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Tracking The Fantasy Football Veterans – Season Finale

Probably the strangest season in Premier league history is now over. Leicester, the 5000-1 outsider for the title, were crowned champions, while Chelsea and Liverpool failed to even qualify for Europe. In Fantasy Premier League (FPL) terms, this season was also odd, with the introduction of three new Chips that changed the dynamic of the season and early on skewed the overall rankings. Money was also no object, as cheap high-performing options like Dele Alli and Riyad Mahrez freed up funds that few Fantasy managers had previously had access to in other seasons. 

For the veterans I’ve been tracking since Gameweek 15  they had a slow start, with their lowest ebb coming with Gameweek 17’s average overall ranking of just 245,000. This group, made up of FPL winners, FFScout moderators and contributors and those riding high in the Hall of Fame, clearly had a tough job on their hands to claw their way up the rankings. Here I take a look at the final Gameweek of the season to see whether they managed to claw back their respectability.

TRANSFERS

Transfers by positions (% of all transfers in bracket)

– Goalkeepers: (6.90%)

– Defenders: (10.34%)

– Midfielders: (60.34%)

– Forwards: (22.42%)

Veterans made 1.71 transfers on average in Gameweek 38 (2.56 in Gameweek 37)

Transfers Out:

– Dimitri Payet (WHU): 24.14%

– Roberto Firmino (LIV): 17.24%

– Andy Carroll (WHU): 8.62%

Transfers In:

– Dušan Tadić (SOT): 25.86%

– Sadio Mane (SOT): 17.24%

– Olivier Giroud (ARS): 8.62%

Dimitri Payet‘s injury and high hopes for Southampton’s in-form midfielders were the main factors behind the veterans’ final Gameweek moves.  More than 43% of their transfers involved Saints men Dušan Tadić or Sadio Mane. But there were mixed fortunes for those who invested in the South coast club. Southampton’s penalty taker Tadić failed to register a return and to add insult to injury was substituted just a few minutes before Southampton earned a spot kick. Meanwhile, Mane scored, assisted and earned maximum bonus. The veterans’ best buy, though, was Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud, who scored a hat-trick at the Emirates.

CAPTAINS

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Alexis Sanchez was the most popular captain choice amongst the veterans and also the top 10,000 managers. The desire to play it safe with rankings and mini-leagues in the balance was key. However, with no attacking returns they could have been better off taking risks. Sergio Aguero was another popular choice and fared marginally better than Sanchez with an assist.

MOST POPULAR PLAYERS

Top starting players

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OVERALL RANKINGS

Among veterans 55.88% gained a red arrow in Gameweek 38 and their average score was 46.76. That was better than the overall average (39.20 points) and top 10,000 average (43.60). At the end of the season the veterans finished the season with an average overall rank of 14,725. This was their best average overall rank of the season and was a key factor in half of the 34 veterans finishing within the top 10,000.

The chart bellow shows the average overall position of our veterans in the previous seasons. Of course, last year all of them participated (34), while, for example, in the 2008/09 season just 21 of 34 veterans were active so the average overall position for that year is based on 21 managers, not 34. We can see that this season was by far the best season for our veterans.

Considering their slow start, with Gameweek 15’s overall average ranking just 156,550 and then slipping back to 245,000 two Gameweek’s later, this is an incredible achievement.

Key factors in their success was the speed in which they adjusted to the new Chips, especially by saving their second Wildcard, bench boost and triple captaincy Chips for the double Gameweeks.

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This was the final article for season 2015/16. I hope that you have enjoyed following the veterans’ journey. A key reason I started this was because, despite their lowly rank early on, I firmly believed that this group of managers, rather than those in the top 10,000 at the time or overall, were the best ones to follow. Their incredible progress has proved that assertion right.

NEXT SEASON’S PLANS

Next season I plan to once again track the veterans but this time use a larger sample and start from Gameweek 1. As their experience this season showed I think the wider Fantasy Football community can learn a lot from this group.

Before the season gets underway I will offer the chance for more to take part with certain criteria in place. While not finalised, this is likely to mean having at least five FPL seasons under their belt, with a minimum of two top-10,000 finishes.

A few days before new season starts, I want to publish how many managers are included, what their average overall position the season before was and their average Hall of Fame position. I will also run a mini-league in which everyone will have a chance to participate and to beat the Veterans, regardless of whether they are rookies or experienced managers. You will be informed about details on Fantasy Football Scout before the new season starts.

At the end I would like to thank Jonty, Torres Magic, Smarty Pants and all of you who read these lines week by week. See you next season.

Kavali `In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.`

22 Comments Post a Comment
  1. J0E
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • Has Moderation Rights
    • 14 Years
    7 years, 10 months ago

    While it was no surprise that the veterans managed to do much better in the last part of the season what really surprised me was it was their best yet. The narrative that the veterans suffered this season has been blown out of the water by this analysis.

    Thanks as ever for this article series - looking forward to next year's.

    1. RedLightning
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 13 Years
      7 years, 10 months ago

      I think it was all down to the chips.
      The early use of chips by other FPL managers led to the rankings of the veterans being much lower than usual for much of the season, but then the superior use of their chips in the DGWs enabled the veterans to have their best season yet.

