September 2020
Show HN: A wiki style education platform licenced under CC0
Show HN: A wiki style education platform licenced under CC0
3 by itslunahanson | 3 comments on Hacker News.
3 by itslunahanson | 3 comments on Hacker News.
Show HN: Telegram bot to get new HN stories by keywords
Show HN: Telegram bot to get new HN stories by keywords
2 by solus_factor | 1 comments on Hacker News.
2 by solus_factor | 1 comments on Hacker News.
Launch HN: Narrator (YC S19) – a data modeling platform built on a single table
Launch HN: Narrator (YC S19) – a data modeling platform built on a single table
28 by cedricd | 9 comments on Hacker News.
Hi HN, We’re Ahmed, Cedric, Matt, and Mike from Narrator ( https://www.narrator.ai ). We’ve built a data platform that transforms all data in a data warehouse into a single 11-column data model and provides tools for analysts to quickly build any table for BI, reporting, and analysis on top of that model. Narrator initially grew out of our experience building a data platform for a team of 40 analysts and data scientists. The data warehouse, modeled as a star schema, grew to over 700 data models from 3000+ raw production tables. Every time we wanted to make a change or build a new analysis, it took forever as we had to deal with managing the complexity of these 700 different models. With all these layers of dependencies and stakeholders constantly demanding more data, we ended up making lots of mistakes (i.e. dashboard metrics not matching). These mistakes led to loss of trust and soon our stakeholders were off buying tools (Heap, Mixpanel, Amplitude, Wave Analytics, etc…) to do their own analysis. With a star schema (also core to recently IPO-ed Snowflake), you build the tables you need for reporting and BI on top of fact tables (what you want to measure, i.e. leads, sales…) and dimension tables (how you want to slice your data, i.e. gender, company, contract size…). Using this approach, the amount of fact and dimension tables grow in size and complexity in relation to the number of questions / datasets / metrics that need to be answered by the business. Over time the rate of new questions increases rapidly and data teams spend more time updating models and debugging mismatched numbers than answering data questions. What if instead of using the hundreds of fact and dimension tables in a star schema, we could use one table with all your customer data modeled as a collection of core customer actions (each a single source of truth), and combine them together to assemble any table at the moment the data analyst needs that table? Numbers would always match (single source of truth), any new question could be answered immediately without waiting on data engineering to build new fact and dimension tables (assembled when the data analyst needs it), and investigating issues would be easy (no nested dependencies of fact and dimension tables that depend on other tables). After several iterations, Narrator was born. Narrator uses a single 11-column table called the Activity Stream to represent all the data in your data warehouse. It’s built from sql transformations that transform a set of raw production tables (for example, Zendesk data) into activities (ticket opened, ticket closed, etc). Each row of the Activity Stream has a customer, a timestamp, an activity name, a unique identifier, and a bit of metadata describing it. Creating any table from this single model made up of activities that don’t obviously relate to each other is hard to imagine. Unlike star schema, we don’t use foreign keys (the direct relationships in relational databases that connect objects, like employee.company_id → company.id) because they don’t always exist when you’re dealing with data in multiple systems. Instead each activity has a customer identifier which we use, along with time, to automatically join within the single table to generate datasets. As an example, imagine you were investigating a single customer who called support. Did they visit the web site before that call? You’d look at that customer’s first web visit, and see if that person called before their next web visit. Now imagine finding all customers who behaved this way per month -- you’d have to take a drastically different approach with your current data tools. Narrator, by contrast, always joins data in terms of behavior. The same approach you take to investigate a single customer applies to all of them. For the above example you’d ask Narrator’s Dataset tool to show all users who visited the website and called before the next visit, grouped by month. We started as a consultancy to build out the approach and prove that this was possible. We supported eight companies per Narrator data analyst, and now we’re excited for more data folks to get their hands on it so y’all can experience the same benefits. We’d love to hear any feedback or answer any questions about our approach. We’ve been using it ourselves in production for three years, but only launched it to the public last week. We’ll answer any comments on this thread and can also set up a video chat for anyone who wants to go more in-depth.
28 by cedricd | 9 comments on Hacker News.
Hi HN, We’re Ahmed, Cedric, Matt, and Mike from Narrator ( https://www.narrator.ai ). We’ve built a data platform that transforms all data in a data warehouse into a single 11-column data model and provides tools for analysts to quickly build any table for BI, reporting, and analysis on top of that model. Narrator initially grew out of our experience building a data platform for a team of 40 analysts and data scientists. The data warehouse, modeled as a star schema, grew to over 700 data models from 3000+ raw production tables. Every time we wanted to make a change or build a new analysis, it took forever as we had to deal with managing the complexity of these 700 different models. With all these layers of dependencies and stakeholders constantly demanding more data, we ended up making lots of mistakes (i.e. dashboard metrics not matching). These mistakes led to loss of trust and soon our stakeholders were off buying tools (Heap, Mixpanel, Amplitude, Wave Analytics, etc…) to do their own analysis. With a star schema (also core to recently IPO-ed Snowflake), you build the tables you need for reporting and BI on top of fact tables (what you want to measure, i.e. leads, sales…) and dimension tables (how you want to slice your data, i.e. gender, company, contract size…). Using this approach, the amount of fact and dimension tables grow in size and complexity in relation to the number of questions / datasets / metrics that need to be answered by the business. Over time the rate of new questions increases rapidly and data teams spend more time updating models and debugging mismatched numbers than answering data questions. What if instead of using the hundreds of fact and dimension tables in a star schema, we could use one table with all your customer data modeled as a collection of core customer actions (each a single source of truth), and combine them together to assemble any table at the moment the data analyst needs that table? Numbers would always match (single source of truth), any new question could be answered immediately without waiting on data engineering to build new fact and dimension tables (assembled when the data analyst needs it), and investigating issues would be easy (no nested dependencies of fact and dimension tables that depend on other tables). After several iterations, Narrator was born. Narrator uses a single 11-column table called the Activity Stream to represent all the data in your data warehouse. It’s built from sql transformations that transform a set of raw production tables (for example, Zendesk data) into activities (ticket opened, ticket closed, etc). Each row of the Activity Stream has a customer, a timestamp, an activity name, a unique identifier, and a bit of metadata describing it. Creating any table from this single model made up of activities that don’t obviously relate to each other is hard to imagine. Unlike star schema, we don’t use foreign keys (the direct relationships in relational databases that connect objects, like employee.company_id → company.id) because they don’t always exist when you’re dealing with data in multiple systems. Instead each activity has a customer identifier which we use, along with time, to automatically join within the single table to generate datasets. As an example, imagine you were investigating a single customer who called support. Did they visit the web site before that call? You’d look at that customer’s first web visit, and see if that person called before their next web visit. Now imagine finding all customers who behaved this way per month -- you’d have to take a drastically different approach with your current data tools. Narrator, by contrast, always joins data in terms of behavior. The same approach you take to investigate a single customer applies to all of them. For the above example you’d ask Narrator’s Dataset tool to show all users who visited the website and called before the next visit, grouped by month. We started as a consultancy to build out the approach and prove that this was possible. We supported eight companies per Narrator data analyst, and now we’re excited for more data folks to get their hands on it so y’all can experience the same benefits. We’d love to hear any feedback or answer any questions about our approach. We’ve been using it ourselves in production for three years, but only launched it to the public last week. We’ll answer any comments on this thread and can also set up a video chat for anyone who wants to go more in-depth.
