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Top 5 Career Hall of Fame – Gameweek 8 Review

A steady but not spectacular week for our Top Five as they continue to head in the right direction. Four of these illustrious managers attained green arrows with the Gameweek’s highest scorer Graeme Sumner (aka Gregor) entering the top 1m for the first time this season.

Graeme’s decision to transfer in two Manchester City players helped him to his fourth green arrow in a row as he picks up from an early season low of 2,348,091.

He joins Peter Kouwenberg (aka My Pretty Pony) and Jay Egersdorff inside the top 1m placings, while Mark Sutherns (aka Mark) and Matthew Jones (aka Numb) still languish outside.

This article focuses on the moves and strategies employed by the 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

ManagerPeterGraemeJayMatthewMark
GW8 points4156524451
Total points433429484409422
FPL rank838,457960,10457,2051,646,9531,187,448
FPL ID3629834517557497282370

Career HoF number one Peter slipped slightly this week as his potentially impressive frontline of Tottenham’s Harry Kane, Manchester United’s Romelu Lukaku, and new signing Leicester’s Jamie Vardy all drew blanks. It was left to fellow new signing Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling to deliver the solitary attacking returns for his side.

Captain

As the chart above shows every slice in this week’s captaincy pie belonged to Harry Kane. The unanimous choice for our Top Five failed to deliver any returns as his Wembley form continues to defy statistics. Big chances aside surely the law of averages means he must be due a Wembley goal soon?

ManagerPeterGraemeJayMatthewMarkAve. (c) pointsAs % of score
GW (c) Points4444448
Total (c) Points9610611010010010224

So far this season four different players have been handed the armband by our Top Five. Lukaku is the most popular having been chosen 45% of the time followed by Kane on 40%. So far Lukaku has proved the more reliable choice averaging a 15.7 point return when chosen as captain, compared to Kane’s 8.8 points.

I keep banging this drum but it is a similar story to last season when Lukaku outscored Kane by an average of 20.7 points to 13. Was Kane’s performance last week a one-off or will he at some point become a more predictable and reliable captain choice?

The other two players who been chosen as captains by our Top Five this season are Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero and Arsenal’s Alexandre Lacazette. They have both been chosen 8% of the time, averaging 22 and 12 points respectively. This information is displayed in the graphic below:

Transfers – Gameweek 8

ManagerPeterGraemeJayMatthewMark
Players InVardy, SterlingJesus, SterlingSterlingLoftus-CheekAbraham, Sterling, Otamendi
Players OutFirmino, SalahMorata, RamseyMkhitaryanChalobahFirmino, Mkhitaryan, Dawson

Sterling was the popular transfer in this week, with only career HoF number four Matthew out of this elite quintet ignoring the clamour for his signature. Happy with Sterling’s teammate David Silva in his team, he kept faith with Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah and Tottenham’s Dele Alli in his midfield. Having saved a transfer last week Matthew replaced his injured £4.5m midfielder Watford’s Nathaniel Chalobah with another budget asset Crystal Palace’s Ruben Loftus-Cheek.

Even Jonty, the on-loan Chelsea man’s fiercest critic, revealed on this week’s Scoutcast that he had drafted him on on his Gameweek 8 wildcard, and he could yet prove to be an astute pick. Palace put in a good performance against Chelsea and have the fixtures – Spurs in Gameweek 11 aside – to do well in the coming months.

Ultimately if you feel happy with your team and have a couple of free transfers it seems a very sensible move to replace any annoying long-term cheap injured players as Matthew did. 

It’s also interesting that with another £4.5m mid – Swansea’s Tom Carroll – already in his team and two free transfers, Matthew decided against upgrading one of his £4.5 midfielders by downgrading elsewhere.

At the moment Matthew has made one transfer this week and his money in the bank has increased from 0 to £1.3m. My guesses aren’t always correct but that would allow a move such as Alli to Sterling. Maybe Matthew will be kind enough to tell us in the comments section below?

If correct he would join current Live Hall of Fame leader Jay as the only other Top Five manager to own both City mids David Silva and Sterling in his side.

