Welcome to the latest from TopMarx looking at the Career Hall of Fame.
I’m thinking of renaming these articles the Top Five Hall of Pain Reviews.
Our elite managers continue to suffer in these early stages of the season. It was red arrows for all except Graeme Sumner (aka Gregor), who managed to climb 12,994 places to the dizzy heights 2,335,097. Not exactly much of a green arrow but given the way this season is going at least it wasn’t a red.
Only Jay Egersdorff out of the Top Five is currently inside the top 1m. He slipped slightly this week to 226,372.
Peter Kouwenberg (aka My Pretty Pony) dropped out of the top 1m for the first time this season and last. As he lamented in his midweek article Spurs and Liverpool assets haven’t been kind to him. He’s made one transfer so far this week, I’m expecting a Manchester City asset will have appeared in his team. Elsewhere, Mark Sutherns (aka Mark) could only muster one point above average.
Meanwhile, it was another disastrous week for Matthew Jones (aka Numb) who is now dangerously close to plummeting out of the top 3m.
Time has not been on my side this week so this is an article short on words but still with all the regular stats content.
This article focuses on the moves and strategies employed by t he five elite managers who grace the upper echelons of this site’s Career Hall of Fame . Between them these managers have achieved nine top 1,000 finishes in the past three seasons and have ended up in the top 10,000 a whopping 37 times over the course of their FPL careers.
To help out I have also deployed Fusen’s FPL Statistico tool to gain an extra insight into their thinking.
POINTS AND RANK
Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark |
GW5 points | 48 | 61 | 59 | 47 | 59 |
Total points | 255 | 239 | 294 | 224 | 254 |
FPL rank | 1,573,948 | 2,335,097 | 226,372 | 2,993,511 | 1,611,611 |
FPL ID | 36298 | 345 | 175574 | 97282 | 370 |
CAPTAIN
Tottenham’s Harry Kane was the unanimous captain choice in Gameweek 5. He let everyone down. Again.
The average captain points as a percentage of overall score for Top Five last season was about 25%. So the current 23% is about right. The only problem is not the balance between captain points and overall score but the fact that both totals are low in comparison to previous years.
Over the season Manchester United’s Romelu Lukaku has been picked as captain 52% of the time, with an average of 16.7pts when chosen. He is followed in popularity by Harry Kane who has been handed the armband 36% of the time. As captain he’s only blanked meaning his average is 4pts.
Arsenal’s Alexandre Lacazette has been chosen 12% of the time (by Peter, Graeme, and Mark in Gameweek 4) he scored a single goal meaning he averages 12pts as captain.
Last season, out of the top five most popular captain picks, Kane was the least reliable. He averaged 11.2 points up until Gameweek 37 when he benefited from playing teams already “on the beach”. He is at least reliably unreliable.
TRANSFERS – GAMEWEEK 5
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark |
| Players In | Salah, Choupo-Moting, Davies | Kane, Ritchie | Choupo-Moting, Mendy | Davies, Carroll | Kane |
| Players Out | Mané, Pogba, Mbemba | Lacazette, Pogba | Willian, Yoshida | Cédric, Atsu | Lacazette |
TRANSFER SUCCESS
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark | Average |
| GW5 Transfers | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| GW5 Points Hits | 8 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 3 |
| GW5 Immediate Points Gained from Transfers | 10 | 13 | -3 | -13 | 2 | 2 |
| Minus Points Hits | 2 | 9 | -3 | -17 | 2 | -1 |
It was an awful week for Matthew Jones (aka Numb) in the transfer market. Jumping on the Ben Davies bandwagon he sold both Newcastle’s Christian Atsu and Southampton’s Cédric Soares, who scored 9 points and 6 points respectively while Davies and Swansea’s Tom Carroll managed 2 points between them.
Mark Sutherns (aka Mark) did the expected Lacazette to Kane move, but it was Graeme who benefited the most from this week’s transfer dealings – Newcastle’s Matt Ritchie scoring 11 points as he replaced the injured Paul Pogba in his side.
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark | Average |
| Total Transfers | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 |
| Total Points Hits | 8 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Total Immediate Points Gained from Transfers | -4 | -3 | 1 | -34 | -4 | -9 |
| Minus Points Hits | -12 | -7 | 1 | -38 | -8 | -13 |
| £ Value (GW5) | 100.2 | 100.5 | 100.2 | 100.4 | 101.0 | 100.5 |
| Total Benched Points | 36 | 49 | 34 | 27 | 38 | 37 |
It’s safe to say Matthew is not having the best of luck in the transfer market this year. He’s made only one transfer so far this week, hopefully it will bring him instant rewards (points).
TEMPLATE – GAMEWEEK 5
Players in Bold are in 3 teams or more
Foster, Elliot
Cédric, Davies, Jones, Naughton, (Mee / Mbemba)
Salah, Alli, Carroll, Loftus-Cheek, (Ramsey / Choupo-Moting)
Lukaku, Kane, Firmino
PLAYERS – GW5
| Players in 5 teams | Firmino, Kane |
| Players in 4 teams | Lukaku, Salah, Carroll, Foster, Elliot |
| Players in 3 teams | Alli, Loftus-Cheek, Naughton, Cédric, Davies, Jones |
| Attacking players 6m and under | Carroll x4, Loftus-Cheek x3, Choupo-Moting x2, Chalobah x2, Ritchie, Brady |
AVERAGE COST PER PLAYER
*based on GW1 prices
Goalkeeper – £4.2m
Defender – £5.0m
Midfielder – £6.7m
Forward – £10.8m
Stoke’s Eric Choupo-Moting and Tottenham’s Harry Kane were the popular additions this week. Kane is now in all five sides again, Choupo-Moting an exciting sub 6.0m option enabling the premium forward lines.
FORMATION
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark |
| GW Formation | 3-4-3 | 3-4-3 | 3-4-3 | 3-4-3 | 3-4-3 |
3-4-3 was the most popular formation again this week. So far this season it has been chosen 76% of the time with 4-3-3 second most popular on 20%.
Those managers with two 4.5m mids (Mark, Jay, and Graeme) look set to alternate between 3-4-3 and 4-3-3 depending who has the better fixture between fourth defender and fourth midfielder.
GAMEWEEK 6
How popular will the Manchester City players prove ahead of their home clash against woeful Crystal Palace? It looks like the top five’s best performing manager Jay will be among those to recruit a certain Argentine striker. He has abandoned his patient approach to deploy his Wildcard this week. Sergio Aguero will surely be represented. But will Jay’s new maverick tactics be as successful?
6 years, 6 months agoThis is all from Top Marx btw....time was short so was quicker for me to copy and paste his article in myself.
Jay's move is particularly intriguing.