When is the Carabao Cup quarter-final draw? Date, time, 5th round fixtures schedule and how to watch EFL Cup on TV and live stream
The 2020-21 season has only been going for a matter of weeks but already we are approaching the latter stages of the Carabao Cup with the quarter finals in sight.
In a bid to rattle through matches to avoid fixture congestion down the line, the EFL has transformed the Carabao Cup into some sort of Champions League lite with games taking place each midweek.
Tottenham Hotspur, who were given a bye into the fourth round after their third round opponents Leyton Orient suffered numerous positive Covid-19 tests, are the first team into the quarters after beating Chelsea on penalties.
Mason Mount missed the decisive spot-kick after Harry Kane had given Tottenham a 5-4 lead in the shootout.
That game took place earlier in the week due to Tottenham’s Europa League commitments on Thursday with the remaining seven fixtures in round four set to take place on Wednesday and Thursday.
Here is all you need to know about the Carabao Cup quarter-final draw:
When is the quarter-final draw?
The quarter-final draw will take place as soon as Liverpool’s fourth round clash with Arsenal at Anfield has concluded on Thursday night.
The game is scheduled to start at 7.45pm (BST) and assuming it ends on time, the draw should begin soon after 9.30pm unless penalties are required to separate the teams.
How to watch the draw
The draw will be shown as part of Sky Sports’ coverage of Liverpool vs Arsenal which is being televised on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Football.
Supporters who do not have a Sky Sports subscription can still watch the game and subsequent draw if they purchase a one-day streaming pass from NowTV.
The fourth round game between west London rivals Brentford and Fulham is also being shown on Sky Sports immediately before the Liverpool vs Arsenal game.
Quarter-final teams
- Tottenham
- Aston Villa/Stoke
- Brentford/Fulham
- Brighton/Man Utd
- Burnley/Man City
- Everton/West Ham
- Liverpool/Arsenal
- Newport County/Newcastle
When will the quarter-finals be played?
There is some bad news for those who have enjoyed their midweek helping of Carabao Cup football as the quarter finals will not take place until just before Christmas.
The four games will be staggered across two days with the first two fixtures happening on Tuesday 22 September and the second lot the following day on Wednesday 23 September.
Interestingly, this season the semi finals will be one-legged affairs rather than the traditional two and will be staged at the home stadium of the team drawn out of the hat first.
Follow i sport on Facebook for more Premier League news, interviews and features
More on the Premier League
- Sam Johnstone tells Sam Cunningham why he is finally ready to become a Premier League star
- The making of Timo Werner: How his father’s motivation and ‘scary’ power meant Chelsea star was always destined for the top
- Eric Dier reveals why he stormed into the stands to confront an abusive Spurs fan
- Daniel Storey: How to lose supporters and alienate Messi, by FC Barcelona
- An apology to Man Utd’s Jesse Lingard
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Champions League draw: The teams Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City and Man Utd could face in best and worst case scenarios
The four English representatives in this season’s Champions League will be watching on eagerly when the group stage draw takes place in Geneva at 4pm (BST) on Thursday.
After having two finalists in 2018-19 in Liverpool and Tottenham, Premier League clubs faltered in last season’s competition with Manchester City going the furthest despite losing to Lyon in the quarter-finals.
Although it was a poor campaign for English clubs, last season’s top four – Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea – are all in the top two pots.
Liverpool are in Pot One courtesy of winning the Premier League while Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United are all in Pot Two.
Champions League group stage pots
Pot One: Bayern Munich, Juventus, Liverpool, Paris Saint-Germain, Porto, Real Madrid, Sevilla, Zenit Saint Petersburg
Pot Two: Atletico Madrid, Ajax, Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United, Shakhtar Donetsk
Pot Three: Atalanta, Dynamo Kiev, Inter Milan, Lazio, Olympiakos, RB Leipzig
Pot Four: Borussia Monchengladbach, Istanbul Basaksehir, Ferencvaros, Rennes, Slavia Prague/Midtjylland
*Teams left to be drawn: Club Brugge, Krasnodar/PAOK, Lokomotiv Moscow, Marseille, Red Bull Salzburg/Maccabi Tel Aviv
Here are the best and worst case scenarios for the four Premier League clubs ahead of the draw:
Liverpool
Best case: Shakhtar Donetsk, Olympiakos, Ferencvaros
Liverpool, theoretically at least, should benefit from being in Pot One given they will avoid last season’s winners Bayern Munich, as well as fellow heavyweights Juventus, PSG and Real Madrid.
There are still plenty of good teams in the competition, of course, but Shakhtar Donetsk are arguably the weakest team in Pot Two, largely due to the fact that the error-prone 36-year-old Andriy Pyatov is still somehow in goal.
Avoiding the three Serie A sides and 2019-20 semi-finalists RB Leipzig would be preferable in Pot Three, while Ferencvaros – in the group stage for the first time since 1995 – appear the weakest team in Pot Four.
Worst case: Barcelona, Inter Milan, Borussia Monchengladbach
Barcelona might have exited last season’s Champions League in humiliating fashion, but they still have the world’s best player Lionel Messi – despite his best attempts to leave this summer.
Inter fell at the final hurdle in the Europa League but have retained the services of Antonio Conte as manager and strengthened impressively in the close season with Achraf Hakimi the headline arrival from Real Madrid.
Borussia Monchengladbach haven’t spent much but, importantly, they have retained the services of the highly-rated duo Denis Zakaria and Marcus Thuram, while head coach Marco Rose is also well regarded.
Chelsea/Man City/Man Utd
Best case: Zenit St Petersburg, Dynamo Kiev, Ferencvaros
Strangely given their limited impact on the continental stage, Russian Premier League winners still go straight into Pot One and, despite signing Dejan Lovren, Zenit St Petersburg still seem the weakest team in the top eight.
Since the turn of the century, Dynamo Kiev have slipped behind Shakhtar Donetsk as Ukrainian football’s leading club and their lack of spending this summer suggests they could struggle to get out of the group stage.
As alluded to above, Hungarian champions Ferencvaros may find things difficult in their first appearance in European football’s top competition in a quarter of a century.
Worst case: Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, Rennes
Despite their shock 4-1 defeat to Hoffenheim this weekend, Bayern Munich are the team in Pot One that every club will want to avoid given the impressive manner in which they won the competition last month.
Inter’s strikeforce of Romelu Lukaku and Lautaro Martinez, supported by a revitalised Alexis Sanchez, can trouble anybody, while no Premier League club will fancy coming up against Atalanta either.
