Spot the Differential – Gameweek 18

Stopped reading at "losing interest in the game fast"

No.

**Scrolls back to start of post

Yh

It does seem crazy. I started playing this year last minute with football mates and then went on holiday for 2 weeks. My tv has been crap and now I find myself playing the stock market to try and get tv to get a decent squad. Only now after months of this has my tv come up to just below average.

Just because people make transfers early doesn't mean they're chumps lol

You can still make decisions based on football. Nobody is forcing you to follow price rises

I am not sure whether it is the price changes which have reduced my interest in the game this season. Historically I have identified my changes for the week and make them as late as possible in the week without there being a price impact.

I just have found it a very frustrating season and the fact FPL tweet every man and his dog with snippets of information you used to get here doesn't help.

I think the problem is that more people are playing fantasy football and more people are now tuned in to FFS.

I must admit I am not particularly a follower of club football, mostly internationals. But since I started playing this game about 8 years ago, I watch the Premiership matches so that I know how my players are doing. I do it for the buzz of winning my work mini league.

It wasn't until about my third year of playing that I realised the importance of team value. Now I am guilty of doing as you mention, changing out a player with a good fixture just to get in one I want more and who has form. Also I am guilty of bringing in players that others on this forum recommend as they normally have a higher rank than me and seem to know what they are talking about.

I think the big problem this year is that with so many participants these days prices go up and down so quickly that if you don't react fast you lose the chance. That's what I have found anyway.

Yes and no. Yes, but this years transfer market is not the worst its been, a few years back it was actually just as bad with rapid changes and they were forced to change it the following season (when everyone then complained about lack of price changes).

They will almost certainly make a change again for next season.

Do you not feel that the events of the season itself have contributed?

No Aguero for any meaningful spell. No cheap options matching the heavy hitters as Kane did 2 years ago and Mahrez/Vardy did last year. Only Costa as the consistent heavy-hitter.

This has been a very different season and I think that has driven the market.

I agree that we're being driven to transfer earlier - I've felt that but that's because patience hasn't paid off - not due to anything FPL has done but just how the season is working out.

We haven't been able to sit on 3-4 stable heavy hitters and wait for them to hit form because alternatives have come along and hit points in bursts.

Eriksen was the latest, hit 18 points, alerted the masses then did it again in the next home game. If you sat on Firmino for that, you got punished. That wasn't the market or FPL tweets to blame, that was just Eriksen exploding in back-to-back home matches, feeding those who jumped on the early bandwagon points.

If you've been adopting a patient approach in any other season, you'd probably be far better off, it's just this season, that approach hasn't worked - I've felt we've had to constantly update our chosen heavy-hitters according to transient form.

Yes, that has driven lots more folk into the market and that has led to more price rises. Is that down to the algorithm or just the fact that a) there's no Aguero to suck out the money and b) there is just a constant flux in the form heavy-hitters.

I just don't think we can expect a patient strategy to work every season and then blame the game when it doesn't.

Although I agree, I think the price rises are an issue and more so this year because of the fickle nature of the season.

It's not making me lose interest but it does annoy me a little bit.

Part of what settles me is that I am convinced that TV/SV is nowhere near as big an advantage as many make out.

There was a January to May FFS league last season. Last December (GW17 or so) I took over my nephew's team for a challenge. It had a TV of 96.7m and an OR of worse than 3m, had already spent the TC chip and had never made a single transfer, a proper dead team.

That team won the FFS January/May league and rose from 3.1m to 440k with a budget around 8m less than what was typical. OK, last season was a bit different because budget didn't matter so much with so many cheaper enablers. But it makes a point nevertheless.

If an experienced manager doesn't want to play the price game they just need to find some efficiency wrinkles to cope with a TV that may be 1.5m lower or something come DGW time when we (most) wildcard. Part of what I am finding interesting about this season is the challenge of doing exactly that. Because no way am I prepared to become a bandwagon-hopper or to chase TV as a 1st priority.

Not in the slightest, I see no skill in being able to pick a WC team in week 4 safe in the knowledge that 7+ of the consistent starters will be with you in week 34. For all intents and purposes that is what fpl was last season and to a lesser extent those that preceeded it, quality ranks being mostly attributable to nothing more than circle jerking on forums like this.

This season you have far too many elite players to fit into a single side, there are a plethora of mid priced midfield options and the cheaper options look tantalizing at times but none of them have had the consistency to gain hegemony. All of this forces players to make actual decisions based on a wide-ranging football rationale which has generally rewarded good a priori decisions and punished bad ones.

