Sand League Post-Draft Analysis Thread

[Ingromius]

All rosters are now frozen until Tuesday afternoon. After that it's open season on all changes: first come, first served. All new transfers are fair game, as are players other managers drop as they make adjustments.

Remember as these are transfers, not drafts, the OFFICIAL place to post them is in our Sand League forum on premierleague.com. If 2 managers try to pick up the same player, the first player to post in the proper forum gets the player. It's a courtesy to post those transfers here, but that's all it is -- it's only official when the transfer is posted in the proper place.

Current, up-to-date rosters (with thanks to blech):





#1 Nicephoras
G MC 4.5 Isaksson
G BW 5.0 Jaaskalainen
D CH 7.5 Terry
D CH 6.5 A Cole
D PO 5.5 Campbell
D AR 6.5 Eboue
D WI 4.0 Bramble
M MU 12.0 Ronaldo
M MU 8.0 Scholes
M TH 7.5 Lennon
M MU 6.5 Hargeaves
M BC 4.5 De Ridder
F BR 9.0 McCarthy
F RE 6.5 Lita
F WI 6.5 Heskey

100.0 Spent
0.0 Remaining
======================
#2 Yermom
G PO 5.0 James
G MI 4.5 Schwarzer
D AR 6.5 Toure
D MI 5.5 Woodgate
D EV 5.5 Neville
D TO 5.5 Dawson
D BC 4.5 Jaidi
M CH 11.0 Lampard
M BR 8.0 Gamst
M BW 6.0 Campo
M EV 6.0 Osman
M SU 4.5 Leadbitter
F BW 8.5 Anelka
F AV 7.0 Young
F NU 9.5 Owen

97.5 Spent
2.5 Remaining
======================
#3 Crazies
G RE 4.5 Hahneman
G BR 5.5 Friedel
D MC 5.5 Dunne
D PO 5.5 Distin
D EV 5.5 Yobo
D RE 4.5 Ingimarsson
D TO 6.0 Bale
M AR 9.5 Fabregas
M BW 6.5 Speed
M PO 7.0 Taylor
M NU 7.5 Barton
M LI 8.0 Babel
F AR 8.0 Adebayor
F NU 9.0 Martins
F FU 7.0 McBride

99.5 Spent
0.5 Remaining
======================
#4 Glorydaze
G EV 5.0 Howard
G MU 6.0 Van De Sar
D LI 7.0 Carragher
D RE 5.0 Shorey
D EV 5.5 Jagielka
D AV 5.0 Mellberg
D SU 4.0 Noseworthy
M AR 7.5 Gilberto
M BR 7.0 Bentley
M CH 9.0 Malouda
M LI 7.0 Alonso
M RE 4.0 Cisse
F MU 12.0 Rooney
F NU 8.0 Viduka
F MI 7.5 Tuncay

99.5 Spent
0.5 Remaining
======================
#5 Tally Road AFC
G TO 5.0 Robinson
G BC 4.0 Doyle
D CH 7.0 Carvalho
D LI 6.5 Finnan
D AR 6.5 Gallas
D PO 5.0 Primus
D WH 4.5 Ferdinand, A
M LI 10.5 Gerrard
M AV 7.5 Barry
M EV 7.5 Cahill
M LI 7.0 Benayoun
M RE 6.0 Hunt
F EV 8.5 Johnson
F RE 7.5 Doyle
F PO 7.0 Nugent

100.0 Spent
0.0 Remaining
======================
#6 LSG St Pauli
G LI 6.5 Reina
G FU 4.0 Niemi
D EV 6.0 Lescott
D LI 7.0 Riise
D TO 6.0 Chimbonda
D MU 6.0 Neville
D AR 6.0 Clichy
M CH 8.0 Essien
M BC 6.5 McSheffrey
M WI 6.0 Koumas
M AV 5.5 Reo Coker
M NU 6.5 Milner
F CH 12.0 Drogba
F MI 8.0 Yakubu
F BC 5.0 Forsell