Meanwhile, Rennes could cause a surprise after storming to the top of Ligue 1 after five rounds of matches. Rennes might have sold Edouard Mendy for £22m to Chelsea, but they have reinvested those funds elsewhere.
Group stage schedule:
- Matchday 1: October 20-21
- Matchday 2: October 27-28
- Matchday 3: November 3-4
- Matchday 4: November 24-25
- Matchday 5: December 1-2
- Matchday 6: December 8-9
Follow i sport on Facebook for more Premier League news, interviews and features
More on the Premier League
- Sam Johnstone tells Sam Cunningham why he is finally ready to become a Premier League star
- The making of Timo Werner: How his father’s motivation and ‘scary’ power meant Chelsea star was always destined for the top
- Eric Dier reveals why he stormed into the stands to confront an abusive Spurs fan
- Daniel Storey: How to lose supporters and alienate Messi, by FC Barcelona
- An apology to Man Utd’s Jesse Lingard
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3ihkdgW
Fantasy Premier League tips: The 5 best players to sign for your FPL team in Gameweek 4
The five most captained Fantasy Premier League players failed to score a single goal between them in Gameweek 3. It was one of those weeks.
Kevin De Bruyne returned two points as did Timo Werner, while Son Heung-min registered just a solitary point after being forced off through injury at half-time.
Only Mohamed Salah and Harry Kane provided any attacking returns of the highly-fancied quintet, but those who captained them would have hoped for more than five points apiece in home games against Arsenal and Newcastle respectively.
It was an odd weekend overall with a number of surprising results taking place. Nobody could have foreseen Manchester City losing 5-2 at home to Leicester, for instance, while West Ham’s 4-0 thrashing of Wolves was equally bewildering.
As for i‘s picks, we had returns from Dominic Calvert-Lewin (six points) and Kane (five), while three of our five tips in Gameweek 2 belatedly delivered impressive hauls: Jamie Vardy (17), Bruno Fernandes (12) and Stuart Dallas (six).
After the absurdity of Gameweek 3 it is almost impossible to predict what is going to happen in Gameweek 4 but here are the five players we expect to perform well over the weekend.
Harvey Barnes (Leicester City), MID, £7.0m
Only three players have fired off more shots inside the penalty area than Harvey Barnes’ 10 in the opening three gameweeks – Mohamed Salah (13), Dominic Calvert-Lewin (12) and Richarlison (11).
The 22-year-old has looked extremely lively in each of Leicester‘s three Premier League matches so far and has been unfortunate to not register more returns than his goal and assist against Burnley in Gameweek 2.
While he blanked against City, Barnes played the ball through to Vardy for both of the penalties that he won and subsequently converted and with home fixtures against West Ham and Aston Villa to come, he offers goal and assist potential.
Lucas Digne (Everton), DEF, £6.1m
In beating Crystal Palace at the weekend, Everton ensured that they have won their first three Premier League fixtures of the season for the first time since the 1993-94 campaign.
Given their form, it is no surprise to see FPL managers target Calvert-Lewin, Richarlison and James Rodriguez over the past few weeks, but Lucas Digne is another excellent option at the other end of the pitch.
The Frenchman earned his second FPL assist this season in rather fortuitous circumstances when his header onto Joel Ward’s arm led to a penalty but his regular forays into forward areas boosts his FPL appeal.
Danny Ings (Southampton), FWD, £8.4m
After missing out on last season’s Golden Boot by a solitary goal to Vardy, Danny Ings seems hellbent on trying to win it this term, registering three goals in as many games at the start of 2020-21.
Ings was the match-winner in Southampton‘s 1-0 victory over Burnley on Saturday, combining with strike partner Che Adams for the only goal of the game in the fifth minute with a predatory finish.
The 28-year-old, who has seemingly ousted James Ward-Prowse from penalty-taking duty this season too, faces a West Brom defence that has allowed more shots on their goal (52) than any other Premier League team.
Riyad Mahrez (Man City), MID, £8.4m
Plenty of FPL managers will be scrambling around looking for a Son Heung-min replacement with Tottenham’s South Korean set for a spell on the sidelines with a hamstring injury.
Perhaps the pick of the options at a similar price point to Son – who is valued at £9.0m – is Riyad Mahrez who was the only Manchester City player to emerge from Sunday’s humiliation against Leicester with any credit.
The Algerian scored a superb goal – on his weaker right foot – registered the assist for Nathan Ake and earned 12 points overall. With Sergio Aguero, Gabriel Jesus and Bernardo Silva all injured, Mahrez’s starting place is more secure than it has been in previous seasons.
Raul Jimenez (Wolves), FWD, £8.6m
Raul Jimenez scored an own goal against West Ham, meaning he recorded zero points despite playing the entire game. But crucially, his next game is against Fulham at Molineux.
Wolves delivered unquestionably their worst performance in the Premier League since achieving promotion in 2018 at the London Stadium but in Fulham, Nuno Espirito Santo’s side have the perfect opponent to bounce back against.
The Cottagers have conceded three or more goals in all of their Premier League matches so far letting in 10 overall and Jimenez looks set to become the latest player to profit from their porous backline.
i readers league update
This season, we will be providing regular updates on the best weekly scores from the i sport readers league – which can be joined here if you have not already.
As was the case last week, Brian Spina and his team “Brainpains” remains top of the i readers league on a total of 256 points despite suffering his worst gameweek of the season.
Brian did manage some captain returns by handing the armband to Harry Kane, while Bruno Fernandes’ 12 point haul against Brighton also boosted his score.
Want more tips? Sign up for i’s fantasy football newsletter to receive these tips and an exclusive bonus tip in your email inbox before every gameweek.
How to get involved with i…
Join i’s league on the official Fantasy Premier League game to pit your wits against fellow readers – and our hapless sports desk team. Code: gepj18
Join our Facebook group where you can swap tricks and tactics with hundreds of other i readers throughout the campaign.
More FPL tips
- FPL champion Joshua Bull reveals his secrets to success
- The main penalty taker for every Premier League club
- 50 funny fantasy football team names
How the chips work
- How the ‘Bench Boost’ works – and when best to use it
- How the ‘Free Hit’ works – and when best to use it
- How the ‘Triple Captain’ works – and when best to use it
- How the ‘Wildcard’ works – and when best to use it
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How Jamie Carragher used his head to keep the world’s best strikers quiet
It was an unfair contest. The fastest forwards in the world – Thierry Henry, Cristiano Ronaldo and Andriy Shevchenko – against a central defender who lumbered around at speeds typical of park footballers. He did not even have the usual benefit of being tall for his position.
Often, those strikers he faced were taller, stronger and faster. Originally, Jamie Carragher wanted to be a striker, too. Carragher played as a centre-forward for much of his youth, until the age of 16 or 17.
But as he got nearer the professional game, he was gradually moved back – first to central midfield, and then to centre-back – into positions in which his lack of pace wouldn’t be so obvious.
