Can maths tell us how to win at Fantasy Football? – Joshua Bull

Oxford Mathematician Josh Bull won the 2019-2020 Premier League Dream Football competitors from almost 8 million entrants. So how did he do it? Did he by any opportunity use mathematics?

In this lecture Josh shows just how beneficial maths can be, not just in handling major concerns, however in dealing with the important things that we do and enjoy in our everyday lives.

The are generously supported by XTX Markets.

Can maths tell us how to win at ? – Joshua Bull

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40 Comments

  1. thanks for doing this Josh really enjoyed it, and congratulations on last years win!

  2. I’m 10 mins into the video and I see myself winning it this season already

    1. not Pablo Neruda – If that what you think, you definitely ain’t winning fantasy this year

    2. @simonnorthover so speaking about modelling is inspiring to win fantasy .. it didn’t hit me this way sorry

    3. I found this genuinely interesting, not just for the purposes of FPL but because it shows a real world example of how maths can aid us to solve complicated problems. Thanks.

  3. Thanks for great content. Regarding the home/away choice as tiebreaker not doing much difference, isn’t it be as home/away is already taken into account in the FDR? A home 2 might be a 3 away, so the home team might be playing a worse opponent than the away-team, for them to be facing the same FDR-rated opponents. Hope it makes sense =)

  4. Really interesting talk – I’m not very mathematically-minded but I’ve always been interested in how to use maths within FPL

  5. Thank you very very much for sharing so much time and insight. A fascinating talk. What I found most interesting is how playing the game (I.e picking a captain or deciding who to transfer in/out) involves having a hypothesis and reviewing the outcome. New players to the game quickly recognise the factors to consider (price, player form, team form, opposing team form, home/away), but weighting these is where the modelling seems to provide a distinct benefit. One thing I thought about is whether player form is a result of past fixtures and actually isn’t a good predictor of future player peformance. I also thought about whether teammate chance creation / conversion is a variable to add in a more complex model. The best of luck (and decision making) next season.

  6. Josh, what a great informative video.. Thanks for the time and efforts

  7. Great video, would have liked to see an analysis of set and forget captains vs changing captains.

  8. Coworkers passing see me watching an Oxford Mathematics lecture when really I’m just planning FPL strats

  9. First, congrats Josh on an amazing achievement! I came to this lecture in the hope of improving my FPL performance (time will tell 😜), but left with a facinating insight into a way of using maths that I haven’t come across before. Kudos. Very keen to pick up on the simulation aspect of modelling as this seems to be where the power lies. How do you go about simulating 10,000 results? Does it require specialist software only available to university mathematicions, or is this something that anyone can do using excel or other free software? Also are you just feeding in raw fpl data, or are you inputing odds based data to guide the simulation? Would love to know how to get started with learning this!

  10. Enjoyed this, this is the first season I’m actually taking FPL “seriously”. I’m taking a conservative approach but trusting my inner scout instincts.

    Imho, we can’t control the uncontrollable. So, we control what we can. The only constant/data that we can control in my humble opinion is : (1) Fixtures (2) Player Prices (3) Team Setup ; tactics – offensive, pragmatic etc. So this season I’ve set up my team according mostly ‘pro fixtures’ and considering player swaps with similar prices ranges. I definitely think fixtures play a bigger role than form because teams nowadays tactically better, defending better as a team etc.

    Other than that is up to the players to perform. I hope I get to top 10k this season. 😁

    1. 1 tip from my experience, choose players according to next 5 fixtures.

      God players:
      KDB
      Bruno
      Any goalscoring midfielder
      Defender who starts all the games.

    2. @Shambhav Gautam yea, I looked at the fixture, imo Man Utd & Chelsea are nicely spreaded out till end of the season. I’m going KdB, Martial, Werner, Havertz/Pulisic, Greenwood till the end

    3. @Akmal Rodzi Don’t keep Werner, it’s his first season and he will not score like 30 goals but around 20-25, which is excellent, but not in FPL, forwards only get 4 pts for a goal compared to 5pts of Midfielders and wingers are also considered midfielders. So, My recommend players:

      Bruno(He will take all penalties)
      Aubameyang
      Greenwood
      Rashford
      Pulisic
      Sterling
      They all are goalscoring who will on average score 20 goals, that is 20×5 = 100 + they will start often like 30 matches = 60 pts, which is 160 pts and assists which will get them to around 200 then bonus pts will get them like 230.
      And defenders:
      Maguire
      Every Everton defender(they have got easy games coming)

    4. @Shambhav Gautam I’m very reluctant to take Fernandes now that Man Utd bought VdB, afraid he’s going to drop deeper, or rotation.

    5. @Akmal Rodzi No, Van De Beek can’t play with Pogba and Bruno, it’s just tactically impossible. And having rotational player is actually good as the player performs better due to getting rest. As with Bruno going deeper, it won’t happen, in the friendly match against Aston Villa it was clear that Van De Beek would be in the center running across the pitch to disorganize the defence and score, Bruno will be fine. And never keep Werner, it is too risky, never never until he has proven to score more that 23 goals even if he scores a hatrick this match, the first games are deceiving. I have already told this, but again, he could score 25 goals but it is a lot of risk. You need to check all the games, like this you wont even get to 500 pts. Friendly pre season matches are really important as they tell you about the starting 11 of the following season. And also any Southampton players as fillers are great like Romeu.

  11. This information is valuable. Thanks for sharing Josh. It’d greatly appreciated if u could also share how u test and simulate your hyphostes ☺️🙏

  12. To save your time, this is what he mentioned:

    *Team strategy*
    1. 5-6 costly players + cheap fillers _over_ 1-2 costly + mid range
    2. Bench substitution – players @Home _over_ players @Away.
    3. Formation is not really a factor (choose best based on your players)

    *Tranfer strategy*
    1. Form _over_ fixtures
    2. Transfer out underperformer _over_ Transfer in last week’s best performer/jumping a bandwagon

    *Captain strategy*
    1. Fixtures _over_ form
    2. If a tie: home _over_ away

    1. @Suhaib I disagree a little…because of the distance needed to travel on an away day in most cases. Sitting on a train to Newcastle, going to an area, pitch, changing room you don’t know…all impacts too.

    2. @Suhaib this is inaccurate.
      Average PPG for home players since Covid is 3.3.
      For away players it’s 2.8.

      There is a significant advantage to playing at home and it’s more than just having the fans on your side. Being familiar with the ground and pitch has a huge impact as well.

    3. Plus, regardless of fans, teams set up in a certain way at home ie more attacking, more willing to win game over getting a draw, and the same for an away team, they tend to sit deeper and be more conservative when it comes to committing players forward. Home advantage has some psychological aspect regardless of fans.

  13. Great video Josh. Thank you for sharing. Did your transfer strategy simulations take into account the 3 players limitation?

  14. As a Graduate Researcher and an FPL patron myself, this video was right in my sweet spot. Thoroughly enjoyed the video. Also, roasting Norwich on every other slide was epic.

  15. This is excellent Josh. Two of my favourite things colliding – maths and FPL. Lots of time spent modelling this I am sure! Good kuck 20/21.

  16. “How fantasy football helped me beat cancer” – looking forward to the day you release this talk Josh, I wish you all the best in your fight against this disease.

  17. I understand the whole video as I did Maths in my Master. It turns out that’s the first time that I have found what I learnt was useful.

  18. Most people try to find a way to make their work more fun. These guys find a way to make their fun more work.

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