Vis a vis the price changes I would like to see FPL strike a balance where both agressive value building and placid confidence in ones team are legitimate strategies equally likely to lead to success. The thing is though at this point no one has any idea how successful either of those strategies will be as a high team value is only significantly beneficial in the 2nd half of the season. Any players like Ibra, Sanchez, and Costa who's price changes have posed impositions on the completion of teams to date have reduced down to purely football decisions with the price changes being gravy helping the players who made the best decisions. The short lived bursts of transfer activity of players who have gained value for certain players but have not represented good non-price decisions i.e. negredo, kane, sterling have not affected the game yet which gets us back to the fact that the best decisions have led to the best ranks so far.

most of the time "lucky" and "casual" just refer to people who have based their decisions on reason and evidence rather than group think and fear
Best season ever.

a lot of strange/new things this season.

1. just the huge number of people playing the game
2. a lot of players have contributed pts in bursts rather than consistently which seems to have led to a lot of knee-jerking or different approaches.
3. people are looking at OR and seeing large numbers but not necessarily looking at the pts spread separating them from higher ranks.
i've had a shocking run from 270k to 985k in 6 weeks. Last week i had a provisional rank of 770k then Can came of the bench for a cameo leaving De Roon 10 pts on the bench.
That last 5/6 minutes of the gw saw me drop 200k OR.

But at 985k I still only 35pts off 500k and 92pts off 100k.

4. Sometimes patterns just don't make sense. Kane dropping .2m this GW whilst about 100k have bought Lukaku in.

5.Clean sheets have been ridiculously difficult. You'd expect many more from top sides like Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool. How often have they been winning games 3-1,4-1 etc. giving away silly clean sheet points?

6. Maybe people have just tried to get too many big hitters in at the expense of weakening other parts of the team. WHen the big hitters don't come off it really bites.

I do watch the mods league just to see what experienced players are doing. Last GW i knew i'd had a nightmare with 40pts then checked the mods league and most of them were in the 40s.

Game's not easy this year which makes it more frustrating but also more interesting. No point it being easy just drifting through the season, letting FFS posters pick your side for you and picking up top 1% finishes.

Yep, spot on. Seems like every other post on here is about "Player X rising" or "Player Y" falling.

People will rationalise, but you're right. Being forced into stupidly early changes is crazy and is harming this game.

This is something I've spoken about many times before.

This season in particular has been driven by the volatility of the market and for me, a patient Ronka-esque manager, it has made it less enjoyable.

I do hope that a change is made to the pricing market. People still like to have a market and I accept that but restrictions on rises and falls would focus the game more on the search for points not £££.

There are certain elements to this season though that are different and out of FPL's control:

There are too few mid price or cheap strikers that are performing well.

The heavy hitters have let us down too often.

Midfielders are now strikers.

I think though with so many managers changes are needed.

A slower transfer market ( or restriction of no more that .2 either way each week)

Fpl has been slow to react to the trend of mids playing as strikers. FanDuel and sky for eg list Sanchez as a striker - which he is.

Final couple of points.

First, It's interesting that in sky, where there are only 40 transfers a season, patience still pays off. It's no surprise that I'm enjoying that more.

Second, as a patient manager I've been caught out be being forced out of my comfort zone. From now on I've decided, as I said on the scoutcast, that I'll play it the way I want rather than how the market of the remaining 2.5m managers wants. That will probably mean failure but at least I'll be on my sinking ship on my terms.

Worth noting that last season the winner of fpl was a novice in his first season who didn't follow stats, fixture or form - just 'his gut' - which I guess shows that the dominance of luck over skill is not something that is new to this season but is possibly the shape of things to come.

I like people running behind the market players.

Makes it easier to buy a differential advantage.

I agree that it is a bit annoying but I am still in love with the game. I had to act quickly on Ibra last weekend because I had exactly the right amount to move Kane out for him. If this were a couple of seasons ago, I'd surely have waited until before the new gameweek.

It is an evolution in the game but it's still class and it remains the case that the more astute players still prevail. The cream always rises to the top.

I'm also of the "it's a bit annoying, but still love the game" camp.
I've never realistically expected to be able to wait until Sat am before committing to my transfers, my sv/tv used to be something to keep an eye on from about Mon onward but feeling the pressure to transfers on the basis of +/- value before gw's are even complete does take a little of the fun (& add to the dread) to the week ahead.