“I wasn’t someone who was blessed with amazing physical attributes in terms of pace, height, strength. I was just average – on all of those, really,” he said. Only, Carragher’s speed came in another way: not from his limbs but from his mind. It did not matter if his opponents were taller, stronger and faster, for, on the football pitch, he was smarter. They could outrun him, but not out-think him. To Carragher, a fast brain was worth more than fast feet. “I had to be focused, always concentrating, and the reason I played at the top level is I had a really good understanding of the game. My reading of the game was very important, and that was something I had as a kid – an understanding of football.”
‘I was probably top level in terms of understanding the game, and would back myself against anyone of my era on this aspect’
Other defenders could use their pace if they got into the wrong position; Carragher had no such insurance policy. But Carragher’s brain turned a footballing everyman into a superman. He enjoyed a phenomenal 17-year career at his boyhood club, Liverpool, including winning the Champions League in 2005. In 2013, Liverpool fans voted Carragher the sixth best player in the club’s history.
Carragher’s career was a testament to how the power of the mind – the ability to understand the sport deeply and use this knowledge to anticipate or “read the game” – can help players make up for relative deficiencies in the physical side of their game. In most sports, the correlation between who are the best pure athletes and those who are the best at their sports is far from perfect. The best players are not always the best athletes; but the best players nearly always have the best minds. Carragher attests to how a player’s mind can elevate them from being an ordinary athlete to an extraordinary player on the pitch. “One of my biggest strengths as a player was reading the game,” Carragher said. “I was probably top level in terms of understanding the game, and would back myself against anyone of my era on this aspect, being able to read situations and understand what was going to happen in the game. And that was probably my biggest strength. I could see danger.”
The science of how Carragher could see that danger lies in how elite central defenders tend to look at specific areas on the field for less time and scan the overall field more broadly, taking in more information over a certain time span than less proficient players. They take visual snapshots of play to create a picture in their mind of what is happening around them. “With experience you don’t think – it’s almost like driving a car,” Carragher recalled. “When the ball’s in a certain position you know where you need to be.”
Carragher’s brain was so supple that he could think not just what was the best thing for him to do to neuter the world’s best forwards but what his teammates should do too. Effectively, he was many football brains in one. “It’s sort of autopilot. I was the organiser for the team, and I wouldn’t just be thinking about my own position, I’d be thinking about everyone else’s on the pitch. And I think that comes with experience, maturity. When you’re in the position I was in, you’re organising the team. You’re not just watching the ball, you’re seeing where everyone else is, you’re turning your head, seeing the bigger picture. I mean the top attacking players as well – they are always checking where defenders are. All top players have a great awareness of what is going on around them. But certainly as a defender you have to be aware – you’re trying to organise other people and not just yourself. You have to be well aware what is around you.
“When you become a senior player, in some ways you take your own performance for granted, and you’re actually more worried about what other people are doing. At times you’d be sitting at the back and thinking about whether the people in front of you are in the right position, whether one of the strikers is dropping back on the holding midfield player, where is your full back. So, you’re actually organising a lot of people, and if you do that – well, it saves you a lot of work.”
When the ball is not close to the penalty area, skilled defenders scan the field widely, but as the ball gets nearer the penalty area, they change the way they use their eyes. Faced with a player running directly towards them on the edge of the penalty area, skilled defenders fixate more on what is directly in front of them – the player with the ball – moving the head and eyes less frequently, and relying more on peripheral vision to monitor the positions and movements of other players off the ball. “When you can understand who you’re playing against, what runs the strikers need to make, you’re just trying to be one step ahead of them all the time,” Carragher explained. “Being a centre-back, I think reading the game and understanding it is probably the most important attribute you need in that position, because it’s not a lot of running or a lot of sprinting. It’s just being in the right place at the right time.”
From Carragher to Lucy Bronze and Virgil van Dijk, the best defenders know exactly where to look – fixating on the lower body of the player in possession of the ball, using the ball as a visual pivot point, while using peripheral vision to monitor for opponents’ movements. They can fuse this information with auditory cues – calls made by teammates or opponents, or hearing players advancing towards them from outside their central vision – to anticipate what will happen next and the best position to be in either to make a tackle, intercept a pass or simply close down the opponent with the ball. The best players use a myriad of information – combining their visual and auditory senses with broader game awareness and specific knowledge of opponents and the match situation. They are masters of multitasking. “You have to be aware of everything,” Carragher said.
As well as using the eyes more effectively to pick up relevant information, leading players are better at predicting what will happen next than weaker players. A study involved players watching footage of different match situations such as a goalkeeper throwing the ball out to a full back, and then asking the player to predict what the full back would attempt to do next.
Players highlighted the options available to the player with the ball and ranked these based on the level of threat posed to their team. Top players were better at identifying relevant options and ranking the likelihood of these occurring. The very best players develop a huge library of sport-specific patterns of play in their memory – based on the general situation, the match context and specific knowledge of their opponents – to subconsciously assign probabilities to the likelihood of each action occurring. This narrows down how players search for relevant information with their eyes, and the process of confirming or rejecting their initial prediction, enabling them to anticipate what will happen next. “If it goes to Paul Scholes, the first thing he’s going to do is look for a ball in behind you. He’s got the killer pass,” Carragher explained. “So, as soon as he gets it you need to be alive to that possibility. If it’s a winger – does he like to dribble or does he like to cross? The ball goes to [David] Beckham, and you’re the centre-back, you’ve got to be ready for the cross straight away. If it goes to [Ryan] Giggs, well it might be a little bit different. He’s going to run at his full back.”
‘When you become a senior player you’re actually more worried about what other people are doing… if you do that – well, it saves you a lot of work’
So Carragher would adjust his position depending on which winger got the ball; if two players got the ball in an identical position, one would likely act very differently than the other. This knowledge meant that as Beckham whipped in a cross, Carragher would be waiting and expecting the ball. His legs got him there; his brain made his legs get there. It is commonly thought that even central defenders with the brainpower of Carragher need a centre-back partner with more pace. Yet the most successful partnership of Carragher’s career was with Sami Hyypia, who was even slower. The two played together for a decade, making up Liverpool’s first choice central defensive pairing for several seasons, including in the Champions League victory in 2005. “It wasn’t the paciest of partnerships, but we both read the game very well,” Carragher explained. The two had contrasting strengths, helping them to be more than the sum of their parts.
“I wasn’t the biggest centre-back. I’m just under six foot. He was six foot four, so he was the aerial lynchpin in some ways, and he was the dominant player – certainly defending set pieces.
“I was probably more aggressive on the front foot than Sami. He was better in the air. But I think the main thing was just the understanding of the game that we both had, and that’s why we probably didn’t get done for pace as often as maybe people thought we may have done.”
This partnership could easily be caricatured as a pairing of two tortoises. But to their opponents who could outrun them but not out-think them – and so were denied a chance to make their far greater pace tell – scoring against Carragher and Hyypia could seem impossible. For doing so meant trying to outsmart them. “I’d rather have had a really good football brain than great pace, than have it the other way around,” Carragher reflected. “You know, the football brain is still the most important thing, even though the game is getting more athletic each season.”
