FPLZ 2012/13 Season Preview: Queens Park Rangers F.C.

Queens Park Rangers F.C. 

Alejandro Faurlin posing for QPR's 3rd kit.

You can download the full analyzed squad data here.

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Last Season: Just Enough
It was ironic to see the team who dominated the Championship two seasons ago struggled so much in the Premier League last season, especially when the other two promoters have freed themselves from relegation so early. They are really lucky to still remain in the top-flight league this season thanks to Bolton who failed to win their last game last season.

This Summer: Bigger Cash Splash
Tony Fernandes never stops spending. QPR have already sign a whopping number of 7 players so far, who namely are Samba Diakite, Fabio da Silva (loan), Robert Green, Junior Hoilett, Andrew Johnson, Ryan Nelsen and the best among them all, Park Ji-Sung. Ambitious, but whether these purchases can be converted into results is another story.

Quite a number of players are migrating away from Loftus Road as well, and they are Patrick Agmeyang, Daniel Gabbidon, Fitz Hall, Paddy Kenny and Daniel Shittu.

Upcoming Season: Looking for Improvement
With such a strong financial support from the boss, Mark Hughes simply has to deliver. Though the players can only be classified as second class players at best, they depth that QPR have is tremendous. If the gaffer can use this advantage effectively, things can really turn big at Loftus Road.

Park's historical P90.

No More Parking On the Bench: Park (FI: 0.262)
Park Ji-Sung was wasting one of his greatest attributes at Manchester United, and that is stamina. Nicknamed "Three-Lungs Park", the South Korean never runs out of breath in the game, has immense work rate, and is able to play everywhere on the midfield.

With his decision to join QPR, fantasy managers have the chance to see his full potential, should he start regularly for the whole season. If he can deliver 5 goals in 2006/07 season with Manchester United in just 775 minutes, I see no reason why he cannot achieve 10 goal milestone this season if he can play for more than 2500 minutes.

Revived?: Taarabt (FI: 0.343)
Adel Taarabt (£6.0m) was one of the player whom many pundits expect to shine last season, but for some reason the lad failed to deliver what he seemed to promise.

Nonetheless, the midfield had a fine run during the final quarter of last season, averaging 6.0 points for the last 6 Premier League games he played for QPR. With better crop of players surrounding the Moroccan this season, Taarabt should definitely be included into your fantasy watchlist.

Survived: Hoilett (FI: 0.456)
Relegated with Blackburn, QPR took Junior Hoilett (£6.5m) back to the Premier League after the winger's contract expired this summer.

The Canadian is definitely a talented one, with his name listed in FIFA's 13 Players to Watch in January 2012. If he can improve on his 7 goals and 6 assists tally last season, he can become a really popular fantasy pick.

Overcrowded: Forwards
Bobby Zamora (£6.5m), Djibril Cisse (£6.5m), Jamie Mackie (£5.5m), Heidar Helguson (£5.0m), Andrew Johnson (£5.0m), Jay Bothroyd (£5.0m)...... The long list of forwards goes on.

Rotation policy will certainly be on Hughes' books, so fantasy managers should really avoid them now. I believe Zamora could be the exception though.

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FPLZ 2012/13 Season Preview: Team Data Summary

Are you the next champion (fantasy) manager?

After a long introduction on the glossaries I will be using in my FPLZ 2012/13 Season Preview, let us first begin to analyse the overall team data first before we go on team by team. Below is the table of top fantasy scorers of respective teams last season, with relegated teams (Bolton, Blackburn Rovers and Wolverhampton Wanderers) being excluded:

Table 1: List of Fantasy Top Scorers by Team.

Team	Top Scorer	Points	Team %
Arsenal	Van Persie	269	16.5%
Man Utd	Rooney	230	12.7%
Man City	Aguero	211	11.0%
Fulham	Dempsey	209	15.5%
Tottenham	Bale	195	11.4%
Newcastle	Ba	165	11.0%
Chelsea	Mata	162	10.8%
Sunderland	Sessegnon	161	12.2%
Swansea	Vorm	158	10.5%
Everton	Howard	151	11.2%
Stoke City	Walters	140	11.3%
Wigan	Moses	140	11.0%
West Brom	Foster	140	10.7%
Norwich	Holt	138	11.9%
Liverpool	Suarez	136	9.9%
Aston Villa	Agbonlahor	112	10.0%
QPR	Kenny	102	10.0%

For your information, Bobby Zamora, who scored 119 points last season, was not credited as the top fantasy scorer of Queens Park Rangers because he scored more points for Fulham than for QPR last season. The team percentages are calculated by dividing the top scorers' points (for example Van Persie) over their respective teams' top 15 highest fantasy scorers.

