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.
“Riddle me this”
Pep played with our FPL hearts this week, like a cat with a piece of thread as the Manchester City team news heavily swayed over our captaincy call. Could we trust Erling Haaland‘s (£14.3m) minutes?
To make matters worse we were also left sweating on Phil Foden (£8.2m) starting, after Mr Guardiola confessed he didn’t speak to his medical staff. Had they fallen out after an over-enthusiastic game of travel scrabble on the way home from Madrid?
In a late change, Foden didn’t start but what did start up again was the team leak debate again, even Pep stirred the pot in his post-match comments.
Meanwhile, Double Gameweek 37 was announced to the sound of thousands of FPL managers shrugging their shoulders as it was much expected.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
It was the rise of the early Wildcarders this week as only five managers got a green arrow and four had overhauled their squads in Gameweek 30/31. This meant that Zophar and FPL General had Alexander Isak (£8.0m) and a couple of Chelsea defenders in their squads to help propel them up the ranks, with their Free Hit chip safely in hand.
Whilst Seb Wassell and Az had Josko Gvardiol (£4.9m) to thank for their boost, Seb could even afford to bench 22 points. That takes him up to a remarkable 294 benched points this season, why do I suspect the FPL Gods will make sure his actual Bench Boost will be a crushing disappointment? Hopefully, I’ve just jinxed that.
The rest of The Great and The Good took red arrows and will be looking to a late charge in Gameweek 35 when they Wildcard, apart from Andy North who was very premature by playing that chip in Gameweek 28, although at least has his Free Hit this week.
Ben Crellin still leads the way, but it’s worth noting he looks to be planning to only have nine Double Gameweek players for the upcoming set of fixtures, so this could be a week for the chasing pack to make up some ground.
TRANSFERS
The Foden ‘news’ sparked movement with Zophar and FPL General taking out Arsenal midfielders to bring him in, only for his no-show, although both had the auto-sub points of Alejandro Garnacho (£5.0m) so won’t be too concerned.
Elsewhere, there was a rejig of many defences, with Az taking the headlines with his replacement of one £3.9m defender for another – woah there! The two managers, Ben Crellin and Jon Ballantyne, who brought in Sergio Reguilon (£4.4m) were probably the happiest.
And spare a thought for FPL Gunz who has been just downright unlucky this season, choosing this week to let Ollie Watkins (£8.8m) go.
- Ben Crellin: Kerkez > Reguilon
- Jan Kepski: No transfers
- Mark Sutherns: Doughty > Saliba
- FPL Harry: No transfers
- Seb Wassell: No transfers
- Zophar: Bradley > Burn, Saka > Foden
- Joe Lepper: No transfers
- LTFPL Andy: Areola > Henderson
- Fabio Borges: Garnacho > Sarabia
- Pras: Konsa > Lewis
- Andy North: Doughty > Gusto, Elanga > Garnacho
- FPL General: Odegaard > Foden
- Tom Freeman: No transfers
- Jon Ballantyne: Doughty > Reguilon
- Finn Sollie: No transfers
- Mark Miseric: Lamptey > Lewis, Foden > Saka
- Az: Richards > Taylor
- FPL Gunz: Barnes > De Bruyne, Watkins > Alvarez
GREAT AND THE GOOD TEMPLATE
Here is the template for The Great and The Good with the % ownership within this group in brackets:
Areola (39%), Neto (39%)
Gabriel (94%), Zabarnyi (56%), Gusto (50%), Porro (39%), Saliba (33%)
Salah (100%), Palmer (100%), Son (89%), Saka (89%), Sarabia (33%)
Haaland (89%), Solanke (83%), Darwin (44%)
Absolutely no changes this week, with most keeping their powder dry for the upcoming ‘doubles’. It will be interesting to see whether we have more Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur players in the template come Gameweek 35.
IS FPL GETTING HARDER?
A look now at the history books to help answer the question, is FPL getting harder, at least for The Great and The Good?
The answer appears to be yes, with the average rank and points of The Great and The Good down on previous years. Perhaps not surprising with the influx of new managers and the wider availability of stats and insight to help even the least engaged manager.
Other points of note about this season are that it’s been one to suit a more conservative approach with fewer hits. Captaincy has also been trickier with fewer hauls from Haaland than expected and everybody seems to have a lot of team value/cash, possibly not that important for those looking to Wildcard in Gameweek 35.
CONCLUSION
We are now moving towards the business end with what I expect to be an anticlimactic Gameweek 34 for most teams, whether you are free-hitting or dead-ending looking remarkably similar.
What will impact the final positions will be the rise of the Gameweek 35 Wildcarders. There is some opportunity there for risk and reward depending on whether you want to go without the likes of Mohamed Salah (£13.5m), Bukayo Saka (£9.0m) and gamble on Spurs and Chelsea. This will determine many a manager’s final push for the top 100k/50k/10k delete as appropriate.
Speaking of which, maybe before we give ourselves too hard a time about our rank, it’s worth remembering that the competition has intensified over the last few years so our expectations should be set accordingly.
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.