The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made by Mark Williams and Tim Wigmore is out now, published by John Murray Press. RRP £20.
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How Gareth Bale’s wages compare to his new Tottenham teammates – even as Real Madrid pay half
There is a joke going around in north London that when the Tottenham medics arrive to sign off Gareth Bale’s loan move from Real Madrid, they might want to check Daniel Levy’s head as well.
The Spurs chairman has spent much of the summer stressing the effect Covid-19 has had on his club’s finances.
Even Jose Mourinho meekly conceded that there would be no jaw-dropping signings, no “Galacticos” swanning through the doors of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Then along came a former Lilywhite hero, whose relationship with Zinedine Zidane has broken down so badly that Real Madrid are willing to pay up to 50 per cent of his £600,000-a-week wages.
Bale to overtake Kane as Tottenham’s highest earner
That leaves Tottenham with a bill of around £300,000-a-week, or roughly £15.6m a year.
When you consider that Levy has not had to fork out for a loan fee either, it looks an exceptional bit of business even for a player who turned 31 this summer.
There is no way around Bale’s wages. Even his former suitors in the Chinese Super League baulked when a move was discussed last summer.
The Welshman is currently the Spanish champions’ highest earner, no doubt another reason they are so keen to get him off the books.
Indeed, there are only seven players on the planet who earn more.
Those kind of figures are staggering anywhere in the world of football, but particularly at Tottenham.
As recently as 2016, Levy made it a policy that no player would smash the £100,000-a-week ceiling. Kane was the first to do so and doubled his salary when he signed another new contract in 2018.
Tottenham’s top 10 earners’ weekly wages:
- Harry Kane – £200,000
- Tanguy Ndombele – £200,000
- Toby Alderweireld – £150,000
- Son Heung-min – £140,000
- Dele Alli – £100,000
- Hugo Lloris – £100,000
- Erik Lamela – £80,000
- Lucas Moura – £80,000
- Moussa Sissoko – £80,000
- Serge Aurier – £70,000
Tanguy Ndombele is the only other player who earns close to what Bale will be paid by Tottenham alone.
Toby Alderweireld, Son Heung-min, Dele Alli and Hugo Lloris are the other members of a select clique who have breached the six-figure weekly sum.
Alderweireld only joined his teammates in that bracket when he signed a new contract at the beginning of this year.
It was once feared that dismantling Spurs’ carefully thought-out wage structure would lead to discontent in the dressing room.
Since then, there have already been rumblings of discontent. From Danny Rose, mainly, but also from the likes of Kane and Hugo Lloris who have lamented an apparent lack of ambition.
With a helping hand from Florentino Perez, those criticisms will be quietened for now.
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Government backs FA’s new diversity code set to shake up English football
Discussions have taken place about having a launch event for the Football Association’s Leadership and Diversity code at Downing Street, i can reveal.
The FA hopes the code, to be launched in October during Black History Month, will be industry leading in diversifying the game and has received government backing.
Paul Elliott, who was Chelsea and the Premier League’s first black captain and is now chairman of the FA’s Inclusion Advisory Board, has led the creation of the ground-breaking regulations and spent three months consulting with figures across football.
The consultation process has included interviews with players such as Harry Kane, Tyrone Mings, Jordan Henderson, Nikita Parris, Leah Williamson, Lucy Bronze, Troy Deeney and Wes Morgan, and executives and officials at Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Tottenham, Crystal Palace and Brighton.
i revealed last month that early drafts of the code were set to propose a bold shakeup of English football to improve the lack of diversity at clubs in non-playing roles, including that every black, Asian or minority ethnic candidate who applies for a job in an off-field role is offered an interview.
Diversity targets will also be set and monitored so that there are a percentage of employees at executive, senior management and middle management levels and in coaching positions that sufficiently represents the diversity of playing squads. A third of players are from BAME backgrounds.
The code, inspired by the death of George Floyd and the mass support from English football of the subsequent worldwide Black Lives Matter protests, will be voluntary, but there is strong belief that it will be widely adopted across the game.
A launch event at Downing Street has been mooted, although it remains dependent on coronavirus restrictions.
“We have developed a range of principles which will see clubs commit to being leaders in football diversity,” Elliott announced on Tuesday. “They include meaningful commitments with targets for clubs, with considerations across senior leadership, coaching and senior support staff, developing talent, recruitment, internal culture and reporting.”
Ellliott also revealed that a nine-month review to diversify the FA Board, one of the FA’s key decision-making bodies, has begun.
“Making the FA Board more diverse is something that both [chief executive] Mark Bullingham and [chairman] Greg Clarke are fully supportive of, but it’s not something either they or the Board have the power to change by themselves overnight,” Elliott said. “The composition of the FA Board is enshrined in the FA’s Articles of Association, a legal document that can only be changed by shareholders in accordance with company law.”
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Handball rule and VAR have ‘put fear in the minds of ever Premier League defender’
Who’d be a defender? It seems a pertinent question to ask amid the rush of goals and penalties in the opening three rounds of the Premier League season, which have yielded a goals-per-game ratio of 3.68. Like a bowler in T20 cricket, today’s defenders appear cast as stooge in football’s top-flight pantomime and defenders from past eras are not short on sympathy – starting with Sean Dyche, the Burnley manager and one-time centre-back, who says rules changes have made the job of defending “a lot harder”.
“I get the idea they’re trying to promote attacking play and therefore make it harder on defenders in theory [giving] more goals, excitement, but there’s got to be a fairness to it,” he told i on Tuesday. “You’ve got to give a defender a chance to defend.”
The amendment to the handball rule which leaves Dyche “telling a player you can’t use your arms for balance in the box” is just the latest challenging addition to the job spec according to Gary O’Reilly, a centre-back with Tottenham Hotspur, Brighton & Hove Albion and Crystal Palace in the 1980s. He believes changes to the Laws of the Game have “put fear in the minds of every defender”.
As O’Reilly recalls, it was Sepp Blatter, as Fifa general secretary, who set football on its current path after the 1990 World Cup delivered the competition’s lowest goals-per-game ratio of 2.21. “You wanted players to entertain and excite and they couldn’t because the big bruiser at the back had hacked their ankles again. Fifa couldn’t get bigger goals so built the bias towards the striker.
“When was the last time you saw a player lunge at an opponent in the box? It has gone. It was a lunge-fest back in the 80s, you just dived straight in and if you got the ball it was a bonus. Now it’s about containment.”
David Weir, the former Everton, Rangers and Scotland defender, sees more defensive errors as inevitable given the current high-risk trend for building up from the back in the face of high-pressing forwards.
“I don’t think there’s a lack of top centre-backs, I just think the game is heavily weighted against them in terms of the rules, the nature of how they’re coached and what’s expected of them,” Weir remarks. “The nature of the game now probably makes them take more risks and puts them in positions at times where they can look awkward and make mistakes.”
