With the dust about to settle on Gameweek 17 I thought I’d offer an update on my tracking of Fantasy Football Scout’s most experienced and best performing managers.
My sample includes 34 teams, consisting of those who are leading or have been leading the Hall of Fame as well as the Fantasy Football Scout’s Moderators & Contributors League, and from Overall Hall of Fame. This has been an odd season, with Leicester riding high in the Premier League and Watford beating big-name teams. But, at the end I am expecting the more experienced Fantasy Premier League managers to do well.
This is Part One. Part Two will be published after all Gameweek 17’s matches have been completed.
The Statistics
Average overall position of all 34 teams after Gameweek 16 was 185,697, which is by 29,147 places worse than they were after Gameweek 15.
After Gameweek 16 just six teams were inside the overall Top 10k (17.65%), five of them inside top 1,000, and four of them inside top 200 in the world.
Here are stats from Gameweek 17:
– Transfer point hits: 2.94%
– One transfer: 55.88%
– Two transfers: 5.88%
– Zero transfers: 32.35%
– No one used Chips/Wildcard this Gameweek
Transfers by positions (% of all transfers in bracket)
– Goalkeepers: (0.00%)
– Defenders: (43.48%)
– Midfielders: (52.17%)
– Forwards: (4.35%)
Transfers in:
– Craig Dawson (WBA): 17.39%
– Aaron Ramsey (ARS): 13.04%
– Kurt Zouma, Junior Stanislas, Joel Ward, Georginio Wijnaldum 8.70%
Transfers out:
– Eden Hazard: 21.74%
– Micah Richards: 13.04%
– Virgil Van Dijk, Roberto Firmino 8.70%
Captains:
– Romelu Lukaku: 91.18%
– Riyad Mahrez, Harry Kane, Juan Mata 2.94%
Conclusions
When we publish Part Two of this article, we will see new average position of these teams, and also, which players are most popular in those teams. For now, we can tell that almost all Gameweek transfers was focused on defenders and midfielders. The main reason was Eden Hazard’s injury, with new blood needed in midfield. Aaron Ramsey’s move to central midfield is obviously something that has impressed the more experienced managers.
Another factor in the focus on defence and midfield was the good form of the game’s key strikers. No one was willing to part with the likes of Lukaku or Vardy this week. The high proportion who are saving their transfers is interesting too. This could indicate some forward thinking over the busy festive period.
Finally, the captaincy of Lukaku and low captaincy rate of Mahrez shows that for many of this elite bunch they still struggle to fully trust those from teams that have been traditionally weak over the years. The pedigree of Lukaku in the Premier League is something else that is clearly important to this group.