99.0 Spent
1.0 Remaining
======================
#7 Gunners 320
G NU 5.0 Given
G WI 4.0 Kirkland
D LI 7.0 Agger
D MU 7.0 Vidic
D TO 5.5 King
D FU 4.5 Rosenior
D MC 5.0 Richards
M CH 9.0 J.Cole
M TO 7.0 Jenas
M AV 7.0 Petrov
M NU 6.0 Emre
M FU 4.5 Dempsey
F WH 8.5 Tevez
F TH 9.5 Berbatov
F LI 10.0 Torres

99.5 Spent
0.5 Remaining
======================
#8 Blechs Dawgs
G CH 6.5 Cech
G AV 4.5 Sorensen
D MU 6.5 R Ferdinand
D MU 6.5 Evra
D MI 5.5 Pogatetz
D WI 4.5 Scharner
D FU 5.0 Bocanegra
M EV 8.5 Arteta
M BW 7.0 Nolan
M AR 7.0 Hleb
M MI 7.0 Downing
M SU 5.5 Richardson
F AR 9.0 Van Persie
F AV 7.5 Agbonlahor
F LI 9.5 Kuyt

100.0 Spent
0.0 Remaining

[riot71]

wooo hooo my job is done!

anyone want to take a crack at an analysis of each team?

[nicephoras]

I'm probably going to have to live and die by McCarthy's goals or count on Cronaldo to have another absolutely insane season. If he HAS officially retired, great. If not, I might be screwed in January.
It hurt not to be able to pick up any offensive Chelsea players since I don't have any sort of faith in what formation we'll be playing. Amazing though that only one year after coming to the Premiership Ballack goes undrafted. Injured.......but still!

[Hal]

Detailed transfer rules are posted in the stickied thread at the top of this forum. Post 5 of the Drafted League Rules for New Managers.

[glorydaze]

I'd like to make an intelligent analysis but I'm missing the intelligence. Will Malouda deliver as anticipated? Can Viduka duplicate last year's effort? Will my "out of left field" pick Cisse be the surprise of the draft? I'm not sold on Tuncay as my 3rd striker, and Gilberto needs to show up soon. I feel good at GK and Rooney gives me a reliable captain. I'll know more say......January.

[djangone]

I liked Tuncay Sanli when I saw him play for Turkey against England three years ago. The kid was a handful--a skinny, non-stop gamer playing right at the last defender and always game to burst through the back line, a defense-stretcher, kinda in the mode of Crespo.

[blech]

It's hard to assess the individual picks, as we all had our own preferences and certain players we think may blossom or tank this season. There were a couple of teams who snagged guys that I wanted - which may mean that they got bargains - and there were some picks where I scratched my head and thought, "Geez, he could probably have gotten that guy 5 rounds from now if he wanted him" - but I thought overall that it was fairly even.

The following chart shows how different owners decided to spend their money. Team 6 (LSG) put a lot of cash into his defense at the cost of his forwards. Team 7 (Gunners) spent a lot on his forwards and less on his defense. Teams 1, 3, and 5 (Nice, Crazy, and Riot) were the big spenders in the midfield, whereas Team 2 (Sizal) manages to keep his overall midfield cost down even with the acquisition of Lampard. Team 8 (me) seemed to be fairly middle of the pack for each group, while Team 4 (Glory) adopted the contrarian strategy of spending the most on goalies and the least on defenders (strategy or accident). Of course, if you believe that you have spotted (or will be quick to spot) this year's Portsmouth, there should be cheap but effective defenders out there and it doesn't make employ LSG's defensive price tags. And, then again, there will always be a 6.0 or 7.0 forward who will get hot, so why pay for the likes of Tevez, Berbatov, and Torres? Time will tell, who bought the bargains, and who allocated the money wisely.

