Gameweek 34 belonged to Steve Poulsom in our career Hall of Fame (HoF) Top Five. The career number four manager played his Wildcard and captained Crystal Palace’s in-form Christian Benteke to reach a season-high rank of 38,331.
Go back half the season to Gameweek 17 and Steve’s current rank appears remarkable – at the time he languished down in 845,911.
A reduced article this week due to time constraints, focusing on the moves and strategies employed by the five elite managers who grace the upper echelons of the 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 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:
| Lowest rank in the last three seasons for any of the top five | 4,324 |
| Highest rank in the last three seasons for any of the top five | 49 |
POINTS & RANK
| Manager | Ville | Marlen | Peter | Steve | David |
| GW34 points | 67 | 68 (-8) | 62 | 80 | 46 |
| In the bank | £0.2 | £4.7 | £1.2 | £0.2 | £0.3 |
Small red arrows this week for Peter Kouwenberg, Marlen Rattiner, and David Meechan. Having Wildcarded recently Marlen and David will have been disappointed with the injuries suffered to their squads. Double gameweek players Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Fabio, and Victor Valdes in particular.
A small green arrow for Ville Ronka as his patience in Chelsea’s Diego Costa paid off. Steve’s surge up the table makes it 14 green arrows in the last 17 gameweeks.
| Name & HoF rank | FPL ID | Point after GW34 | FPL rank GW34 | Best FPL rank 16/17* | Worst FPL rank 16/17* |
| Ville #1 | 30327 | 1,931 | 16,296 | 8,637 (GW29) | 135,324 (GW19) |
| Marlen #2 | 60081 | 1,889 | 47,199 | 13,561 (GW20) | 101,648 (GW27) |
| Peter #3 | 6746 | 2,023 | 849 | 817 (GW33) | 243,702 (GW07) |
| Steve #4 | 3911 | 1,898 | 38,331 | 38,331 (GW34) | 845,911 (GW17) |
| David #5 | 45755 | 1,967 | 5,767 | 2,433 (GW32) | 73,858 (GW09) |
*from GW6 onwards
Only David of this quintet qualified for the cup and he went out in Gameweek 19. Only Ville and Peter still have their Wildcards, all apart from David have played their Triple Captain chip, and three have also played their AOA chip.
The graph above shows the ranks of the Top Five managers over the 34 Gameweeks so far. The vertical scale is from rank 1 to 1M. The distance between the ranks corresponds to the number of points separating them. For instance there are 214pts between rank 1 and rank 10,000, and 273pts between 10,000 and 1M. The graph gives an idea of how difficult it is to move up the ranks as you near the summit.
CAPTAIN
A disappointing week for our elite quintet – if you captained Alvaro Negredo, Marcus Rashford or Alexis Sanchez you were in good company
Over the season Sanchez has been picked as captain 29% of the time, averaging 14.2pts when chosen. Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero follows in popularity having been handed the armband 23% of the time, averaging 15.9pts as captain or triple captain, with Everton’s Romelu Lukaku chosen 12% of the time averaging a mighty 20.7pts.
In the graphic below I’ve displayed this information for the five most popular captain picks.
Overall the Top Five have known when to put the armband on Lukaku, as he has handsomely repaid the faith placed in him when chosen as captain. You could argue that the trolls in this graphic are Tottenham’s Harry Kane and United’s Ibrahimovic. They have not been explosive choices on the few occasions that they have been trusted with the armband, averaging 12.0 and 13.2 points respectively.
CAPTAIN POINTS
| Manager | Ville | Marlen | Peter | Steve | David | Ave. (c) points | As % of score |
| GW (c) Points | 8 | 6 | 8 | 28 | 4 | 11 | 15 |
| Total (c) Points | 483 | 471 | 531 | 449 | 442 | 475 | 24 |
Despite picking Negredo this week, Peter remains the best performing manager out of the Top Five in his ability to select the right captain. His 531 points is the top score in this metric by some margin. It is no surprise that he is also the highest ranked FPL manager of the five.
TRANSFERS – Gameweek 34
| Manager | Ville | Marlen | Peter | Steve | David |
| Players In | Negredo, Gibson | Rashford, Rojo, Bailly | Negredo | WC | Kane |
| Players Out | Llorente, Williams | Ibrahimovic, McAuley, Rojo | Carroll | WC | Ibrahimovic |
Marlen made the move for Manchester United’s Marcos Rojo before the Red Devils defender was injured in the Europa League. As a result he took an extra hit to bring in teammate Eric Bailly.
STEVE’S WILDCARD
| Players In | de Gea, Pickford, Yoshida, Gibson, Vertonghen, Zaha, Townsend, Sànchez, Christian Benteke |
| Players Out | Foster, Heaton, Valencia, McAuley, Mee, Sigurdsson, Eriksen, Firmino, Barnes |
| Remainers | Alonso, Chambers, Alli, Sané, Kane, Lukaku |
On his Wildcard Steve backed Palace to deliver the goods, bringing in three of their players. He clearly feels that with a home fixture against Burnley to come this week they are the right horse to back as Sam Allardyce works his magic.
