Fantasy Football Scout community writer Greyhead analyses the transfers and strategies of some well-known Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers.
This season’s names are the BlackBox pair of Mark Sutherns and Az, Scouts Joe Lepper and Tom Freeman, Scoutcasters Seb Wassell and Andy North, Pro Pundits FPL General, Pras, Zophar and FPL Harry, FPL ‘celebrities’ LTFPL Andy and Ben Crellin, FPL champion FPL Gunz, Hall of Famers Fabio Borges, Finn Sollie, Jan Kepski and Jon Ballantyne, and last year’s mini-league winner Marko Miseric.
“The hard part isn’t making the decision. It’s living with it.”
The captaincy decision weighed heavily on the collective minds of the FPL Community in the run-up to Gameweek 32. Mohamed Salah (£13.4m), Cole Palmer (£6.1m), Erling Haaland (£14.3m) and Son Heung-min (£10.1m) all had strong cases for the armband. In the end, as with most FPL decisions, it didn’t really matter who you went for.
While we all wrestled with that one, we also had to make sure preparations were underway for the big double in Gameweek 34, plus a mini-double in Gameweek 35 was also announced for Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea. Lots of toilet breaks with our phones needed to sort all that lot out!
At least, after the mass rotation of Gameweek 31 there would be no more lineup surprises in Gameweek 32 – Phil? Phil?? Are you there Phil???
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Ben Crellin was the top scorer this week with 77, keeping him at the summit and taking him to his highest rank ever. Yes, it’s strange to believe but the spreadsheet superstar has never achieved a triple-digit finish in his FPL career. He now sits at 587 – is this the year he breaks his duck?
Seb Wassell was not far behind him with 76. He has been one of many to benefit from the double Arsenal defence in the last couple of weeks, although he marks himself out by going with David Raya (£5.1m) rather than the standard Gabriel Magalhaes (£5.4m)/William Saliba (£5.9m) route. He also had Pedro Porro (£5.9m), who finally delivered on his promised attacking returns. The smart budget-friendly Pablo Sarabia (£4.7m) also came good.
In the race to be in the exclusive top 10,000 club, Mark Sutherns managed to convince the FPL Gods he was worthy this week to join Jan Kepski and Ben Crellin. Meanwhile, FPL Harry is just outside pleading with the bouncer that those are not trainers he is wearing.
Captaincy calls were varied but ultimately ended with the same outcome. However, what was intriguing was that no one went for Haaland, who was the default pick at the start of the season.
TRANSFERS
Moves were made with Double Gameweek 34 on people’s minds this week. Some were successful and some not so much.
FPL Harry’s move out of Phil Foden (£8.3m) was no doubt triggered by the team leaks, with Luis Diaz (£7.6m) coming in. Still under 12% ownership, this will grow over the next couple of weeks as he has delivered 23 points in the last three games.
That midfield spot will be an interesting one come the double, as it looks to be a straight shootout between Diaz, Martin Odegaard (£8.6m) and the criminally under-owned Kai Havertz (£7.3m).
- Ben Crellin: No transfers
- Jan Kepski: Gibbs-White > Sarabia
- Mark Sutherns: Trippier > Ait-Nouri
- FPL Harry: Foden > L Diaz
- Seb Wassell: Bradley > Gvardiol
- LTFPL Andy: No transfers
- Joe Lepper: Estupinan > White
- Fabio Borges: No transfers
- Pras: No transfers
- Zophar: Lascelles > van Hecke
- Andy North: No transfers
- Tom Freeman: Dubravka > Pickford
- FPL General: Saka, Darwin > Odegaard, Isak
- Jon Ballantyne: No transfers
- Finn Sollie: Areola > Raya
- Mark Miseric: Estupinan > Ait-Nouri
- Az: No transfers
- FPL Gunz: No transfers
GREAT AND THE GOOD TEMPLATE
Nothing can stop this template train now, although my mystic powers tell me Foden and Alfie Doughty‘s (£4.6m) days are numbered.
No pretty graphic this week as the pixies with the crayons are busy having babies – many congratulations to Top Marx (and his family) who does so much to make these updates more entertaining.
Areola (9), Neto (7)
Gabriel (17), Zabarnyi (10), Gusto (8), Doughty (8), Porro (7)
Salah (18), Palmer (18), Saka (17), Son (16), Foden (4)
Haaland (16), Solanke (15), Darwin (9)
COPYCATS
Az wrote a brilliant article last week on content creators, do give it a read.
One of the recent trends has been the rise of copycats, people who effectively duplicate the moves of those aforementioned managers.
It prompted me to look at the number of clones of The Great and The Good managers, using LiveFPL’s nifty tool.
Well, the headline news is that 41 managers want to be FPL Mode, as he has that number of clones who are following his every move. A special helpline is being set up for those individuals affected. All joking aside, he has had another good season, sitting just outside the top 50,000. Many of those who are similar will have followed the early Wildcard 28 path.
Meanwhile, no other big surprises as FPL General continues to be followed by a number of managers, as does Zophar. They both tend to be on the conservative, steady side so I get the appeal, especially as they have had such historic success.
As for Tom Freeman, Az, Marko Miseric and FPL Gunz, well you guys are one in a million, well 10 million to be exact-ish.
CONCLUSION
I suspect next week’s decisions will be similar for most, with Arsenal or Liverpool players on the menu to ensure a full compliment for Gameweek 34.
And for those who Wildcarded in Gameweek 30 and are Free Hitting, well, they will be keeping an eye on the later doubles in Gameweeks 35 and 37.
The other key decision will be captaincy. Haaland or Salah looks the obvious choice so expect FPL civil war come next weekend.
If you want to dig further into the data then do have a read of the Mini-League Mate dossier. Under ‘Join an existing league’, enter your name and email together with league code MLM0001. It’s all free!
Anyway, that’s all from me for now, and remember: don’t have FPL nightmares.
For those affected by any of the topics raised in the above article then you can find me here on Twitter.