For all the injustices already brought by the tweaked handball rule, Weir’s bigger bugbear is the constant fouls awarded to players simulating contact. Like O’Reilly, he would like to see forwards punished. “I get frustrated with players falling over without contact and referees giving fouls and free-kicks. The game stops too much. It’s becoming more and more a game of set-pieces and corners.”
The key for the defender today is anticipation. “You have to get there first,” explains Weir. “You have to be in a decent position to intercept. Athleticism has become really important because of that in terms of [having] the speed and athleticism to get into areas to deal with things.”
Doubly important now that less priority is given to defensive work without the ball in training. “[Being] without the ball and working as a unit and being a defender first and foremost, at the top level especially, is less coached.”
Another view comes from Michael Ball, the former Everton, Rangers, PSV Eindhoven and Manchester City left-back, who believes defenders have to be “cuter and more clever”. Twenty years ago, if he mistimed a slide challenge, “the referee would say ‘unlucky’ and you might get a booking at a push.” Today, he suggests, “if I’m against a winger you have to probably just man-mark them. That’s the only way you’re not going to give the ref a decision.”
On this point, Dyche adds: “We’ve got to be careful because it’ll end up like shadow play – you can’t more or less touch a centre-forward now because it’s a foul, the referee gives it immediately lots of times so it becomes shadow defending. I think tactical shape and understanding from defenders will be more and more important because going one v one with a player is just more and more difficult.”
There is one area where defenders can help themselves according to O’Reilly. “What’s going out of the game now in defending is verbal communication,” he says, citing conversations with Premier League coaches about the difficulty of “getting players to talk to each other”. Ball concurs: “There was always the big strong centre-half who’d go and attack any header from a goal-kick and put his body on the line and someone cuter alongside him to sweep up. There are probably better players out there now who haven’t got that leadership alongside them to help.”
Follow i sport on Facebook for more Premier League news, interviews and features
More on the Premier League
- Sam Johnstone tells Sam Cunningham why he is finally ready to become a Premier League star
- The making of Timo Werner: How his father’s motivation and ‘scary’ power meant Chelsea star was always destined for the top
- Eric Dier reveals why he stormed into the stands to confront an abusive Spurs fan
- Daniel Storey: How to lose supporters and alienate Messi, by FC Barcelona
- An apology to Man Utd’s Jesse Lingard
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Tottenham’s new signing Sergio Reguilon recovers from dodgy start to inspire victory over Chelsea
Reluctantly perhaps, Tottenham Hotspur find themselves in the last eight. This was the trophy with which Jose Mourinho opened his English account. He has won it four times and may yet be grateful for a fifth.
A contest that neither team seemed keen to win inevitably went to penalties. Chelsea’s dominant first half petered out to bring Tottenham into the piece. Timo Werner’s first goal for Chelsea was answered late by Erik Lamela’s 35th for Spurs. And so to spot-kicks and a chance for Chelsea’s new goalkeeper, Édouard Mendy, to be a hero.
Mendy went the wrong way for Tottenham’s first four kicks, all scored in the bottom left corner. For their fifth, Harry Kane went right, Mendy went left. He would not be required a sixth time after Mason Mount missed the target with Chelsea’s fifth to send Spurs into the quarter-finals.
Nine changes for Spurs, eight for Chelsea but neither selection felt like a second string. Dele Alli’s continued absence drew a typically barbed response from Mourinho, who did not want to talk about the player everyone wants to talk about. “Are you going to ask Frank [Lampard], no Thiago Silva?” the coach said. “Is it because of the mistake he made or another reason?” Mourinho can dissemble all he likes, his silence merely fuels speculation about the nature of Alli’s continued absence.
Lampard treats interviews like a visit to the dentist without anaesthetic. Questions draw a furrowed brow atop a pinched face. Any who saw significance in the debut of Mendy were mistaken, according to Lampard. He is a goalkeeper, part of the squad, fit and selected. Nothing more than that. Righto, Frank.
This was a big night for Callum Hudson-Odoi, who seems to carry the can for many of the manager’s frustrations. Hudson-Odoi is an old-fashioned winger who likes to drop a shoulder and take on his man. And thank goodness for that. So much of today’s patterns on perfect surfaces see the ball go back and forth without an obvious purpose; full-back to wide midfielder to full-back to centre-half – and repeat.
Hudson-Odoi was up against Spurs’ highly-regarded debutant from Real Madrid, Sergio Reguilon. The English experience did not begin well for the Spaniard, mugged by Hudson-Odoi in midfield and then rinsed by his countryman Cesar Azpilicueta as he tried to make amends. His humiliation was complete when Werner latched on to Azpilicueta’s cross to lash home.
Reguilon is clearly capable, particularly in advanced positions. He levelled Olivier Giroud with a legitimate intervention late in the first half to substantiate his defensive credentials and, unlike that other flying left back who made a dodgy start to his career in English football, Patrice Evra, made it out for the second half.
The sight of Kane slipping on the shin pads towards the end of a half in which Spurs had only 24 per cent possession told of the limited threat posed by the hosts. Beyond Kurt Zouma’s tackle to deny Gedson Fernandes and Mendy’s save to keep out Lamela, Chelsea were shelling peas.
Perhaps Spurs were passing on the bye they received against Leyton Orient in the last round to Chelsea in this. This Covid-squeezed season will see Spurs’ immersion continue against Maccabi Haifa in the final qualifying round of the Europa League tomorrow before a trip to Old Trafford on Sunday completes a run of eight games in 21 days. In that context a trophy already light on bling loses even more shine. Or maybe Spurs were just playing possum.
With 20 minutes left Mourinho sent for Kane. Chelsea had fallen back alarmingly, giving Spurs encouragement. Lampard answered Mourinho’s move with the introduction of N’Golo Kanté. Spurs needed a goal, Chelsea needed Kanté’s energy.
The temporary disappearance of Eric Dier with 12 minutes remaining, followed down the tunnel by a puzzled Mourinho, left a gap that Hudson-Odoi almost filled, rifling his shot over the bar. Tucking his shirt into his shorts as he dashed back towards the pitch hinted at what might have been Dier’s difficulty. Back to a full complement, Spurs continued to press, finally gaining a reward seven minutes from time when Lamela tapped home Reguilon’s cross.
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Show HN: Live dashboard of every email Trump and Biden are sending
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Premier League clubs defy Covid-19 downturn by running up huge £700m summer transfer deficit
Premier League clubs have defied the financial slowdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic by running a huge deficit in the transfer market compared to their European rivals.
An analysis of deals struck during the summer months by clubs in the English top flight shows that they will account for 99 per cent of the transfer deficit run up across the five major European leagues. The Premier League’s members spent £689m more on new players, among them the £71m paid to Bayer Leverkusen by Chelsea for the services of winger Kai Havertz, than they made from selling members of their existing squads.
The figures mean that while clubs in the top flight leagues of Spain, Italy, France and Germany took the opportunity rein in their spending, their English counterparts absorbed the massive drop in income from gate receipts and other revenues such as merchandise to continue their pre-pandemic spending habits. Indeed, the Premier League’s 2020 summer deficit is larger than the £627m racked up in 2019.