Transfer success

ManagerPeterGraemeJayMatthewMarkAverage
GW8 Transfers221132
GW8 Points Hits440042
GW8 Immediate Points Gained from Transfers12281202215
Minus Points Hits8241201812

Graeme earned 24 immediate points gained from transfers after subtracting the cost of any hits. Astutely picking both Sterling and teammate Gabriel Jesus, and – as he told us in last week’s comments section – he was close to going all in on City and making Raheem Sterling his captain.

Will he hand the armband to one of his City players this week or will Romelu Lukaku’s enticing match against Huddersfield prove the safer bet given Pep’s propensity to rotate his players?

ManagerPeterGraemeJayMatthewMarkAverage
Total Transfers997588
Total Points Hits12124488
Total Immediate Points Gained from Transfers295451-232327
Minus Points Hits174247-271519
£ Value (GW8)100.8101.7101.7101.4101.4101.4
Total Benched Points497165326156

Mark added to his total of benched points this week as Manchester United’s Phil Jones and Swansea’s Tom Carroll earned 15 points between them. With Liverpool playing United and Salah starting in midfield for his side, coupled with Jones being an injury doubt, Mark put his faith in his other defenders. He started with a back four of Southampton’s Cédric Soares, City’s Nicolas Otamendi, Burnley’s James Tarkowski, and – the only player to get a clean sheet for him in Gameweek 8 – Swansea’s Kyle Naughton.

While immediate transfer points are impressive, what is harder to measure is when keeping faith in an under-performing player is rewarded. For instance after the first three Gameweeks of this season Jay must have felt some pressure to dispense with City’s Kevin De Bruyne, especially after De Bruyne admitted he was often playing in a deeper position. However he kept faith with the Belgian for another two gameweeks and was rewarded with three assists.

Template – Gameweek 8

Players in Bold are in 3 teams or more

Elliot, Foster / Krul

Naughton, Cédric, Davies, Jones, Mee

Sterling, Salah, Alli, Carroll, Loftus-Cheek

Kane, Lukaku, A.N. Other

Players – Gameweek 8

Players in 5 teamsKane, Lukaku, Elliot
Players in 4 teamsSterling, Naughton
Players in 3 teamsSalah, Alli, Carroll, Loftus-Cheek, Jones, Mee, Cédric, Davies
Magic Beans – Attacking players 6m and underCarroll x3, Loftus-Cheek x3, Ritchie x2, Abraham, Calvert-Lewin, Choupo-Moting, Brady, Gross, Chalobah

AVERAGE COST PER PLAYER

*based on GW1 prices

Goalkeeper – £4.2m

Defender – £5.0m

Midfielder – £6.8m

Forward – £10.5m

In The Bank (ITB) – £1.0

Sterling is the big addition to the template this week, with the third striker position very much open. Each manager has different player in that position.

Mark re-signed Swansea’s Tammy Abraham this week, a player he sold in Gameweek 4, which helped him to upgrade West Brom’s Craig Dawson to City’s Otamendi and leaves him with a healthy £2.5m in the bank after also swapping the disappointing Henrikh Mkhitaryan for Sterling.

Clearly a fan of the Chelsea loanee, a player who was part of England’s Under-21 team in the summer and was a prolific scorer with Bristol City in the Championship last season, owning a cheap third forward allows him to distribute funds more evenly in his side.

Formation

ManagerPeterGraemeJayMatthewMark
GW Formation3-4-34-3-33-4-33-4-34-3-3

3-4-3 was again the most popular formation this week. So far this season it has been chosen 70% of the time with 4-3-3 second most popular on 28%.

It is interesting to note that Jay, who was an advocate of 3-5-2 last season, has used 3-4-3 in seven of the eight gameweeks so far. Demonstrating that he is able to adapt to each season’s new circumstances. However as the season evolves will 3-4-3 and 4-3-3 continue to be optimum formations?

Those managers with two 4.5m mids (Graeme, Matthew, and Mark) look set to alternate between 3-4-3 and 4-3-3 depending who has the better fixture between fourth defender and fourth midfielder.

As mentioned in addition to two cheap mids Mark also has a cheap third forward. It will be interesting to see where he decides to invest his £2.5m with a potential formation change on the cards.

