FPL - A series of posts about formations - Part 2: The ceilings of different positions

As I briefly discussed in part 1, players in different positions have different ceilings in terms of securing points each GW. The ceilings, bar the very extreme returns, should probably look something like this:
Goalies: 10-15 points --> Either a buckload of saves or a penaltysave + clean sheet + 3bps
Defenders: 15 points --> A clean sheet + a goal + 3ps
Midfielders and attackers: 15-20 points --> A combination of 2-3 goals/assist+3bps should bump mids or attackers into this range.

One of the above happens almost every single gameweek, and sort om symbolize the relative ceiling of what a big haul migh look like for players in the different positions. Almost every "player of the week" this season fits the slots ive created above.

This ofcourse also extends to seasons, and one should probably have in mind what the ceilings are for having big returns from players in the long-run when deciding how to build your team. Lets have a look at the ceilings ;)

(Courtesy of https://fpldiscovery.wordpress.com/)

What this picture of course is missing is the dreamteams of the last three seasons. However I've traced down these teams also, and will include their numbers in the summary.

What the dreamteams of the past show us, is as follows:
1 Formation: 9/15 of the previos dream-teams of the season form a 3-4-3 formation. As to other formations 3-5-2 is represented 4 times, and  4-3-3 and 4-5-1. This ofcourse casually suggests that 3-4-3 is the winning formation within the game.
2: Defensive ceiling:
goalies: Out of alle the 15 seasons, the highest tally from a goalie in the dreamteam is 187pts (Friedl 02/03), and the lowest is 149pts (Heaton 16/17), the average is 167pts.
Defenders: The highest tally from a defender is 196pts (Lescott 07/08 and Terry 04/05), and the lowest is 138pts (Gallas 02/03), the average is 165pts.
3: Midfielders ceiling
The highest total from a midfielder in previous dreamteams is 284pts (Lampard 09/10), and the lowest is 159 (Duff, Downing, Scholes 04/05), the average is 200pts.
4: Attackers ceiling
The highest total from a striker in previous dreamteams is 295pts (Suarez 13/14), and the lowest is 167 (Saha 03/04), the average is 205pts.
5: Important to remember
One should be somewhat critical as to if the averages of the midfielders and attackers are somewhat "falsifly higher" than the averages of the defensive players due to limitations in formations. The allowed formations of the game allows the dreamteam to end end up with a minimum of 3 defender, a minimum of 2 midfielders, and 1 striker. This means that defences "by design" will carry more "deadwood" bringin the average down. A perfect example of this is 08/09 when the formation was 4-5-1 - meaning only one striker (Anelka) managed to outscore Bosingwas 156pts. And also 04/05 when Henry and Johnson were the only strikers able to outscore Duff, Downing and Scholes who ended at 159pts.
6: Gaps
The gaps between the highs and lows of the players in previous seasons dreamteams are by no surprise larger amongst the attacking players than the defensive players.
Goalies: High 187 - Low 149 = 38point gap
Defenders: High 196 - Low 138 = 58point gap
Midfielders: High 284 - Low 159 = 125point gap
Attackers: High 295 - Low 167 = 128point gap
Naturally this all makes sense when you look at both transfertendencies and moneymanagement amongst most managers in the game. The volatility in difference of returns amongst the pricey offensive assets can be humongous and therefore managers tend to use most of their transfers on these positions and also make sure they have their liquidity in spaces they tend to use their transfers.
7: Dreamteams are almost allways unattainable
When looking through the dreamteams of the last 3 seasons one thing is pretty clear: its called dreamteam for a reason. It's impossible to get a team consisting of these players because either the price is to steep or too often the DT consists of more than three players from the same club.
Last season: DT-price --> 91M (4 cfc players)
15/16:  DT-Price --> apprximately 76M (Thank you Ayew, Mahrez, and Vardy!),(4 Arsenal-players).
14/15: DT-Price --> approximately 88M
What this ofcourse means, is that the dreamteam and the best attainable team of the season are two seperate beasts. For instance, the overall dreamteam this season, a 3-5-2 sits at 1400 points after 22 GW's. However, this is an unattainable team, given the fact that it consists of 4 Man City players, and the cost was 93,5M at the start of the season. The best attainable team however, doesnt trail far behind though, going 4-5-1 and swapping Eriksen and Aguero for Jones and Gross  shaves 10m of the total budget, but only makes the team loose 39 points. This means a totalt of 1361 points, which would put "The Best Attainable Team" at a rank just behind top1k. What if we add a healthy set of captaincy points? lets say making the most expensive player C each round. Well that means an extra set of kane points (134), further bumping TBAT up to a total of 1495 points, 2nd place in the world, and only 6 points behind the world leader! Not bad for a team missing out on benchpoints and not using transfers :P
8: The gap's explain why theres differences in valuation of players in different positions?
The last thing that strikes me when looking at ceilings and old dreamteams is that the gaps between the "out of this world performers" (Suarez 295, Lampard 284 etca) and the averages or lowpoints of what might constitute a dreamteamperformance season helps explain why defenders and goalies are more valuable pound for pound than mids and attackers (I state this as a fact because ive done research as to what you can expect from your millions when investing in different positions. I'll come back to this in another post).
It seems to me that the mods deciding the startingprice of the players, not only lets previous numbers like season totals and points pr game decide the price. They also look at the "Ok, at the most extreme, what kind of numbers can this player produce if he hits his absolute ceiling. And as the dreamteams of the past shows, this means a difference of approximately 100 points in regards to goalies and defenders vs mids and attackers. To make this clear I'll round of the post by adding a couple of examples showing why this thought is a defendable one.
Hugo Lloris, one of the steadiest goalies of the last 5 seasons. Has produced 3,55-3,9pts pr game every season the last 5 years. Has had a starting price of 5,5million each year, meaning his value has been approximately 0,7pts pr million invested each gameweek hes played.
Harry Kane had a huge pricebump after breaking on to the scene and has had further price growth making him start at 12,5M this season. Since breaking on to the scene he's had massive numbers making this bump happen. 6,6pts pr game in 14/15, 5,5pts pr game in 15/16, and 8!! pts pr game last season. The only problem when evaluating value is that in terms of Kane's price, to be as valuable PointsPrMillion-wise as Hugo Lloris, he would have to get 8,75pts pr game (meaning 333 points if he played 38 games). That would pretty much be the same as hitting Luis Suarez's ceiling, when he got 295 in 33 games.
Another example
Marcos Alonso had 178pts in 31 appearances last season, meaning he averaged 5,75pts pr game. If he was to produce the same number this year, his 7.0m startingprice would give him a value of 0,82PtsPrMill. Hes currently shamefully lagging behind.... So far hes only been able to produce 5,59pts pr game giving a value of 0,8PtsPrMill! At this stage, given that hes now played over 50 games its safe to say he is underpriced. With these numbers he would smash Terry's 196pts-ceiling with a 38game season.
Other players who had similar numbers to Alonso last season and their startingprice:
KDB --> Last years average: 5,53 --> This years startingprice 10m
Coutinho --> 5,52 --> 9m
Alli and Eriksen --> Approximately 6.0 --> 9,5M

Cheers :D