  2. Sciolist
    • 12 Years
    7 years, 10 months ago

    "The desire to play it safe with rankings and mini-leagues in the balance was key. However, with no attacking returns they could have been better off taking risks"

    This is exactly the kind of thing I don't like in a lot of these articles. You can't criticise a decision based on something that hadn't happened yet.

    1. Baines on Toast...
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 13 Years
      7 years, 10 months ago

      He's not criticising it. He's saying they could have been better off. Which is true - yes, in hindsight, but that's the entire point.

    2. J0E
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 14 Years
      7 years, 10 months ago

      He's not criticising anything. He's pointing out that they they could have been better off taking risks. The decision on whether to play it safe or take risks is perhaps the key one on GWK 38.

      1. alastair
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 14 Years
        7 years, 10 months ago

        Off topic - and apologies if this has already been addressed - but will you be looking to the contributers' predictions at the start of the season to see how they worked out ?

        1. J0E
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • Has Moderation Rights
          • 14 Years
          7 years, 10 months ago

          Yep. when we do our ones for 2016/17 we always start by having a laugh at our terrible predictions for the season gone by. 🙂

  3. Baines on Toast...
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 13 Years
    7 years, 10 months ago

    Cheers mate, great stuff keeping this up.

  4. DanwiseTheBrave
    • 12 Years
    7 years, 10 months ago

    Looking forward to this next season. I'm hoping to be considered a veteran one day!

    1. Kavali
      • 13 Years
      7 years, 10 months ago

      At least you will have a chance next season to Beat the Veterans! I will run a mini league from GW1, and everyone will have a chance to participate. The goal is very simple: everyone who beat veterans GW average are safe and stay in the league. Others are out!

      1. RedLightning
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • Has Moderation Rights
        • 13 Years
        7 years, 10 months ago

        Is it only the non-veterans who will be eliminated in this way?
        If not, you could soon be left with a very small mini-league!
        Seems very harsh - even TM's Last Man Standing doesn't eliminate teams at that rate!

        Wouldn't it be fairer to eliminate only those non-veteran teams whose OR for the season to date is worse than the veteran's average or median OR, and probably allow a few game-weeks before eliminations start?
        Or perhaps only to eliminate non-veteran teams that score less than the lowest veteran team?

      2. RedLightning
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • Has Moderation Rights
        • 13 Years
        7 years, 10 months ago

        ...or to have a league for qualified veterans only, with no eliminations?

        1. Kavali
          • 13 Years
          7 years, 10 months ago

          It is difficult to gather every veteran in the same mini league. How can I find Ville Ronka for example? And many, many more good players are not active, they just read the articles on the main page. Others ideas (eliminate only those non-veteran teams whose OR for the season to date is worse than the veteran's average OR, eliminate non-veteran teams that score less than the lowest veteran team) are pretty good btw! Better than may original idea. We will probably have a hot topic before the new season starts about "Beat the Veterans" mini league and I will listen every suggestion. But so far, I like yours!
          Cheers.

  5. Lateriser 12
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 12 Years
    7 years, 10 months ago

    Am i a veteran?

    1. Kavali
      • 13 Years
      7 years, 10 months ago

      If you play this stuff more than five years than yes! 🙂

  6. SportBilly
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 9 Years
    7 years, 10 months ago

    Enjoyed this, looking forward to this being a regular series from GW1.

  7. Leaf
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 14 Years
    7 years, 10 months ago

    I think I qualify , sign me up 🙂

    1. Twelve years a slave
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 13 Years
      7 years, 10 months ago

      I think nearly everyone would qualify Two times top 10K Finishes waters it down far too much, there would probably be thousands of qualifiers

      1. Kavali
        • 13 Years
        7 years, 10 months ago

        We will choose the best ones amongst the members who qualify. Sample will be bigger, but still, not that big. I wanna focus on best managers around for article, not to track every member.

        1. RedLightning
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • Has Moderation Rights
          • 13 Years
          7 years, 10 months ago

          That sounds sensible. See how many applications you get and then select a subset of the best ones.

      2. RedLightning
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • Has Moderation Rights
        • 13 Years
        7 years, 10 months ago

        I don't think so. Many of the teams in the Top 10k Any Season mini-league have only finished in the top 10k on one occasion, and not all have played five or more seasons. There are also many posters in FFS who have never finished in the top 10k but whose ambition is to do so.

        Also, although there may be thousands of teams that would qualify, most of them won't join the league. There must be tens of thousands that are eligible to join Top 10k Any Season, but only 300 of them have actually done so.

        Even in the Top 1,000 ANY Season mini-league, quite a few teams have only finished in the top 10k once.

        I agree that Kavali could consider making the requirements a little more stringent, say by adding a further condition of at least one top thousand finish. But his current two conditions do satisfy his objective of selecting a group of active players whose performance might be more useful to follow than the current top 10k, even if they are not all elite players such as yourself, especially now that the new chips have such a distorting effect on overall rankings until the late DGWs.

      3. andy85wsm
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • Has Moderation Rights
        • 13 Years
        7 years, 10 months ago

        Not me! 🙂