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            <p>Fantasy Football Hub's resident stats expert <a href="https://twitter.com/DarkishJungle">Carl Weeks</a> analyses the data from last season to help him pick his first Sky Sports Fantasy Football draft.</p>
<p>Carl produces regular updates on team and player bonus points throughout the season, and his exclusive insight is a must for any Sky manager who wants to improve their game and win their mini-leagues.</p>
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<li data-stringify-indent="0" data-stringify-border="0"><a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/sky-fantasy-football-tips"><strong>Sky Ultimate Guide: All our content in one place</strong></a></li>
<li data-stringify-indent="0" data-stringify-border="0"><a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/dan-cox-sky-first-look-and-team-reveal"><strong>Former champion Dan Cox's first Sky draft</strong></a></li>
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<p>It's always exciting at this time of the year, as we trawl through all the players' prices and dream of winning.</p>
<p>The saddest fantasy news over the summer from a data perspective was learning that the webpage FiveThirtyEight would no longer be updating their team ratings and expected goals for each match for the rest of the season.</p>
<p>I’ll produce my own estimates but these will not be as robust.</p>
<p>This article is about the data I consider in choosing my starting team in Sky, though the principles can be applied to other games.</p>
<h2>Best Sky formation and premium players</h2>
<p>I began my pre-season analysis by plotting players' average points per game and their price on graphs - one for each position.</p>
<p>I then drew a line of best fit, which enabled me to compare value between each position.</p>
<p>These lines are more similar than they have been in previous seasons.</p>
<p>As a starting point, I started making my first drafts for this season with a 5-3-2 or 4-3-3 formation in mind, however this wasn't set in stone and acted more as a guide.</p>
<div id="attachment_55824" style="width: 674px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-55824" class="wp-image-55824 size-full" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Capture5.png" alt="" width="664" height="410" /></p>
<p id="caption-attachment-55824" class="wp-caption-text">Sky value by position last season</p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><strong>Player performance for 2022/23</strong></h2>
<p>To get an idea of who might be good value this year, I have calculated every players' points per million per game, using the 2023/24 season's updated prices.</p>
<p>In previous seasons, I have set a gold standard of 0.7 points per million per game and I have highlighted the players that still meet this criteria using this season's prices.</p>
<p>This suggests last season's top-scoring goalkeepers remain good value, as is <strong>Erling Haaland (£12.0m) </strong>despite his high price point.</p>
<p>The table below shows the points per million per game for the top 10 highest scorers by position:</p>
<div id="attachment_55825" style="width: 637px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-55825" class="wp-image-55825 size-full" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Capture6.png" alt="" width="627" height="531" /></p>
<p id="caption-attachment-55825" class="wp-caption-text">Sky points per million per game of the top 10 points scorers in each position</p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>The table below shows the best-value players overall (minimum 10 appearances). Some of these players may have played limited games, like <strong>Benoit </strong><strong>Badiashile (£8.4m) </strong>and <strong>Aymeric Laporte (£8.6m)</strong>, so you need to use your football knowledge when taking them into account.</p>
<p>Again, a lot of goalkeepers reach the magic 0.7 mark, while most others fall short.</p>
<p>Having said that, I would say that those who reach 0.6 or higher are still excellent value and worthy of attention.</p>
<p>A few players worthy of mention are Dean Henderson, who missed a large part of the season due to injury and could be a great pick if he returns to Nottingham Forest or secures a move to another Premier League club.</p>
<p>Depending on cost, Manchester United's new goalkeeper could be an option. <strong>James Tavernier (£7.2m)</strong> of Bournemouth is a player to monitor in <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/fpl-pre-season-results-guide">pre-season</a> and could be a great cheap enabler.</p>
<p><strong>Enzo Fernandez (£8.4m)</strong> of Chelsea is another who has scored well in limited games since his January transfer.</p>
<div id="attachment_55916" style="width: 623px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-55916" class="wp-image-55916 size-full" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Capture1-1.png" alt="" width="613" height="508" /></p>
<p id="caption-attachment-55916" class="wp-caption-text">Top 10s for points per million per game (minimum of 10 appearances)</p>
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<h2><strong>Promoted teams</strong></h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/burnley-sheffield-united-and-luton-sky-tff-and-dream-team-bonus-potential"><strong>Burnley, Luton and Sheffield United Sky bonus potential</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>It is always difficult to identify players from promoted teams, as playing in the Premier League is so much more difficult than in the Championship.</p>
<p>I have taken a look at the stats from FBref.com, which are provided below.</p>
<p>The key stats are matches played (are they starters?), tackles and goals/assists percentages.</p>
<p>The goal/assist percentages are the percentage of goals/assists a player had for the matches in which they played.</p>
<p>I do not look at passing or shots on target, as these are likely to be a lot lower in the Premier League.</p>
<p>With Luton v Burnley being postponed in Gameweek 2, I will not be selecting any of their players in my starting team.</p>
<h3>Burnley</h3>
<p>The player from Burnley that is most attractive is <strong>Josh Brownhill (£7.1m)</strong>, who played in 40 games with 90 tackles. For context, <strong>Moises Caicedo (£8.0m)</strong> of Brighton had the second-most tackles in the Premier League with 96 last season.</p>
<p>Brownhill managed 12% of the goals and 14% assists. He was roughly as important to Burnley last season as <strong>Martin Odegaard (£10.3m) </strong>was to Arsenal.</p>
<p>Odegaard is likely to score more points of course, but the comparison provides an idea of how important Brownhill was to the team.</p>
<div id="attachment_55827" style="width: 621px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-55827" class="wp-image-55827 size-full" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Capture8.png" alt="" width="611" height="314" /></p>
<p id="caption-attachment-55827" class="wp-caption-text">Burnley stats</p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Luton</h3>
<p>There is nobody on the Luton side who is currently attractive to me.</p>
<p><strong>Amari'i Bell (£7.1m)</strong> had 78 tackles but he is a defender and likely to concede several goals.</p>
<p><strong>Allan Campbell (£6.7m)</strong> had 64 tackles, which isn’t huge, while the attacking returns aren't significant enough to justify picking him.</p>
<div id="attachment_55828" style="width: 616px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-55828" class="wp-image-55828 size-full" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Capture9.png" alt="" width="606" height="314" /></p>
<p id="caption-attachment-55828" class="wp-caption-text">Luton stats</p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Sheffield United stats</h3>
<p>There are a couple players who could be an option from Sheffield United.</p>
<p><strong> Oliver Norwood (£7.0m)</strong> had 108 tackles and chipped in with a few attacking returns. He has a cheap price tag in Sky this year.</p>
<p>The jewel may be <strong>Iliman Ndiaye (£7.2m)</strong>, who had a decent number of tackles on 68 and great attacking threat, with 22% goals and 12% assists.</p>
<p>A £7.2m goalscoring midfielder is very attractive, although there are rumours he could be moving abroad.</p>
<div id="attachment_55829" style="width: 620px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-55829" class="wp-image-55829 size-full" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Capture10.png" alt="" width="610" height="409" /></p>
<p id="caption-attachment-55829" class="wp-caption-text">Sheffield United stats</p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2><strong>Carl's Sky Gameweek 1 first draft</strong></h2>
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Carl Weeks’ Sky Sports Fantasy Football pre-season stats analysis and team reveal

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