Best XI: Week 7

It’s a quiet week in the Premier League but we still haven’t looked at the Best XI from week 7. Week 7 was an interesting one and Neal goes into the big story lines in his Monday Morning Manager. What I’m here to do is give you this week’s Best XI, so enjoy!

Best XI

There are a lot of new names in this week’s Best XI but also a couple of familiar faces. It was an interesting week for the Best XI since we have 10 different teams represented here. There were no outright blowouts and no insanely one-sided affairs, so predicting the best players would have been extremely difficult before the week. With that being said, Rob’s column last week predicted 8 out of the 10 match results correctly, and I’ll tell you why that’s important for fantasy purposes.

A lot of people who play fantasy sports for money choose an interesting route to picking their squads. Some experts like to first predict what teams are most likely to do well and then choose players who are likely to perform well on those teams. A good way to predict team performance is by looking at betting odds. Another good way is to follow’s Rob’s work here on Rotoworld. This method can actually be a great way to choose your lineup, so I would recommend you check out Rob’s columns on a regular basis.

Points

The top possible score this week in an allowable formation was 248 points. After two weeks of low scores, we have now set an all time high! This is in part to Di Maria’s incredible 31 points, but also in part to the high scores throughout the entire Best XI.

Follow the RotoWorld_PL team on Twitter: Galin | Jeremy | Neal | Nik | Steve | Ben | Rob | Aaron

Cost

This week, the top score did fit within our £ 96M budget by just £ 0.18M, coming in at a cost of £ 95.82M*. The new price of our Best XI (if you were to try to create this team now after the price changes) is £ 118.65M. That’s a 23.8% increase in price in case you were keeping track.

*Keep in mind the cost does NOT include any substitutes and is thus 96M instead of 100M.

Check out Rotoworld for season long Premier League news

MVP

Angel Di Maria. Another week, another fantastic performance from the Manchester United midfielder. Di Maria is establishing himself as both the best fantasy and real life midfielder in the Premier League and if you ask me, he is a must own. He is last year’s Steven Gerrard and Aaron Ramsey combined.

Best ROI

The best return on your investment this week was Gabriel Obertan from Newcastle. The midfielder returns a solid 13 points and had a price tag of only £ 1.32M. However, his floor is not high enough to make him anything more than a cheap bench option at this time.

Formation

The Best XI was in a 3-4-3 formation once again! This is the most exciting section for me, as I’ve been a huge proponent of the 3-4-3 all along and the Best XI is proving me right. There are very few reasons for ever deviating from this formation, and I challenge anyone to give me a good enough reason to go with something other than the 3-4-3 on a weekly basis.

Formation Count

Repeat Offenders

This table is growing at a faster rate now.

As we have more and more data, we’ve been growing this list. It still amazes me that Sadio Berahino has been a part of the Best XI as often as Diego Costa and Angel Di Maria, and maybe we should learn from that. West Brom are not as bad as they seemed in week one, and Berahino has been a decent fantasy performer on the season. I mean, he has been a part of the best possible team 43% of the season. I’d play him next week, in a game West Brom is projected to WIN over Manchester United.

Follow the RotoWorld_PL team on Twitter: Galin | Jeremy | Neal | Nik | Steve | Ben | Rob | Aaron

Team Rankings

West Brom have now caught up to Chelsea and Stoke City in the Best XI Team Rankings and it’s just another sign that points towards them being better than we expected.

How many players from the BEST XI did you have on your squad?