Sunday’s goalfest brought the curtain down on the 2016/17 season, giving us time to assess the main performers in our Fantasy Football Scout leagues and cups over the last 10 months of domestic action.
The Fantasy Football Scout League
Jon Pears claimed top spot in the Fantasy Football Scout league in Fantasy Premier League after serving up 94 points in Gameweek 38.
Captain Harry Kane contributed 34 points and was joined by Manchester City trio Gabriel Jesus, Leroy Sane and Kevin De Bruyne, who delivered a combined 26 points in the 5-0 rout over Watford.
In his eleventh season as an FPL manager, John also has Philippe Coutinho, Gary Cahill and Petr Cech to thank for a further 20 points as he climbed into fifth spot in the overall standings. That’s a career-high rank, with his previous best placing 1,029 back in 2012/13.
David Brundish grabbed the runners-up spot after returning an outrageous 304 points in the final two Gameweeks of the season.
After picking up 186 points in Double Gameweek 37, David unleashed his Triple Captain chip on Harry Kane for Spurs’ 7-1 hammering of Hull Cuty and was rewarded with 51 points from the Golden Boot winner.
De Bruyne, Jesus and Coutinho were joined by Alexis Sanchez, Dele Alli, Ben Davies and Willy Caballero as David delivered 118 points to end the campaign as Australia’s number one FPL manager.
In his eighth year playing the game, David’s late rise in the rankings earned him eighth spot overall – bettering a previous high of around the 51,000-mark in 2014/15.
Jatin Arutla was the only other member of our top five to end the campaign with a three-figure tally.
India’s number one ranked manager called upon captain Kane along with Sanchez, Jesus, Alli and Davies, and also had Junior Stanislas, Pedro and Romelu Lukaku to thank as he picked up 105 points in Gameweek 38.
Josh King’s social media post, alerting us of his injury prior to yesterday’s teamsheets, clearly helped Jatin – he swapped out the Norwegian for his Cherries team-mate Stanislas with just one minute remaining before the Gameweek 38 deadline.
A ninth-place position betters Jatin’s top rank of around 69,000 (achieved in 2014/15) in his previous four seasons of playing.
In fourth place, Ogie Nolan had a number of the usual suspects on board.
The likes of captain Kane, Jesus, Sanchez, Alli, Coutinho and Caballero were joined by Christian Eriksen’s pair of assists away to Hull to help Ogie earn 97 points in the final round of fixtures.
He ended as the second-placed manager in Ireland on his way to 12th overall – this is the second successive season he’s finished inside the top 1,000 in a 10-year FPL career.
Mervyn Glasgow’s decision to opt for Diego Costa over Kane as his captain proved decisive as he dropped to fifth in the FFS league.
The Spurs fan also overlooked Kane with the armband for Double Gameweek 37, opting instead for Sanchez. He headed into Sunday’s finale in sixth place overall but dropped back to 14th after returning 78 points.
Mervyn also had Jesus, Alli, Sanchez, Caballero and Eden Hazard in his XI and opted to make no transfers for the final round of fixtures.
This was, nonetheless, his most impressive finish to date in 11 seasons of playing FPL – Mervyn’s previous high was 1,246 in 2011/12. He also claimed first place as Northern Ireland’s best performing FPL manager.
The Fantasy Football Scout Members League
World number six Ben Pearson rose to the top of our members’ league in the final day thanks to a score of 99 points.
Ben opted to captain Coutinho at home to Middlesbrough and was rewarded with a total of 20 points from the Liverpool playmaker, while the likes of Kane, Jesus, Sanchez, Eriksen and Caballero were also among his starting line-up.
City skipper Vincent Kompany and Arsenal’s Hector Bellerin proved the differential picks, combining for a further 21 points after both were in the goals yesterday afternoon.
Ben finished the season as Switzerland’s number one ranked manager to chalk up a career-high rank, having ended a very respectable 1,251 in the previous campaign.
