The Rough With The Smooth – Gameweek 31

Welcome to the first of a new regular article gathering our community’s tales of joy and woe from the last Gameweek in the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) game. This will look at the key decisions made, which proved to be either inspired or tragic. We also find out what lessons our community has learned from their key captaincy, transfer and benching decisions over the week, in which the double Gameweek featuring QPR and Aston Villa dominated proceedings.

The Rough

Poodle calculates his blunderous moves in Gameweek 31 cost him 47 points. In addition to transferring out Arsenal’s goalscoring defender Hector Bellerin for Swansea’s Kyle Naughton, who limped off injured during Gameweek 31 and is now out for the season, he also swapped the captaincy from Chelsea’s goal hero Eden Hazard to Harry Kane, who blanked. In addition he chickened out of bringing QPR’s Matty Philips in for Southampton midfielder James Ward-Prowse, a move that would have brought in 18 extra points alone. As he looks at his lost mini league lead and an overall rank that has plummeted from 3,300 to 5,900, the key lesson he has learned is “never ignore a double Gameweek.”

Another to opt for Harry Kane as captain was Pompel and shying away from drafting in either Aston Villa’s four-goal hero Christian Benteke or Charlie Austin, who ended the double Gameweek for QPR with two assists and a brace. These moves cost Pompel around 3,000 in overall rankings. It was a week to forget and claims his lesson learned is “I want to quit playing FPL,” that is until the next double Gameweek comes around.

Hypnos put his faith in Sergio Aguero, despite the Manchester City man failing to score in his last five Premier League outings. His lesson learned is “always captain a double Gameweeker.”

Patch was left cursing his decision to save his transfer and go into the double Gameweek with no double Gameweek players and also put his faith in Aguero for the armband. He notes that as his overall rank dropped from 195^th to 577^th; Mark was among the 382 that sailed past him up the rankings. Among the lessons he’s learnt is that having faith in so-called must-have premium players such as Sergio Aguero is misguided. “Maybe the lesson is that in some seasons there is no must-have player,” he adds.

Although GeordieNUFC may have been hasty to doubt the essential status of Alexis Sanchez, who finished the week with 13 points. He ditched the Arsenal man for David Silva and lost out of 11 points. There was worse to come after he too drafted in long-term injury victim Naughton and switched the armband from Austin to Kane at the 11^th hour. He admits the week was a “horror show” as he tumbled out of the top 10,000 rankings.

The Smooth

While those who ignored the double Gameweek looked on in horror, the week was full of joy for those that drafted in and captained QPR and Aston Villa’s key players.

Pap Le Cissier was among those brave managers to cast aside Sergio Aguero then draft in and captain Aston Villa’s Christian Benteke, who netted him 46 points. As he jumped 60,000 places in the overall ranking he advised others to have “the courage to ditch big names that aren’t performing, like Aguero.”

Among those to captain Austin was Don Corlone, who also took a chance on drafting in Sanchez to earn an extra 11 points after ditching David Silva in the process. For him the week proved that “FPL is about 70% luck, 10% forward planning and 20% football knowledge.”

ED1987 beat a mini-league rival with a penchant for mindgames and opted for Charlie Austin as captain, despite his rival’s “chat about Austin blanking away from home.” His commanding mini-league lead this week was even sweeter when he saw his rival had opted for Aguero as captain. With a Saturday morning realisation that Austin could do well, ED1987 says the lesson learned is “trust your gut instinct”.

Another to make a successful last-minute decision was C-Dawgg Du Plessis who decided against ditching Aguero for Diego Costa and instead bring in and captaining Benteke. In addition, he still had QPR’s Phillips in his side from the West London club’s previous double Gameweek. “I’ve been trying to break into the top 10k for a few weeks and have been hovering around the 12k mark. After this Gameweek I am now in the top 4k,” he added.

Ostrich Baby will rarely make a better pair of transfers after ditching Burnley’s Ashley Barnes and Aguero for Austin and Benteke, who he captained. He now sits on the edge of the top 2,000 following these inspired moves.

The Dimitar Berbatov award for the coolest transfer of the week goes to Vildinho who calmly took the huge gamble of ditching Harry Kane for Benteke, who he also captained. “You have to take risks if you want to win,” he purred.