PICTURE THE SCENE: YOU are the captain of a school playground team and, in the time-honoured fashion, must decide who to select first. Except this time Frank Lampard, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney are standing in front of you waiting for the honour.

That is the dilemma facing PlayTheGame managers as they consider their rankings for player allocation purposes. The system prevents managers from selecting every player they want but you can give yourself a better chance of landing certain men if they are moved up the rankings. If you are allocated two reserve goal-keepers, four injured right backs and Alberto Luque, something has gone badly awry with your rankings.

Nowhere is the ability to influence allocation better illustrated than in the case of the manager who is allocated the first player; the only selection in which a competitor is guaranteed to get his or her man.

Lampard is the computer-generated top selection based on last season’s statistics but many pundits will be tempted to slide Ronaldo up from No 2, given the impact the Manchester United winger had on the 2006-07 title race.

The statistics are worth considering. The Chelsea midfield player’s 11 goals and ten assists were lower than Ronaldo’s corresponding figures of 17 and 13 and, as part of the United side that scored 83 league goals last season, the Portuguese had an “average goals for” record of 2.3 while Lampard’s was 1.72. However, Chelsea earned 82 points from matches that Lampard featured in, compared with the 79 accrued by United with Ronaldo playing. A total of 1,463 successful passes, a sizeable 475 above Ronaldo, is the decisive factor in justifying Lampard’s status as No 1.

Playing positions affect the potential of a team member to contribute in all five scoring categories. A forward such as Rooney, another pretender to the No 1 throne, is unlikely to record as many successful passes as a central midfield player.

There could even be value in elevating a defender such as John Terry. The Chelsea and England captain was No 9 in last season’s rankings but that was based on a campaign reduced to 28 league appearances by injury and suspension.

The game’s leading lights are against the wall and waiting for your call - and this time you don’t have to finish with the rather rotund boy who spent too much time in the sweet shop.

Explore Football

• Premier League

• Football League

• Scotland

• European Football

• International Football

• TheGame

• Live Match Tracker

• The Fink Tank

• Fantasy Football