The aforementioned David Brundish and Ogie Nolan took second and third respectively and were joined in the top five by Billy Ketsu and Kristian Rudd.
Sky Sports Fantasy Football
Congratulations go to Matthew Jones, aka Numb, who finished top of our Sky Sports league with a total of 2,971 points – sitting just 28 points off the summit, he ended second in the overall rankings.
Niall Murphy grabbed the Scout league runners-up spot with 2,958 points, which was enough to claim third overall.
Nigel Dodds’ total of 2,936 points was third in the Scout league and joint-sixth in the world, while Ian Cox – aka Cheesoid – (2,929 points, eighth overall) and Oliver Brown (2,917 points, tenth overall) complete our top five performers.
Sky Sports have pledged to pay out £1,000 to the winner of our Scout league, while our top five will also share £1,000 between them as we also won the League of Leagues for the fourth successive season.
The Fantasy Football Scout Cups
Simon Bennett, aka Sleepysi, is the new winner of the Fantasy Football Scout open-to-all competition after defeating former FPL runner-up Kelvin Travers or “K3lvin” on overall rank alone.
Both were tied on 103 points in Gameweek 38, though Sleepysi emerged victorious as he ended the campaign in 460th spot, whereas K3lvin came in around the 57,000-mark.
The duo both went into Sunday’s showdown owning a handful of shared picks, including Kane, Jesus, Sanchez and Alli. In terms of final differentials, K3lvin had Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren, Leroy Sane, Ben Davies and Hazard while Sleepysi had Eriksen, Coutinho and Pedro on board.
Ultimately, it came down to a question of captains and K3lvin’s decision to opt for Sanchez – and not match Sleepysi’s choice of Kane – was the deciding factor.
Sleepysi is the 14th winner of our open-to-all cup and joins a growing list that includes donnellc, Jonty, Gribude, Goonerdave, Ninja_Fit_Saints, sleeping master, Mch, Wild Rover, Tdubb05 , CMIFLFC, Mark, Leon Harris and A Manager Has No Name, who edged past Moin in our first FFS open-to-all cup of 2016/17 earlier in the year.
In the third-fourth place play-off, Choppers13 (aka Adam Hopcroft) defeated My Pretty Pony (aka Peter Kouewenberg) by 92 points to 90.
Our FFS Members’ cup also concluded on Sunday and was another hard-fought battle, with Malaikat Jahad getting the better of Kristoffer Asp or “Aspern” by 89 points to 88.
Malakait’s final transfer – swapping Alli for Eriksen – almost cost him the crown and came at the loss of two FPL points, while Aspern’s final trade, which saw Hazard replaced by Coutinho, gained him a single point in a very narrow defeat.
Malakait joins a cast of former FFS Members Cup winners that also includes Waltzingmatildas, Fuzzy Dunlop, Kippax Kickers, Acquafresca, Trigg and Ola Svanheld.
In the third-fourth place play-off, Barwood (aka Steve Barwood) defeated Dynamic (aka Connor Richardson) by 106 points to 94 to win a £50 Amazon voucher.
Both cup winners receive a £200 Amazon voucher, while the runners-up can console themselves with a £100 Amazon voucher. The victors in the third/fourth place play-offs collected £50 Amazon vouchers.
FanDuel Beat The Scout Contest
We also offered the chance to win cash in a final day FanDuel contest.
Essentially, everyone who bettered the score produced by the team of Mark and Jonty in the Beat The Scout contest was entered into a draw.
Razor500 was the manager to emerge victorious after a hectic Sunday afternoon – he receives £50 cash for his day’s work.
He scored an impressive total of 334.75 points for Sunday’s matches – Spurs pair Harry Kane and Son Heung-Min supplied 97.75 points between them, while Liverpool duo Philippe Coutinho and Georginio Wijnaldum chipped in with a combined 84.75 points.
Congratulations to all those involved and here’s hoping to another successful season next time around – roll on August 12.
6 years, 11 months ago☹️