------------ GK ---- DEF ---- MID --- FOR ---- TOT ---- BAL
Team 1 -- 9.5 --- 30.0 --- 38.5 --- 22.0 --- 100.0 -- 0.0
Team 2 -- 9.5 --- 27.5 --- 35.5 --- 25.0 ---- 97.5 -- 2.5
Team 3 - 10.0 --- 27.0 --- 38.5 --- 24.0 ---- 99.5 -- 0.5
Team 4 - 11.0 --- 26.5 --- 34.5 --- 27.5 ---- 99.5 -- 0.5
Team 5 -- 9.0 --- 29.5 --- 38.5 --- 23.0 --- 100.0 -- 0.0
Team 6 - 10.5 --- 31.0 --- 32.5 --- 25.0 ---- 99.0 -- 1.0
Team 7 -- 9.0 --- 29.0 --- 33.5 --- 28.0 ---- 99.5 -- 0.5
Team 8 - 11.0 --- 28.0 --- 35.0 --- 26.0 --- 100.0 -- 0.0

This next chart shows when owners spent there money. Team 1 bought Ronaldo and just kept buying, and Team 7 also jumped out to a quick buy strategy, while team 3 was the most conservative in the early going. Team 8 opened the wallet in the middle rounds. Notably, Team 3 is the only team with any sizeable amount of cash still in the account, which may not mean much during the next week's free for all, but could come in real handy in avoiding 4 point deductions once the season gets underway.

------------ 1-5 --- 6-10 --- 11-15 ----- TOT
Team 1 -- 44.0 --- 29.5 --- 26.5 -------100.0
Team 2 -- 39.0 --- 33.5 --- 25.0 ------- 97.5
Team 3 -- 36.5 --- 34.5 --- 28.5 ------- 99.5
Team 4 -- 38.5 --- 32.5 --- 28.5 ------- 99.5
Team 5 -- 40.0 --- 31.5 --- 28.5 ------- 100.0
Team 6 -- 39.5 --- 31.5 --- 28.0 ------- 99.0
Team 7 -- 42.0 --- 33.5 --- 24.0 ------- 99.5
Team 8 -- 38.0 --- 37.0 --- 25.0 ------- 100.0

And, interesting to note some of the differing preferences between VSR and Sand. There were 2 goalies, 8 defenders, 11 midfielders, and 6 forwards drafted in one and not the other. Someone, somewhere made a mistake!!!

[Ingromius]

One thing I know after all this experience and failure is not to place too much stock in the squads that appear immediately post-draft. For my part, I'll just say that I recognized very quickly that I've overspent in some places, underspent in others. However, I'm curious to see how some of my Filene's Basement purches -- namely Koumas, McSheffrey, and Forssell -- will perform.

I'll give my thoughts on a few picks who were particular favorites of mine.

Tuncay. Big fan of top Turkish players -- they seem skilled, aggressive, and fearless. They also seem to settle pretty quickly. Tuncay brings a rep as a 90-minute workhorse, which is another plus. The one thing that scared me away was comments from Southgate that he may be deployed as a winger... he'll contribute from there, but will he score fantasy points?

Dempsey. He's amazingly cheap at 4.5, and it seems he's been playing a lot and playing well in the preseason for Fulham. I'm convinced that if he's given the chance, he'll produce this year. But will he be given a chance? Will he have to come up with a Northern Irish accent to get a look in?

Jaidi. He is definitely a threat to score goals from set pieces -- he certainly did so for Bolton a couple seasons ago. But in other gameweeks, how much can Birmingham be relied on to keep clean sheets?

Torres. I'm sure we're all curious to see how he'll do. No question he's world class. But so was Shevchenko going into last season. I vowed not to pick any overpriced transfers this season, as it's been the death of me each of the past two. But boy, was he tempting.

Nugent. I was really sorry to see him snagged late -- he would have been my first transfer. From what I saw he makes good runs, has excellent touch, and most importantly, he has the kind of composure in front of goal that can't be taught. (See, for contrast, one Emanuel Adebayor.)

Now, to toot my own horn...

Niemi. I don't care how he performs... for some mysterious reason, he's something like the 3rd most popular player on the board right now, behind Ronaldo & one other. I'm hoping his value will go up and up and up.