Gameweek 9 Forecast

Surely more blue skies lie ahead this week? As City prepare to steamroller their next victims the only question is which three City player should we triple up on?

In terms of captaincy will Graeme and his fellow managers at the HoF’s top table be brave enough to hand the armband to a City player this week? Surely rotation must be a concern.  

Or will Lukaku, who currently still has 100% ownership in the Top Five, emerge as a better option should he be allowed out of the shackles to run free against Huddersfield? A side who seem to be finding life in the top flight a bit harder of late. He could well prove to be the safer bet.

TopMarx Fan of Fantasy Football and Monty Python. "Archimedes out to Socrates, Socrates back to Archimedes, Archimedes out to Heraclitus, he beats Hegel. Heraclitus a little flick, here he comes on the far post, Socrates is there, Socrates heads it in! Socrates has scored! The Greeks are going mad, the Greeks are going mad! Socrates scores, got a beautiful cross from Archimedes. The Germans are disputing it. Hegel is arguing that the reality is merely an a priori adjunct of non-naturalistic ethics, Kant via the categorical imperative is holding that ontologically it exists only in the imagination, and Marx is claiming it was offside. Follow them on Twitter

28 Comments Post a Comment
  1. J0E
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • Has Moderation Rights
    • 14 Years
    6 years, 5 months ago

    Thanks for posting

    Jay remains very much the manager to keep closest tabs on. Very impressive start from him.

    I'd bet most will captain Lukaku - as you say its the obvious choice. But will one or two of this elite group break ranks and go for a City asset? I also wonder if any will be tempted by the move from Kane to Aguero (c)....that could be a game changer....for better or worse.

    1. TopMarx
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 11 Years
      6 years, 5 months ago

      With Sterling in such good form I reckon Graeme will captain him for sure, no idea about the others though. I remember when I looked at stats for last season, although he wasn't part of the Top Five, Graeme was incredibly good at picking a captain. I mean as were all these managers although they don't always get it right as last week proved.

      Jay is doing very well, a rank of 57,205 at this stage of fairly topsy-turvy season is impressive. But all these guys are worth keeping tabs on, it's just as interesting to see how the others deal with a relatively poor start by their extremely high standards.

  2. J0E
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • Has Moderation Rights
    • 14 Years
    6 years, 5 months ago

    We like to keep discussion on community articles to the issue it is covering . If you would like advice on your team please post on the latest main article.

    1. LosBlancos
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 6 Years
      6 years, 5 months ago

      Ohh, ok. I thought you were just being mean
      Any idea of the HoFs gw9 team?

      1. J0E
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • Has Moderation Rights
        • 14 Years
        6 years, 5 months ago

        I think TM has probably nailed it. Further City investment for some, but probably a week of consolidation as well seeing as they all have the safest captain this week.

        Next week when Spurs and Utd's fixture turns and Liverpool have Huddersfield will be perhaps more interesting. Could be a few Salah (c) and also a few tempted by Coutinho in as well.

        1. CRO KLOPP
          • 6 Years
          6 years, 5 months ago

          I m going dullard, captaining lukaku and saving transfer,cheers and GL

  3. The Rumour Mill
    • 7 Years
    6 years, 5 months ago

    Hey TM, another great review! It's been an interesting season so far hasnt it?

    Interesting to see sterling so heavily backed now. I had a chance to get him in but went for hazard last week, which cost me a bit. My captaincy picks havent been as good as last season either which is a shame, but i think everyone has suffered with that a bit. Still, its been a good start to the season so far so can't complain too much! How have you found the start?

    1. TopMarx
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 11 Years
      6 years, 5 months ago

      Hey TRM, good to hear from you!

      My season isn't great but I take comfort from Matthew and Mark who are also outside the top 1m. I still feel confident though, I feel like there are a lot of points out there this season and it could all change fairly quickly. I hope I am right!

      I like the balance to my team having Wildcarded recently and it's players like Choupo-Moting, who now has a decent run of fixtures, that I hope will start to deliver.

      Can't decide between Sterling, Jesus and Lukaku as my captain this week...

      Who are your options?