A little surprisingly after he returned 11 points against West Brom, Steve decided to dispense with Liverpool’s Roberto Firmino. Liverpool’s decent fixtures despite not having a double gameweek, were not enough to persuade Steve to keep an asset that he has shown great faith in this season. In Steve’s team for 28 gameweeks the Brazilian averaged 5.3 points per match, which is a slightly low return given his price and strong underlying stats.
TRANSFER SUCCESS
| Manager | Ville | Marlen | Peter | Steve | David | Average |
| GW34 Transfers | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| GW34 Points Hits | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| GW34 Immediate Points Gained from Transfers | 4 | 18 | 8 | 41 | 4 | 15 |
| Minus Points Hits | 4 | 10 | 8 | 41 | 4 | 13 |
Steve’s clever use of his Wildcard brought him 41 immediate transfer points. More than Marlen and David gained when using theirs in Gameweeks 31 and 30 respectively.
| Name | Ville | Marlen | Peter | Steve | David | Average |
| Total Transfers | 34 | 43 | 55 | 47 | 43 | 44 |
| Total Points Hits | 8 | 48 | 92 | 64 | 52 | 53 |
| Total Immediate Points Gained from Transfers | 171 | 261 | 340 | 329 | 260 | 272 |
| Minus Points Hits | 163 | 213 | 248 | 265 | 208 | 219 |
| £ Value (GW34) | 103.5 | 103.9 | 108.7 | 105.3 | 105.4 | 105.4 |
| Total Benched Points | 301 | 184 | 269 | 249 | 178 | 236 |
Over the course of the season Steve has mustered more immediate transfer points minus hits than any of his fellow bosses at the HoF’s top table. Although Peter and Ville are yet to play their Wildcards, so this may change.
Immediate transfer success is not in itself proof of overall success but simply one part of a complex picture. Steve for instance is 17 points ahead of Peter in this metric, however he is 125 points behind overall.
One obvious result of making more transfers is an increase in Team Value. Not surprising that Peter has the most valuable squad.
FORMATION
| Manager | Ville | Marlen | Peter | Steve | David |
| GW Formation | 3-4-3 | 3-4-3 | 3-4-3 | 3-4-3 | 3-5-2 |
| Season Formation | 3-4-3 | 3-4-3 | 3-4-3 | 3-4-3 | 3-5-2 |
| No. of Times Chosen | 26 | 28 | 21 | 15 | 19 |
| Ave. Points Scored | 58.2 | 57.4 | 59.8 | 54 | 62.4 |
The standard 3-4-3 was again popular this week with four managers choosing this formation.
Over the season Ville and Marlen have been strong advocates of 3-4-3, Marlen opting for the formation 27 times. Yet it is David, favouring 3-5-2, who has scored the highest average points with 62.4. It has also been the most successful formation for Peter, the seven times he has chosen or defaulted to 3-5-2 he has average 69 points.
3-4-3 has been favoured 58% of the time by the career HoF Top Five, with 3-5-2 second with 24%. 4-4-2 is the third most popular on 10%.
PLAYERS GAMEWEEK 34
| Players in 5 teams | Lukaku, |
| Players in 4 teams | Eriksen, Alli, Sanchez, Alonso, Valencia, Gibson, Pickford |
| Players in 3 teams | Kane |
| Attacking players under 6m | Zaha x3, Barnes, Townsend, King, Can, Fletcher |
TEMPLATE GAMEWEEK 34
Goalkeepers – Pickford, Heaton
Defenders – Valencia, Alonso, Gibson, (Yoshida / Chambers)
Midfielders – Eriksen, Alli, Sanchez, Zaha, Coutinho
Forwards – Lukaku, Kane, (Negredo / Benteke)
With nine players now in over 50% of the teams there is a certain consistency to the template. However will Middlesbrough and Crystal Palace players retain their places ahead of the two double gameweeks?
What of the only player to be present in all five team, Romelu Lukaku – will his price and the lack of a double gameweek affect his ownership?
Who will Ville and Peter replace Negredo with – has the returning Gabriel Fernando de Jesus done enough to turn heads? or what about double double gameweek Saints player Manolo Gabbiadini?
In the sub 6.0 category Bournemouth’s Josh King continues to offer good value for Peter, purchased for £5.4 back in Gameweek 28. Marlen, Steve and David will be hoping for more from Palace’s Wilfried Zaha ahead of an enticing home encounter with Burnley.
With four crucial Gameweeks to go will Ville, Marlen and Steve join Peter and David in the top 10,000?
7 years, 14 days agoI'm two players out of mirroring their template- crucially those two players are Benteke and Eriksen - with 39 pts between them this week (if the former was captained) it goes to show that only a couple of players can make all the difference some weeks.
Thanks again for this - fascinating read. Be interesting to see how Steve does with all those palace and Boro assets post wildcard.