Top 5 Career Hall of Fame – Gameweek 28 Review

You plan for weeks, somehow get eleven on the pitch and in the end it all comes down to one player – Gameweek 28 was all about those who did and didn’t own Josh King.

The Bournemouth midfielder’s 18 FPL points proved a game changer among the five elite managers  I’m tracking especially, with only Peter Kouwenberg and Marlen Rattier reaping the rewards from his hat trick and maximum bonus returns.

King-less Ville Ronka , Steve Poulsom. and David Meechan could only look on in envy at their stellar return.

Liverpool stars’ failure to deliver against Burnley also proved decisive, with all of this top FPL  quintet drafting in a Reds asset and three even handing Sadio Mane the armband. The winger’s failure to deliver was compounded by the other key captaincy candidate,  Romelu Lukaku, firing in yet another double digit return at home.

Heading into Gameweek 29 so far only one manager, David, has made a transfer. Perhaps after the hits frenzy of the last two Gameweeks a more sedate approach is in order. There is of course still plenty of time for transfers to be made.

Three of our managers have significant sums in the bank should they decide to improve their squads (Ville £4.6, Peter £9.5, and Steve £7.3).

Marlen only has £0.2 in the bank, although his subs bench last week included Sergio Aguero, Alexis Sanchez and Raheem Sterling. He may be flat broke but he is certainly not short of premium fire power this week.

For those new to this article, each week I focus on the moves and strategies employed by the five managers who grace the upper echelons of this site’s Career Hall of Fame. Members can see the latest top five via our Live Hall of Fame update.

To help out I have also deployed Fusen’s FPL Statistico  too 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:

POINTS & RANK

*from GW6 onwards

Only one of this quintet qualified for the cup (David #5), he went out in GW19.
They all still have their wildcards, all apart from David have played their Triple Captain chip, and three have also played their AOA chip (but who really cares about that?!).

With a superb Gameweek 28 score of 70, Peter moves to a season-high FPL rank of 3,327. Only 29 points off what would be his third three digit finish in three seasons. He’s now pushing Ville and Jay close for top spot in the Live Hall of Fame.

Even though he’s dropped to second in the Live Hall of Fame, Ville is only 13 places outside the top 10,000 in FPL. His highest rank of the season. He managed to soften the blow of not owning Josh King by making Romelu Lukaku his captain. The Finnish enigma also gained a couple of assists from Everton teammate Ross Barkley.

Marlen dropped out of the Top 100K for the first time in Gameweek 27, but this week rose over 20,000 places back to 80,244. He’ll be hoping for another jump up the rankings this week with the top four players highlighted in YMA’s Form and Fixtures article, looking at Gameweek 29’s best captaincy, already in his team.

CAPTAIN

Former Southampton player Mané failed to reward the majority of our Top Five’s faith in him. Only Ville and Peter picked up captaincy points from Everton’s talisman.

Over the season Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez has been picked as captain 31% of the time, averaging 14.9pts when chosen. Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero follows in popularity having been handed the armband 28% of the time, averaging 15.9pts as captain or triple captain, with Tottenham’s Harry Kane and Lukaku chosen 9% of the time and averaging 11.4pts and 18.1pts respectively.

CAPTAIN POINTS

One reason Peter is currently the best performing manager out of the Top Five is his ability to pick the right captain. Peter also leads the way in immediate transfer success, however, the difference is less pronounced (see below).

While you need to own the right players in order to captain them, if one metric alone determined fantasy success it would be this one. Make sure you read those Captain Sensible articles!

TRANSFERS – Gameweek 28

Manchester United’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic was the most sold player last week. His disappointing return against Bournemouth and the ensuing three match ban means he no longer features in any of the teams in the Top Five.

In addition to Liverpool midfielders, Swansea’s Fernando Llorente was a popular transfer for our elite quintet. Having recovered from the dead leg, suffered against Hull, managers will be hoping he can deliver over a promising set of fixtures in the coming weeks.

TRANSFER SUCCESS

It was a good week for Nottingham Forest fan Peter despite the 12 point hit, with Lukaku and King balancing the poor returns from Coutinho and West Ham’s Andy Carroll. It could have been even better if he had managed to find room for his team’s former charge Michail Antonio. The versatile winger mustered a goal and two bonus points against a Cherries’ defence that is yet to keep a clean sheet in 2017.

The contrasting way the game can be played is highlighted in the table above.

Perhaps surprisingly the number of transfers made does not appear to be a significant factor in determining success. Peter and Ville are currently the best performing managers overall and yet Peter has taken 80 points in hits compared to Ville’s paltry 8 points.

Perhaps encouraged by the 34 point success of his first hit of the season in Gameweek 27, Ville was at it again this week. Though with less success this time around he may now revert to type. He gained only three points from his two transfers, a minus one total when factoring in the cost of the hit is hardly encouraging for a hits-averse manager.

FORMATION

In a week in which formation was largely determined by simply trying to field eleven players, the novel 5-3-2 formation made a first appearance of the season. Don’t expect to see it again.

Over the course of the season 3-4-3 has been favoured 59% of the time by the career Top Five HoF, with 3-5-2 second with 21%. 4-4-2 is the third most popular on 11%.

PLAYERS – GW28

Finally after a few weeks of being let down by players in the sub 6.0 value category, Josh King and Burnley’s Ashley Barnes delivered.

West Brom’s Matt Phillips has exited stage left, yet somehow fellow culprit in the underperforming stakes Bournemouth’s Junior Stanislas clings on in David’s team. Though there’s every chance his one transfer this week has been to remove the injured and out-of-favour winger for his more successful Norwegian teammate.

TEMPLATE – GW28

Goalkeepers – Foster / Heaton / Pickford

Defenders – Alonso, Coleman, Brunt, McAuley, (Chambers)

Midfielders – Mané, Eriksen, Sigurdsson, Coutinho / Firmino, (King / Snodgrass)

Forwards – Lukaku, Llorente (Aguero / Barnes)

While I expect Lukaku will remain firmly established in everyone’s teams, I’m curious to see whether the same will apply to Mané with Alexis Sanchez now back in contention. Man City’s porous defence the argument for keeping him, perhaps.

The injury to Kane perhaps means there will be no rush to change things up top, with Fernando Llorente set to be given a chance to prove himself against Bournemouth this week.

Aguero features in both Marlen and David’s teams. They will be hoping he can rediscover his goalscoring touch after disappointing last time out against Stoke. Presuming that is he starts against Liverpool.

There must also be some pressure on West Brom defenders Chris Brunt and Gareth McAuley after their side’s recent slump in form. Managers will be hoping to see a refreshed Chris Brunt after he was benched against Everton. A tricky set of fixtures awaits.

I hope these articles are useful in helping you make decisions. One thing I’ve noticed is how quickly fortunes can change for better or worse. With ten Gameweeks to go there’s still every chance this quintet will finish the season strongly.