The analysis by Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) shows the top English clubs continued a long-term trend which has seen them spend roughly double what they earn from buying and selling players for each of the last 19 years. Across the 2019-2020 season as a whole, the Premier League spent a record £1.6bn on new players, resulting in a deficit of £781m. The gap was more than double the next highest deficit of £349m run up by Italy’s Serie A.
‘Greatest financial shock in generations’
The study’s authors said that while overall transfer spending across Europe was down by almost half during the last 12 months, English clubs were determined to buck the trend. Pablo Shah, senior economist at CEBR, said: “The pandemic represents the greatest financial shock to the football industry in generations, with ticket sales out overnight and TV and sponsorship revenues set to come under sustained pressure amid the global economic downturn. However, even the jolt delivered by the pandemic has not been enough to eliminate the huge structural transfer deficits operated by Premier League clubs.”
The spending records of English sides, with Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United and Wolves among the Premier League clubs splashing out on big name signings this summer, are in stark contrast to those on the Continent. Spain’s La Liga and the German Bundesliga are on course to record small deficits of £60m and £26m respectively, while France’s Ligue 1 and the Italian Serie A are expected to register surpluses.
Largesse
With their vast income from global television rights, the Premier League clubs have hitherto been able to balance their largesse on the transfer market against their substantial income. Observers are now asking if this can be sustained.
Mike Bohan, co-founder of football betting platform Football Index, which commissioned the survey, said: “The Premier League has run up the biggest trade deficit in world football transfers for many years now, but the overall income it generates from the likes of ticket sales and broadcasting rights has far outweighed the cost of imported players.
“However, with the emergence of Covid-19 set to have a huge impact on the finances in football, new questions have been asked around how the top clubs in Europe will fare.”
Follow i sport on Facebook for more Premier League news, interviews and features
More on the Premier League
- Sam Johnstone tells Sam Cunningham why he is finally ready to become a Premier League star
- The making of Timo Werner: How his father’s motivation and ‘scary’ power meant Chelsea star was always destined for the top
- Eric Dier reveals why he stormed into the stands to confront an abusive Spurs fan
- Daniel Storey: How to lose supporters and alienate Messi, by FC Barcelona
- An apology to Man Utd’s Jesse Lingard
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Show HN: Lightweight runtime types for vanilla JavaScript
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Want to use your wildcard for FPL Gameweek 4? Read these fantasy football tips and strategy for the weeks ahead first
Fantasy Premier League can be an unforgiving place at the best of times but the gameweek that has just been and gone was particularly gruesome for most managers (unless you had Leicester’s hat-trick hero Jamie Vardy, of course).
The average score across the seven million or so players in Gameweek 3 was just 43, a 16 point drop from the previous weekend when a record 44 Premier League goals were scored.
Even in a league which is frequently championed for its unpredictability and competitiveness, some of this weekend’s matches in the Premier League had to be seen to be believed.
After receiving a pummelling from Brighton, Manchester United inexplicably won the game with a penalty scored after full-time; Chelsea went 3-0 down to a West Brom side that looks destined for the drop before salvaging a 3-3 draw; Manchester City, Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City at that, lost 5-2 at home to Leicester City; previously winless West Ham whose manager David Moyes was at home self-isolating, thrashed Wolves 4-0. Bonkers.
In the opening weeks of the campaign, it is clear that some teams are struggling with the congested fixture list which was preceded by a shortened, imperfect pre-season, more than others. A surge in the number of penalties being awarded, largely due to the introduction of a controversial new interpretation of the handball rule, has only added to the chaos.
It is unsurprising, given what has gone on already this season, that many FPL managers are hitting the Wildcard panic button.
For newcomers to the game, a Wildcard allows a manager to make unlimited transfers to their team without having to sacrifice any points to do so, the catch being it can only be played twice in a season: once in the first half of the season – or up until GW16 this year – and once in the second half – GW17-GW38.
There is no exact science when it comes to playing the Wildcard. Ultimately, it is up to each individual manager to decide when to pull the trigger for the benefit of their team.
However, playing it this early is undoubtedly a risk with teams still getting up to speed after a truncated pre-season and some clubs looking to complete major transfers before the deadline shuts on Monday 5 October while Gameweek 4 is still going on.
It is extremely tempting to use the Wildcard immediately after a disastrous gameweek without considering the bigger picture. The players you bought in Gameweek 1 haven’t necessarily turned into bad players overnight, while those you’re looking to bring in after one good performance may not be able to sustain that form.
Son Heung-min is the perfect example of how FPL managers can be punished for making rash decisions. After returning two points in Tottenham’s 1-0 defeat to Everton in Gameweek 1, Son was the most-sold player in the game ahead of Gameweek 2, even dropping from £9.0m to £8.9m in price.
Against Southampton in Gameweek 2, he scored a career-best four goals and amassed 24 points in total as Spurs won 5-2. Suddenly, those who sold Son were scrambling to get him back in for Gameweek 3 against Newcastle and despite hitting the post and bar in the first half, he went off injured at half-time, registering just one point.
Although taking an aggressive approach to transfers can pay immediate dividends in FPL, sometimes a more patient approach will yield longer-term benefits.
Gameweek 4 is also the final one before the latest round of international fixtures meaning there will be a two-week hiatus from Premier League football and by extension, FPL. Hitting the Wildcard button before an international break is always a risky strategy given players could return to their clubs with niggling injuries.
It is even riskier at this juncture of the season given the additional variable of the transfer window which could see major players move from one Premier League club to another or big stars being brought in from elsewhere to take their places.
Conversely, playing the Wildcard after international fixtures have been played and the transfer window has shut, looks a far more viable strategy.
By Gameweek 5, which takes place from Saturday 17 October, teams should theoretically be more settled than they are now. There will also be more data available to inform your transfer decisions and, who knows, highly-fancied yet underperforming teams like Manchester City and Manchester United might have found their groove by then.
Deconstructing your team after a ludicrous gameweek like the one that has just happened may seem like an obvious solution now but, in hindsight, it could prove to be a poor decision.
This season more than ever, it may be beneficial to hang onto your Wildcard a little while longer.
Want more tips? Sign up for i’s fantasy football newsletter to receive these tips and an exclusive bonus tip in your email inbox before every gameweek.
How to get involved with i…
Join i’s league on the official Fantasy Premier League game to pit your wits against fellow readers – and our hapless sports desk team. Code: gepj18
Join our Facebook group where you can swap tricks and tactics with hundreds of other i readers throughout the campaign.
More FPL tips
- FPL champion Joshua Bull reveals his secrets to success
- The main penalty taker for every Premier League club
- 50 funny fantasy football team names
How the chips work
- How the ‘Bench Boost’ works – and when best to use it
- How the ‘Free Hit’ works – and when best to use it
- How the ‘Triple Captain’ works – and when best to use it
- How the ‘Wildcard’ works – and when best to use it
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Wildcard: How the Fantasy Premier League chip works – and when best to use it
When it comes to Fantasy Premier League chips, the Wildcard reigns supreme as the best of the bunch.
