The Boot Room - Draft Strategy #2: Risk and Reward

In my previous article, I outlined a few broad approaches to draft strategy. I now want to take a closer look at how you may weigh up potential picks, particularly those whose season may be hard to predict with any great confidence.

Do You Feel Lucky?

There is one question every drafting manager needs to ask themselves: How much risk am I prepared to take on with my players? To an extent every player comes with risk – anyone could pull a hamstring or incur the wrath of their manager in the first game of the season and end up on the treatment table or transfer list – but some have more than others.

Age

Age brings risks, at both ends of the scale. Every year there will be some young players who earn huge value with breakthrough seasons, but many others who fail to live up to their promise. Three years ago Aaron Lennon was in England's World Cup side in Germany, while Ashley Young was in the Watford academy. Last season, however, Young was a dominant force with 9 goals and 63 attempts created, while Lennon was a seventh round pick. Which way will the careers of Theo Walcott, Aaron Ramsey and Bolton's young recruit Fabrice Muamba progress this year?

At the other end of the spectrum are the golden oldies. David James and Jens Lehmann both began last season at the ripe old age of 37. James enjoyed an Indian Summer on the South coast and became the most valuable keeper in fantasy, while his German counterpart made some early errors and only managed 560 minutes on the pitch all season. Blackburn's Tuncay and the evergreen Ryan Giggs are old enough to share a bus pass between them, but both had top 100 seasons, while others of their generation, like Alan Stubbs and Giggs' one-time team-mate Dwight Yorke saw their careers peter out into fantasy insignificance.

Of the top 15 players on our Player Rater last season, only James and the prodigious Ronaldo (22) were outside the 23-27 age range at the start of the campaign. Some more seasoned defenders like Rio Ferdinand (then 28) and Martin Laursen (then 29) followed close behind, but the real fantasy difference-makers are generally in their mid 20s. However, there may be real value to be found by working out whether the likes of Mark Viduka and Sami Hyppia can defy the risk that comes with their ages and bring you some reward.

Health

Injuries to key players can cripple a fantasy team as much as a real one, so as well as age, medical history must be taken into consideration. Because the official rankings are based on last year's performance, those who proved brittle and saw reduced playing time will be automatically downgraded, but if you can stomach the risk, there may be handsome rewards to be gained from investing in the lowly-ranked likes of Gary Neville, Craig Bellamy and Gareth Bale – if they can return to full health... and stay there.

Not all injury lay-offs are equal. Arsenal's young striker Eduardo missed time following the horrific leg break, but that hardly indicates an injury-prone nature; rather this was simple misfortune. Gary 'Red Devil' Neville missed the entire season with an ankle injury sustained in early 2007, but now hopes to play first team football for two more years. Managers must decide whether to believe the United skipper, who could be a hugely valuable asset if able to play regularly in that mean defence, or to be put off by the series of setbacks which blighted his rehab throughout 2008.

At the other end of the spectrum, some players avoid the major lay-offs but are continually niggled by minor injuries. Aston Villa striker John Carew missed time in five separate spells last year but still racked up over 2,500 minutes on the pitch, while Wigan's Emile Heskey managed to break the 2,000 minute mark despite reporting to the physio on seven occasions.

Details that will help you evaluate the health prospects of your potential draftees can be found at the excellent Physio Room site.

Position

Not all playing positions carry equal risk. Goalkeepers and defenders earn points as part of a unit, so their performance is less dependent on the vagaries of form. In each of the past three seasons, the three tightest defences have been Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea's – followed each time by Arsenal, then Everton and then Portsmouth. Individuals in those teams may have better or worse seasons but, as long as they are in the team, they will have some value protection from their colleagues. The same may be true of strikers at clubs which always create plenty of attempts.

Scoring Category

Similarly, some scoring categories are more predictable than others. A top goalscorer is a key component of any side, yet these can be harder to pin down than you might at first think. Of last season's top 10 scorers, only Cristiano Ronaldo, Dimitar Berbatov and Aiyegbeni Yakubu made that list in 2006-07. Only Wayne Rooney and Darren Bent showed up in the top 10 in both 2006-07 and 2005-06.

On the other hand, the top performers in the save percentage list are relatively consistent. Last season, of keepers with more than 1,000 minutes played, the top stoppers were Edwin Van Der Sar, Petr Cech, the under-rated Steve Harper, Tim Howard and Manuel Almunia. The previous year all of these except Almunia, then without a first team spot, were in the top 6 for the category.
Liverpool's Jose Reina may not be amongst the top shot-stoppers, but his command of his area and of the solid defence in front of him (combined with his reliable health and status as the sole Liverpool player seemingly exempt from Rafa's rotation) have seen him win the Golden Gloves award for leading the league's goalkeepers in Clean Sheets for three consecutive years. Van Der Sar, Howard and Cech have all been top 5 both of the previous times too.

High performing goalkeepers then, while not exempt from risk (Reading's Marcus Hahnemann slipped from 78.5% saves and 13 clean sheets in 2006-07 to 69.6% and only 8 last year, for example), are a better investment for the risk-averse manager than their striking counterparts.

Perhaps the most reliable performers of all are the top chance-creators. Of the top 10 this season, only the youthful trio of Emmanuel Adebayor, Niko Kranjcar and Ashley Young weren't present the year before. Those who fell away did so because of injury (Frank Lampard) or by small margins (Dimitar Berbatov fell to 13th on this year's list). Of this year's crop, Ryan Giggs' impressive total will inevitably decline with age, but most of the others should be reliable blue-chip performers next season.

Balance

How you react to risk is a matter of personality. Embracing it can bring great capital, but also disaster. The secret of a great draft is to manage your risk, taking it on board at the right times and in the right kinds of player. Carefully consider how you balance and distribute your gambles and your bankers on draft day and reap the rewards.

In my next piece, I will be discussing in depth perhaps the most obvious example of the risk/reward player – the recently transferred player.

By Sandy King