How to pick your DraftKings goalkeeper?

There’s no major domestic action scheduled in the UK this weekend due to the International break so we thought we would take the opportunity to have a look at the DraftKings Daily Fantasy Soccer product and more specifically how to select a DraftKings goalkeeper for your fantasy soccer line-up.

DraftKings are planning to enter the UK market in Q4 2015 and users on this side of the Pond will have to familiarise themselves with some of the jargon US commentators use when discussing soccer and more importantly for us its relevance in daily fantasy football.

 

Remember that your DraftKings daily fantasy football line-up must consist of 8 players – 1 goalkeeper, 2 defenders, 2 midfielders, 2 forwards and one Flex who can be any outfield player. 

As always the first place to start is with those all-important goal expectancies. There are 4 matches scheduled this Saturday and here we’ve listed each team’s predicted goals based on bookmaker lines and have also included the likely probability of a home victory:

 

It’s vital that you understand the scoring criteria and the first thing to note is that DraftKings goalkeepers can earn a 5 point win bonus (W) if their team comes out on top in any given fixture. This is huge and cannot be overlooked so you need to focus on sides that are expected to pick up maximum points – going for underdogs is too much of a gamble.

Goalkeepers will pick up 5 points for a clean sheet (CS) or 2 points for a single goal match (SGM) but are penalised 2 points for every goal they concede (GA). All the visiting sides are expected to concede at least 1.5 goals so you are effectively starting at -3 points or worse, a major disadvantage, should you decide to go for one of those. It would take an heroic goalkeeping display to turn that around! There isn’t too much to choose between the home sides in terms of goal concession rate expectancies this weekend but New England stand out for their goal supremacy.

 

However, it isn’t that straight-forward since 2 points are also accumulated for each save (S) and 3 points for any penalty kick save (PKS) so a busier keeper has the potential for a big score if he can grab that win bonus as well. Therefore, you might consider factoring in the number of shots on target the visiting sides are expected to have as well.

Let’s take a look at some sample data to give us an indication of how the home goalkeepers are faring so far this season. The first table shows the totals while the second table displays the average points earned and includes minutes played (M), red cards (RC)  and fouls drawn (FW), more commonly referred to as fouls won in the UK as well as the items highlighted above:

 

 

So now you’ve got the basic stats to work with you need to confirm that they are fit and available so feel free to reference Know your team news – how to become an authority on daily fantasy football. Then it’s just a case of putting your own personal take on how you see the fixtures panning out. There isn’t too much to choose from in terms of salary but we likethe look of Seattle here against a Toronto side that will be without the brilliant Sebastian Giovinco, arguably the best player in the whole MLS this season.

We’ll look at the outfield positions in more detail in future articles but Stefan Frei is the rock which we will build our team around this week!

 

 

How to select your daily fantasy football goalkeeper – a crucial decision for any fantasy manager

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