PLFantasy

At this stage of the season, those of us who are statistically inclined face a bit of a dilemma. We know that too much weight should not be placed on the limited data that's available, but yet the alternative is to rely on no data and simply make your picks based on the one or two games of action you've seen, or worse, some voodoo about world class players not being able to score in August. With this in mind, this time of year offers a good opportunity to explore a couple of other broader topics before the games start coming thick and fast and we get lost in expected goal regressions. Though data in a wider sense may not yet be stable , we can start to take some reasonable confidence from starting lineups and some of the lessons we can draw from there. Specifically here, I am interested in (a) which players offer a discount among their teammates and (b) when would we be willing to pay for the more expensive option. This is typically most useful when it comes to defenders an...