Top 5 Career Hall of Fame Analysis -Gameweek23

Gameweek 23 sees two of the career top five Hall of Fame (HoF) achieve their highest FPL rank of the season.

It also saw a  third, Steve Poulsom, achieve his highest FPL rank (194,665) since Gameweek 7, which is all the more impressive given that he was at a season-low FPL rank of 845,911 as recently as Gameweek 17.

Aside from FPL ranks improving, the other recent trend is that the number of transfers and hits has significantly dropped. In Gameweek 21 all teams made a transfer and overall took 16pts worth of hits, down to only two teams making transfers this Gameweek and no hits.

This article focuses on the latest transfer moves and strategies of these boffins of Fantasy Football, who grace the top five positions of this site’s career Hall of Fame. Note this  does not include this season’s results. Members can see the latest top 5 via the Live Hall of Fame update.

For this article I have also deployed Fusen’s FPL Statistico tool to gain an extra insight into their thinking.

Before we look at their teams in more detail, here’s why they are the best FPL managers:

CAPTAIN

*(c) GW23: Sanchez x5

Sanchez yet again proved the most popular captain choice, as he has done 35% of the time.

He delivered 8 pts this week in what was a low scoring week and averages 13.6pts when chosen as captain for the season. Aguero follows in popularity having been chosen 28% of the time, averaging 14.9pts as captain.

How important is it to get your captain choice right?

Total Captain Points as % of Overall Score = 23% (average for the top 5)

By that measure it is fairly important with nearly a quarter of the top 5’s points coming from their captain.

TRANSFERS

In the Coleman vs Baines debate the top five clearly favour the former, he is now in two teams whereas Baines doesn’t feature at all.

Attacking statistics favoured over penalty duties it seems. It is also worth noting that penalty-taker Hazard does not feature in any of the teams either – perhaps penalty-taking duties aren’t that important after all?

Coleman’s assist brought a modest return for both fourth placed Steve Poulsom and fifth placed David Meechan who both drafted him in. However Spurs’ Alli did not provide an immediate return.

As noted last week using ‘Total Immediate Points Gained from Transfers’ is not necessarily the best way to measure transfer success, as transfers are often made with a series of fixtures in mind. Nonetheless it provides a starting point as we often hope for an immediate return.

This week I’ve added Squad Value to the Transfer Table, I find it interesting to compare two contrasting approaches this year – Number one Ville Ronka has predictably taken no hits this year and has a modest Squad Value of £104m whereas third placed Peter Kouwenberg has taken 60pts worth in hits however he has gained a Squad Value of £106.7m.

Will the extra budget be significant as the season progresses? Kouwenberg, despite the hits, narrowly leads Ronke in the overall FPL rankings – 19,452 vs 22,068 – so this will be an interesting battle to follow.

Patient vs Stubborn

– How long do you hold onto a player who is not scoring well in FPL?

Below is a table of stubbornness. Looking at the outfield players who have played more than 10 GWs and have low average points when they’ve played/started. It’s not surprising that Ville Ronka has a few players who’ve scored quite poorly given the patient way he plays the game.

Players whose names are in bold currently feature in their teams.

Palace’s Christian Benteke finally delivered for Ronke this week, even so he still averages only 3.8 pts when he’s played for Ronke’s side. However with Palace’s encouraging performance this week and a decent set of upcoming fixtures I can’t see him being transferred out soon. The same goes for Everton and WBA defenders Ashley Williams and Gareth McAuley.

Manchester United’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic appears once on the list for fourth placed Steve Poulsom, which perhaps goes some way to explain why his FPL rank has been so low for much of the season as he kept faith with the big Swede during his goal drought.

PLAYERS

Spurs’s midfield duo feature promininently with Dele Alli now in four teams, closely followed by teammate Christian Eriksen in three. Sanchez and Ibrahimovic remain the only players to feature in all five teams with Chelsea’s Marcos Alonso the most popular defender, featuring in four teams. WBA’s Matt Phillips and Bournemouth’s Junior Stanislas feature in three teams each, predicted by the top five to be the value picks under 6m so far they have failed to deliver since being drafted in recently.

FORMATION

This week saw a switch back to favour a 3-4-3 formation instead of 3-5-2, over the course of the season 3-4-3 has been favoured 66% of the time by the career top 5 HoF, with 3-5-2 second with 21%. Interestingly Ronka has not used 3-5-2 at all this season, whereas the current best FPL ranked team, fifth placed David Meechan has used it on 13 occasions.

Joining Ronka and third placed Kouwenberg in shunning 3-5-2 is second placed Martin Rattiner, who has an expensive front three of Diego Costa, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Sergio Aguero. With those three big hitters faltering a little recently it’s no surprise to see him slip slightly in the FPL rankings – from 13,561 in Gameweek 20 to 49,856 this Gameweek. An explosive return up the rankings is of course possible at any moment with those three!

Jay Egersdorff, who has moved from 15th to second place in the HoF this season, and for one Gameweek usurped Ronka at the summit, told FFScout in an interview that 3-5-2 is proving the better shape with out of position midfielders performing well as strikers and crucially because midfielders earn more points for a goal. However with Liverpool’s midfield assets not reaching the high standards of earlier in the campaign and new arrivals like Manchester City’s Gabriel Jesus, will 3-5-2 continue to be the favoured formation?

POINTS, RANK, VALUE

*from GW6 onwards

Only one of the 5 qualified for the cup (#5), they went out in GW19.

They all still have their wildcards and the only chip that has been played is AOA.

The improvement continued this week with both Ronka and Kouwenberg achieving their highest ranks of the season so far, though David Meechan and Marlen Rattiner have stalled slightly recently.

Will the low number of transfers and lack of hits continue? Will this new patient approach reap rewards? (well new for everyone apart from Ronke!) Tune in next week to find out folks!

I apologise if it freaks any of them out seeing their moves analysed in this way, but for us lesser mortals I hope it provides insights on how to play the game successfully.