      1. The Rumour Mill
        • 7 Years
        6 years, 5 months ago

        Cheers! I have been reading your earlier articles, but as they have tended to come out on a Saturday recently I'm normally out and about so not really able to comment haha.

        Yeah lots of different ways to score points this season I feel. Been weekly shifts from defenders scoring big to strikers and now mids. I think ive navigated it quite well so far by having a couple of each, and the right ones aswell, been playing 4-3-3 and eriksen in my team from the start, for example 🙂 what structure have you gone for? I fancy chupo to score this weekend actually!

        Ive got the option of Jesus, lukaku or Hazard. On Jesus at present due to the unmatchable scoring potential of city. However, lukaku is my vice captain, which could be a factor for the first time this season...

        1. TopMarx
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • Has Moderation Rights
          • 11 Years
          6 years, 5 months ago

          Currently on Sterling with Lukaku as vice. It could well swap before the deadline! I've gone for a big front three, I still think the value is there, but I could well downgrade Lukaku after this week... as you say where to invest seems to shift constantly. Good luck this week 🙂

          1. The Rumour Mill
            • 7 Years
            6 years, 5 months ago

            Cool, thanks and good luck!

          2. The Rumour Mill
            • 7 Years
            6 years, 5 months ago

            Wow. Well that went badly for me, really really badly!

            1. TopMarx
              • Fantasy Football Scout Member
              • Has Moderation Rights
              • 11 Years
              6 years, 5 months ago

              what a week, I got lucky Sterling didn't come on for 1 minute, at least I got 5 points from Lukaku, I did have a thought to go for Kane as vc towards the deadline but I didn't... Mark and Ville both had him as captain and Jay as vc. Good week for those guys!

              1. The Rumour Mill
                • 7 Years
                6 years, 5 months ago

                what did you get overall in the end? The rest of my team was as bad as Jesus, 34 points scored in total! A shambles lol. Thats ok, another example of Lukaku's steady but non explosive scoring. Yeah it was, fair play to them. Kane had to come good eventually and he finally did, although I dare say much of his haul was down to Liverpool shooting themselves in the foot!

  4. Gregor
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • Has Moderation Rights
    • 14 Years
    6 years, 5 months ago

    No transfers from me this week, regretted not giving Sterling the armband last time and that's who I'm putting it on this weekend.

    1. TopMarx
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 11 Years
      6 years, 5 months ago

      I did the same. Pep and his rotation grrrrr

      1. Gregor
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
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        • 14 Years
        6 years, 5 months ago

        Aye, felt harsh given Sané played the full game midweek, at least you had the good sense to vice a non-City player!

  5. FPL Virgin
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 7 Years
    6 years, 5 months ago

    Wow. Mate. Absolutely phenomenal effort that goes into this week after week. You're an example to us all.

    1. TopMarx
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 11 Years
      6 years, 5 months ago

      Don't be silly, I wish I had time to contribute to help people on the site as well. Need more hours in the day!

      PS I love how you have become a brand!

  6. Kryten
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 10 Years
    6 years, 5 months ago

    Another great stalker article topmarx. I look foward to it each week... always appreciated.

    1. TopMarx
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 11 Years
      6 years, 5 months ago

      thank you 🙂

  7. Numb
    • 9 Years
    6 years, 5 months ago

    You're correct in your assumption of Alli > Sterling! No doubt this'll be the week remembers where his shooting boots are.

    Rolled my second transfer pending the Aguero / Jesus / Morata situation becoming clearer.

    Cheers TopMarx!

    1. TopMarx
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 11 Years
      6 years, 5 months ago

      well I transferred out Ramsey for Sterling... not my best move ever either

  8. FC Lackless [BALEGIUM]
    • 7 Years
    6 years, 5 months ago

    Cheers TM, great review again.

    1. TopMarx
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 11 Years
      6 years, 5 months ago

      thank you kindly

  9. Will - Fantasy Football Hub
    • 12 Years
    6 years, 5 months ago

    Really enjoy this series. Thanks TM

    Be interesting to see their caps this week

    1. TopMarx
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 11 Years
      6 years, 5 months ago

      well Mark went with Kane and Jay had him vc after Sterling capt. Mark jumps up the ranks this week.