Reo-Coker. Same as above. One of the most in-demand middies in the game, and vastly underpriced at 5.5.

Forssell. Has anyone been in better form in preseason matches? If what he & Bruce are saying is true, he's back to his 18-goal form of a few years ago.

Koumas His reputation has suffered ever since his battle of egos with, umm, whoever was West Brom's coach a couple years ago. I still suspect Wigan will be candidates for relegation -- but I also think Koumas basically IS their offense, so he should score better than his 6.0 price would predict.

Teams I fear? There are two who look pretty scary. Nicephoras, with both Ronaldo and Terry, certainly has the framework in place to be dangerous. But more than anyone, I fear Gunners320, with his incredibly intimidating attacking three of Berbatov, Tevez, and Torres. He's my early pick to win both our league and the Golden Boot competition. Yikes.

[sizal9]

The Tevez-Berbatov-Torres attack looks like the strongest one out there.

It is also a very risky selection in my opinion. Will Torres be able to adjust into the premiership his first season? Will Berbatov be able to recreate what he did last season?

[nicephoras]

I've always thought Torres was massively overrated and I don't expect him to take penalties, so given Liveprool's rotation I don't know how many goals he'll score.

[CrazyUnionBox]

Being my first draft I totally went about it all wrong... but you never know

[glorydaze]

My choice of spending on GKs came down to the availability of Van Der Sar late as a top of the line keeper from a strong defensive team and an early realization that I would be able to pick up Tuncay with a last round pick when most teams maxed out on strikers early. What I know I have not factored in particularly well is the over and under values of players based on who are currently popular picks. I'm learning the nuances of EPL as I go along, only having been a casual player in the past. I have played MFLS a bit more seriously and have tried to apply some of the lessons learned there to this format. I'm sure there will be some big differences to adjust to, particularly in the volatile ups and downs of players values. Having said that, I think I held my own in the draft and have a good foundation from which to start. My goal this year is to learn and get better as the season progresses. Oh... and win it all.:D

[blech]

I agree that Gunners strike force has great potential, but am not sure philosophically that playing with 3 forwards is a wise move on a regular basis. Having said that, I took the opposite end of the Liverpool bet with Kuyt, hoping that either he will blossom with Torres or that he will emerge instead of Torres, and thus I also will likely start 3 forwards. These things sometimes happen in a draft and you just take who you think is best on the board, but I think week-in and week-out, you are better with a 2 forward starting lineup. Am I wrong?

Another hurdle Gunners and I faced going in is the reality that the teams with the top-top players have an advantage. Given the double points for a captain, if you have such a player, it makes up for a lot. There were 6 players in that category in my opinion, in two tiers - nearly guaranteed (Ronaldo and Lampard) and very, very good bets (Gerrard, Fabregas, Rooney and Drogba).

Beyond that, it remains a lot of guess work. Do you have players who could end up in rotation? Kuyt could certainly end up like that for me. If so, I may well dump him. But I also feel like I've got bench players who should get regular minutes, so it may not be as big a deal with auto-substitutions.

Do you have players who did well last year, and can they duplicate? Berbatov was one of the biggest question marks for me on this one, but the same goes for Arteta and Speed.

Do you have players who perhaps underperformed last year in comparison to years past but might rebound? Gamst? Nolan? I fully expect Gerrard to return to prior form and be in the top 3 scorers at the end of the year.

Do you have players who underperformed last but are young and developing or new to the league? Who will be this year's Drogba and make a monster adjustment in year 2????

Personally, I remain most skeptical of the new players coming into the league, as it really can take a lot to adjust. Berbatov truly was the exception last year, not the rule. Torres fits this category in my opinion, but getting him where he got him was a steal in my view, and given that there are no consequences for cutting a player other than any minor drop in value, it's a pretty nominal risk to start taking gambles like this once you hit round 5 and later.

I know I have players from virtually everyone of these categories on my team, as do most of you. The question is going to be who has the right ones!!!!