Fpl feels like it's leaned more toward value management than team management. I'd like to blame intravenous fed fpl stats/tips and the bonus points structure but it is what it is & the playing field is even. Just rollin' with it in anticipation of what's in store for next season. Happy St. Stephen's Day everyone.

Hi Dino,
My take is this.
In the past you can wait a bit and suck up the 0.1m difference in price before making the transfer.
In that time you can read all the excellent articles on here and other web sites and then make a decision.
This season you have to work more out by yourself and make transfers with less clues/articles which in some way i think is better.
The problem I think is the prices of the players are sooo high this season and no consistant budget options have come through.
I am happy with ten players of my team but cant get enough funds to buy a decent eleventh player.

Holy crap this post is long!

Without pouring over all the replies, I actually LIKE the market forces and wish they were a bigger part of the game.

I hate "template teams"...nothing makes the game more boring than that...everyone clambering to be the same.

If market forces created natural ownership caps, preventing everyone having Costa, Sanchez, Hazard, Alonso, etc. in the same team at the same time, diversity would be enforced to some extent.

There's nothing worse than last season when virtually 100% of active players had Mahrez, Vardy, Alli, Ozil...the cheapness let everyone off the hook and removed the element of strategy.

I'd like to see diversity rewarded more and transferring wisely rewarded...ideas:

- the captain pick doesn't mindlessly double your score. If you go with the herd and back an obvious captain backed by 30-40% of others maybe you only get a 1.5x multiplier...pick a left-field pick who brings home the bacon captained by only 2%...perhaps you get 2.5x or 3x

- any player you transfer in gets a special first-week bonus multiplier (say 1.5x)...if your newly transferred in player does well...rewards for you! Will encourage people to study form, look at the fixtures...not transfer in to build team value or game the market forces.

I'm enjoying this season immensely despite an awful start. Transfer market adds a lot to the game imo, almost all positive. The only change I'd like to see would be freezing prices during a gameweek. It would be good to let every one play before rises and falls kick in. A move which might also appease some of the moaners on here 🙂

At the end of the day, any transfer made is a risk. Early movers might gain a little TV, but sacrifice gaining further knowledge before pulling the trigger. Personally I'm quite happy to make transfers while match of the day highlights are still fresh in my mind as it is when my gut feel is strongest having gone through the eyeball test. Normally I'll wait till after CL/Europa if I'm worried about particular players (e.g. Austin), but it's all just part of the equation:

risk + judgement = [success or failure] + / - [TV]

so many of these arguments never seem to come down to the fundamental point:

This cannot be held as in issue if you are just losing team value through your patient approach. Because rank isn't decided by team value.

So the question is, is your potential to achieve more points and a high overall rank being hit by market forces? As someone who transferred out Hazard, Sanchez and Ibra, all in line with market trends and all before massive explosions, I suspect that a patient approach would have been far more beneficial.

Until I see concrete evidence of the VALUE of value, so to speak - and the only real look at this was I think by Ruth (apologies if wrong) a couple of years ago - then you are all just getting overstressed about a non issue. Markets are irrational, yes.

I think a quote from Kipling/fellow manager Mike Bassett may be of use here. It starts...

'If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs...'

I quite like the price volatility, though wouldn't let rises & falls be the chief motivating factor with transfers.
Decent HT this, lots of interesting opinions.

This is the worst post I have ever read on this website. If you don't like the game anymore don't play do something else don't make it out the game is awfull probably because you are so low down the rankings. I learn to adapt and I haven't been outside the top 7k since gameweek 2

Stop whinging, everyone has the same conditions to work with, play the game or don't, if you don't enjoy it walk away.

No need for long posts bringing everyone down.

The 'fun' of the game is testing yourself against different challenges every season, if you don't enjoy testing yourself then move on to something else.

plus how can you moan about this season, its the funnest i can remember, every so called big team is performing thus giving us so many more expenisve explosive options.

This is the best season ever (not personally, it's my lowest ever ranking) largely because the volatility in the transfer market means taking hits is a much more viable option. I hate seasons like the last one where the template lasted forever and if you didn't get off to a great start you had no chance of catching up. The guy currently leading my mini-league has already taken 164 pts worth of hits.

It seems to me that the people who are complaining are those who don't like change and who lack the creativity to adapt to the new environment. Adapt or fail; and stop whinging.