Not only does the Wildcard give FPL managers the chance to rip up their teams and start again, but it can also be used twice in a season, unlike its contemporaries Bench Boost, Free Hit and Triple Captain.
Following a topsy-turvy start to the 2020-21 Premier League season, many managers are contemplating playing their first Wildcard, if they haven’t done so already.
If you happen to be one of those managers with a twitchy finger, here is all you need to know about the most powerful chip in the game.
What is a Wildcard?
Managers get one free transfer to use per gameweek and can bank a transfer by not making any in one week in order to have two the following week.
If you feel that your team requires further surgery, though, any further transfers applied results in debilitating points hits at -4 intervals which are deducted from your gamewek total.
This is where the Wildcard comes in handy, as it enables FPL managers to make an unlimited number of transfers in one gameweek without it negatively affecting your gameweek score.
Unlike the Free Hit chip which allows managers to make unlimited transfers for a single gameweek before the team reverts back to what it was originally, transfers made on a Wildcard are permanent.
Something to keep in mind is that although you can chop and change your team as much as you like when using a Wildcard, you will lose any value gained in certain players if you transfer them out, even if you bring them back in again.
How do I use my Wildcard?
If you prefer to conduct your transfer business on the official FPL app on your phone, simply make your transfers and then press “Play Wildcard” at the bottom of the screen before hitting confirm.
On desktop, it is slightly different as the “Play Wildcard” function is above your team in the transfers page. Click on that and then tinker until your heart’s content.
When can I use my Wildcard?
As already alluded to, you get two bites of the cherry when it comes to the Wildcard.
You can use one in the first half of the season up until Gameweek 16 which falls on Monday 28 December.
The second Wildcard will be available to use from Gameweek 17 – scheduled to start on Saturday 2 January – right through until the end of the season in May.
When should I use my Wildcard?
This entirely depends on your team – if you’re happy with how your team are performing, then there’s little point in revamping your entire squad.
If, however, your squad is plagued by injuries or is simply not up to scratch that’s when your Wildcard will be at it’s most handy.
Ideally, players should implement their Wildcard at the start of a Gameweek in order to give yourself plenty of time to implement team changes. If used during an international break, managers have double the time to make their decisions.
Although it is tempting to pull the Wildcard trigger after a disastrous, low-scoring gameweek, it is probably worth holding onto it if your team is generally in good shape. Making rash, emotional decisions rarely works well in FPL.
Can I cancel my Wildcard?
No, once your Wildcard has been redeemed you are unable to reverse your decision, so make sure you are completely happy with your decision before proceeding!
Want more tips? Sign up for i’s fantasy football newsletter to receive these tips and an exclusive bonus tip in your email inbox before every gameweek.
How to get involved with i…
Join i’s league on the official Fantasy Premier League game to pit your wits against fellow readers – and our hapless sports desk team. Code: gepj18
Join our Facebook group where you can swap tricks and tactics with hundreds of other i readers throughout the campaign.
More FPL tips
- FPL champion Joshua Bull reveals his secrets to success
- The main penalty taker for every Premier League club
- 50 funny fantasy football team names
How the chips work
- How the ‘Bench Boost’ works – and when best to use it
- How the ‘Free Hit’ works – and when best to use it
- How the ‘Triple Captain’ works – and when best to use it
- How the ‘Wildcard’ works – and when best to use it
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Roy Keane had a point about Liverpool’s ‘sloppy’ defending against Arsenal – but they are not the only culprits
One of the more surprising publishing successes under lockdown is called Klopp Actually by the comedian Laura Lexx. It is a fictional account of a suburban life married to the Liverpool manager.
They go to Ikea in their “nice Volvo”; he reassures her that her failure to be invited on to Mock the Week is not a sign her career is in meltdown. He fusses over her on Valentine’s Day. Lexx would have been proud of Jurgen Klopp on Monday night as he stood up to a menacing Irishman and defended his boys against charges of “sloppiness”.
“This game was absolutely exceptional, nothing was sloppy, absolutely nothing,” he told Roy Keane in the wake of Liverpool’s 3-1 defeat of Arsenal. “We were from the first second dominant against a team 100 per cent in form.”
Keane, however, had a point. Liverpool were in almost complete control against Arsenal but a scuffed clearance cost them the opening goal and Alexandre Lacazette squandered two one-on-ones to square the game.
After the second miss, the Arsenal midfielder, Mohamed Elneny, fell to his knees in disbelief. There was a similar feel to Liverpool’s opening game at Anfield, the 4-3 victory over Leeds, in which Virgil van Dijk’s uncharacteristic unforced error allowed Patrick Bamford to score.
However, if there is defensive sloppiness at Liverpool, it is everywhere in the Premier League. Never in the modern game have so many top-flight defences been breached so often. This season there have been only two draws and one of those was Chelsea’s comeback from three goals down against West Bromwich Albion.
The four goals at Anfield on Monday night meant the opening 28 games have produced 103 goals at 3.67 per match. To put this into context, the record for a Premier League season is 2.82 per game in 2018-19.
This season’s goals-per-game ratio has only been bettered twice since the Second World War. The last occasion was Tottenham’s double-winning campaign of 1960-61 when most sides played a 2-3-5 formation and three teams ended the season with more than 100 goals. Chelsea scored 98 and had a negative goal difference.
Sixty years on and the combination of playing without a crowd and a very short pre-season has changed the dynamics of the game. Defences have not had time to be properly drilled and the silence has given the Premier League the feel of a pre-season tournament.
Olivier Giroud noted: “The pitch feels bigger with no fans in the stadium. It is crazy to say it because it’s the same pitch but it feels bigger because the bearings and the points of reference are not the same.” The Chelsea striker added you could now hear every instruction from the bench.
For some forwards, the absence of a crowd has led to the lessening of pressure. In his first two seasons at Leeds, Bamford drew criticism from the crowds at Elland Road for failing to convert his chances.
Last season in the Championship, he scored 16 goals from 121 shots, more than half of which were off target. This season, without a crowd and against better defences, he has scored three times from six attempts, more than half of which were on target.
It may be that his game has matured but when Bamford was criticised by his own fans, his team-mates would point out how well he played in training. A fabulous volley that Bamford scored on the practice pitches at Thorp Arch which saw Marcelo Bielsa running over to embrace him is evidence of that.
Put another way, Bamford performed better without an audience and without a crowd he is suddenly and maybe coincidentally playing with real confidence. In this strange season, he will not be the only one.
Follow i sport on Facebook for more Liverpool news, interviews and features
More on Liverpool
- The conversation that convinced Werner to reject Liverpool and sign for Chelsea
- Meet the £11.75m star signed by Liverpool to act as Robertson’s understudy
- ‘The Kop went wild!’: Remembering when Liverpool last won the title
- Barnes exclusive: ‘Could I have played in this Liverpool team? Great players fit into any era’
- How Liverpool’s homegrown champion normalised his own brilliance
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