Unsurprisingly, Robin Van Persie topped the list with 269 points which was 16.5% of his team's best 15, much higher than the rest of the pack apart from Fulham's Clinton Dempsey (209 points, 15.5%). Liverpool, which have gone through a poor season last term, have their best fantasy scorer (Suarez, 136 points) only managed to get 9.9% of the team's aggregate share. Can Brendan Rodgers turn that around? God knows.

And now let's go through the more useful statistics, which are the aggregate scores of the top 3 scorers of each team and their aggregate team percentages:

Table 2: List of Top 3 Fantasy Scorers by Team

Team	Top 1	Top 2	Top 3	Total Pts	Team %
Arsenal	Van Persie	Walcott	Szczesny	577	35.3%
Man City	Aguero	D. Silva	Hart	561	29.3%
Tottenham	Bale	Adebayor	Van der Vaart	556	32.6%
Man Utd	Rooney	Evra	Nani	546	30.1%
Newcastle	Ba	Krul	Cabaye	450	30.0%
Swansea	Vorm	Sinclair	Graham	447	29.8%
Fulham	Dempsey	Zamora	J. Riise	445	32.9%
Chelsea	Mata	Terry	Lampard	438	29.1%
Sunderland	Sessegnon	Larsson	Mignolet	410	31.1%
Everton	Howard	Baines	Heitinga	400	29.7%
Stoke City	Walters	Crouch	Etherington	391	31.6%
Wigan	Moses	Al-Habsi	Caldwell	381	29.9%
Liverpool	Suarez	Reina	J. Enrique	374	27.1%
West Brom	Foster	Odemwingie	McAuley	364	27.9%
Norwich	Holt	Pilkington	Morrison	359	31.0%
Aston Villa	Agbonlahor	Warnock	Given	306	27.3%
QPR	Kenny	Mackie	Barton	297	29.0%

The reason to measure the top 3 scorers of each team is due to the fact that you can only pick at most 3 players from the same team. This will approximately show you the maximum scoring potential of each teams.

Based on the results, you can clearly split the teams into 4 tiers. The first tier consists of the super productive fantasy teams, namely Arsenal, Manchester duo (City and United), and Tottenham Hotspur. Not really surprising though, as all of the tier 1 teams have been so prolific in offence last season.

Tier 2 meanwhile consists of Newcastle, Swansea, Fulham, and Chelsea. Newcastle and Swansea have some great crop of value to money fantasy players anyway, so that was not surprising. Chelsea's performance weren't up to par given their players' fantasy price, while Fulham's position in tier 2 was largely driven by Dempsey's astounding season.

The third tier has Sunderland, Everton, Stoke City, Wigan, Liverpool, West Brom and Norwich within. All lacked of productive and consistent fantasy scorers, though Liverpool have again disappointed fantasy managers the most with numerous big names but poor scores.

Tier 4, the super unproductive teams, has Aston Villa and QPR accompanying each other. Not even any considerable fantasy assets here last season. Your season must have been pretty miserable if you have these players for quite some gameweeks last term.

The more important question: will the trend continues to be the same this term? In general, it should be more or less the same, except for those teams which have undergone some big operations this summer. At Arsenal, Van Persie's desire to leave the Emirates will be pivotal to the Gunners fantasy potential this season; at White Hart Lane, the managerial change from Harry Redknapp to Andre Villas-Boas will certainly give rise to a lot of uncertainties; at Liverpool, the same can be said under the coaching of Brendan Rodgers; at Loftus Road, QPR's continuous effort in transfers can mean a very different season for them.

Nonetheless, I believe the fluctuations will not be very dramatic from one season to another. We can expect some of the teams to move one tier above and others one tier below, but I am certainly not so fancy about the possibility of a major ranking reshuffling next season.

Hope this little piece of information has provided you something and do stay tuned for the upcoming team by team previews!

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