happen more often than they actually do. The position the kick is taken from usually determines who will take it and even the best players in the world can go on a long sequence of attempts without scoring from one. For what its worth Christian Eriksen leads the way in the Premier League with 2 successful attempts this season.
To summarise – don’t just concentrate on set-piece specialists. We’re privileged now to have access to some terrific Big Data and infographics. These can be a goldmine for daily fantasy football players. Categories such as fouls, shots on targets, tackles, clearances, saves and so on are now being included in many scoring matrixes. Some of these will enable certain individuals to perform very consistently allowing them to accrue a high number of points in each round.
We’ve simplified the process for you by displaying the scoring systems of our featured games on one page. Take a look and maybe you’ll find an angle which will give you an edge over your rival players.
The Ginger Prince