The most interesting thing to me doing this the first time was how, given the price cap, the drafting of players did not make as significant of an impact on how I feel about the strength of the team I might have drafted had I just sat down and selected a team on my own. Sure, there were some players I would have taken over others at a particular price range, and I would definitely invest in at least one of the big guns if I had the option, but the cap balances things out signicantly in the end.

[ibreak4coffee]

Having three top notch strikers is great, but it will never guarantee a title on its own. The consistent rate at which all three would have to score is pretty daunting to assure the league title if you've neglected midfield and defense. Consistently, the winner of the Small or Very Small or Sand League is the guy with the top point producing midfielder - I won the Small two years ago mostly thanks to Lampard, and last year Jay rode C. Ronaldo all the way to victory. I imagine this will only be reinforced in the post-Henry era.

One thing I think the site could change - you should be able to deploy two keepers during any given gameweek. That would reward those of us with two solid keepers.

[Clan]

My choice of spending on GKs came down to the availability of Van Der Sar late as a top of the line keeper from a strong defensive team and an early realization that I would be able to pick up Tuncay with a last round pick when most teams maxed out on strikers early. What I know I have not factored in particularly well is the over and under values of players based on who are currently popular picks. I'm learning the nuances of EPL as I go along, only having been a casual player in the past. I have played MFLS a bit more seriously and have tried to apply some of the lessons learned there to this format. I'm sure there will be some big differences to adjust to, particularly in the volatile ups and downs of players values. Having said that, I think I held my own in the draft and have a good foundation from which to start. My goal this year is to learn and get better as the season progresses. Oh... and win it all.:D

Thats a hard thing to do mate, as my expierences in MFLS will attest.

I've applied FPL to MFLS - and, well, you can see the results :(

Then again, this is only my second year ever watching MLS, so I still struggle with who's actually decent, fantasy wise, for points.

[djangone]

I'm curious if anyone drafted with an eye toward increasing team value. Which is to say picking guys whose value will rise.

One of the SR guys does that for possibly half his picks, thus explaining some odd choices, and most managers give at least one slot to a value play.

'The volatile ups and downs of player value,' not so much, at least not volatile on the down. A guy like Damien Duff, who's stunk up the league for two seasons, never dropped as much as he should during the season itself. Players with big salaries who underperform don't get much cheaper than they started, maybe .7?

[ibreak4coffee]

Thats a hard thing to do mate, as my expierences in MFLS will attest.

I've applied FPL to MFLS - and, well, you can see the results :(

Then again, this is only my second year ever watching MLS, so I still struggle with who's actually decent, fantasy wise, for points.

Clan - to make yourself feel better just look down in the standings at MFLS and you'll see me applying the same strategy :o

I really hate their scoring system. My roster has only scored three goals less than the 3rd placed team and only conceded 22 goals less, and I'm 200 points behind him :eek:

[Clan]

Clan - to make yourself feel better just look down in the standings at MFLS and you'll see me applying the same strategy :o

I really hate their scoring system. My roster has only scored three goals less than the 3rd placed team and only conceded 22 goals less, and I'm 200 points behind him :eek:

Oh, I don't have to look down too far, I think I'm only two places above you.

And, yes, I agree, the scoring system is mighty hard to come to terms with.

[Ingromius]

In the case of this year's edition of LSG, I'm hoping the formula for success is much simpler. I attribute much of my awful season last year to real-life cheapness: I didn't pony up for Sky until the early Spring, by which time my fate was already sealed. I actually didn't see a complete Prem match until after the new year.

Last year was proof that you can't hope for much success if you do all your scouting from Match of the Day. Particularly if you tend to fall asleep while watching it. This season I have the full Setanta-Sky package, so look out everyone!

Hey, that reminds me -- are we going to try for a drafted Champs league this year, or did that prove impossible last season?

[djangone]

Drafted, strike that, Fantasy CL worked just fine (but drafting didn't work so well). I think Jay won that too. The level of interest tails a little as the phases go along and everyone fields pretty much the same squad, or when some managers' favorite teams are eliminated, but both of those are to be expected. It was pretty cool.