Gameweek 12 brought little green arrows for all of the Career Hall of Fame top five in a week when lots of players delivered.
Current Live Hall of Fame leader Jay Egersdorff moves up to 729 in the overall rankings after entering the top 1,000 in Gameweek 11. He scored a very good 73 points this week, despite his captain Tottenham’s Harry Kane earning him a mere two points.
Described as a “special gift” by Pep Guardiola during his welcome back montage on this week’s FPL Show, Gameweek 12’s highest scorer in the Top Five was this site’s very own Mark Sutherns (aka Mark) with 75 points. Unlike Jay he sidestepped Kane in the North London derby and instead made Manchester United’s Romelu Lukaku his captain, and was rewarded with 12 points. Mark is also the only Top Five manager to own Chelsea’s Eden Hazard, who scored 18 points in Gameweek 12.
This season’s career HoF number one Peter Kouwenberg (aka My Pretty Pony) played a successful ‘mini-wildcard’ in Gameweek 12 with new signings Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah and Bournemouth’s Charlie Daniels helping him to a score of 74 points. He moves up to 425,987 in the overall standings.
Career number two Graeme Sumner (aka Gregor) and career number four Matthew Jones (aka Numb) scored just over the average, with 64 and 60 points respectively.
Going into Gameweek 12 Graeme had a cheap third striker and two £4.5m midfielders, but he has already re-invested the £4.5m he had in the bank ahead of this evening’s deadline. Have we seen the last of Swansea’s Tom Carroll in his team?
Matthew is now the only Top Five manager not playing with a cheap third striker. Given he is the lowest ranked member of this elite group by some margin, languishing near to the 1m ranking mark, he will need to react far more swiftly to emerging trends over the coming Gameweeks if he is to catch the others up. For example, he has kept hold of Liverpool’s Roberto Firmino since his Gameweek 4 wildcard. But over that period the Brazilian has failed to replicate his Champions League form in the Premiere League, averaging a lowly 2.9 points per appearance for Matthew. Surely Bobby’s time is up in his team?
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 & RANK
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark |
| GW points | 74 | 64 | 73 | 60 | 75 |
| Total points | 660 | 642 | 767 | 633 | 683 |
| FPL rank | 425,987 | 746,450 | 729 | 940,823 | 170,364 |
| FPL ID | 36298 | 345 | 175574 | 97282 | 370 |
The graph below shows the ranks of the Top Five managers over the eleven Gameweeks so far. The vertical scale is from rank 1 to 3m. The distance between the ranks corresponds to the number of points separating them. For instance there are 173pts between rank 1 and rank 100k but only 63pts between 100k and 1m. The graph gives an idea of how difficult it is to move up the ranks as you near the summit
| Rank | 1 | 10 | 100 | 1,000 | 10,000 | 100k | 1m | 2m | 3m |
| Points Difference to First | 0 | 59 | 80 | 104 | 134 | 173 | 236 | 272 | 307 |
CAPTAIN
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark | Ave. (c) points | As % of score |
| GW (c) Points | 12 | 2 | 2 | 12 | 12 | 8 | 12 |
| Total (c) Points | 136 | 122 | 156 | 134 | 156 | 141 | 21 |
As expected there was a split on the ‘Kane vs Lukaku’ captaincy choice in Gameweek 12. Jay of course doesn’t own the Manchester United forward, opting instead to fill his second striker spot with Chelsea’s Alvaro Morata, who incidentally outscored the Big Belgian by nine points to six.
Peter, Matthew, and Mark were brave enough to go against Kane, not a decision Peter has got right very often this season. Will he be brave enough to overlook Kane this week with a tempting home fixture against managerless West Brom at Wembley on offer?
Peter has captained Kane four times this season in supposedly easy home fixtures and Kane has failed to deliver each time.
The present average of the captain score making up 21% of each manager’s total score is below last season’s average of 25%. So I think we can expect our Top Five to make better captain choices are the season progresses. Peter himself averaged nearly 27% last season.
Does this mean Peter won’t keep getting it wrong or that Harry Kane will eventually score against weaker teams at Wembley – or both?
This season seven different players have been handed the armband by our Top Five. Kane is the most popular having been chosen 45% of the time followed by Lukaku on 35%. So far Lukaku has proved the more reliable choice averaging a 14.7 point return when chosen as captain compared to Kane’s 8.7 points.
In the graphic below I’ve displayed this information for the five most popular captain picks.
The other three most popular players who have been chosen as captains by our Top Five this season are Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah, Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero and Arsenal’s Alexandre Lacazette. Salah has been chosen 7% of the time and averages 8 points as captain, They have both been chosen 5% of the time, averaging 22 and 12 points respectively.
TRANSFERS
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark |
| Players In | Niasse, Salah, Daniels | Jones, Ryan | – | Speroni | Daniels, Dann |
| Players Out | Vardy, Choupo-Moting, Cedric | Cedric, Foster | – | Krul | Otamendi, Jones |
Peter belatedly added Liverpool’s on fire Mohamed Salah to his team, meaning the Egyptian is now owned by each of the Top Five.
Charlie Daniels is now in three teams while Southampton’s Cedric Soares has been sold by all.
Stoke’s out of position budget midfielder Eric Choupo-Moting is another who is no longer in any Top Five team.
TRANSFER SUCCESS
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark | Average |
| Transfers | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Points Hits | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Immediate Points Gained from Transfers | 21 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 9 | 6 |
| Minus Points Hits | 17 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 9 | 6 |
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark | Average |
| Total Transfers | 13 | 13 | 11 | 9 | 13 | 12 |
| Total Points Hits | 20 | 12 | 8 | 4 | 12 | 11 |
| Total Immediate Points Gained from Transfers | 29 | 50 | 64 | -27 | 27 | 29 |
| Minus Points Hits | 9 | 38 | 56 | -31 | 15 | 17 |
| £ Value | 101.1 | 102.0 | 102.1 | 101.9 | 102.3 | 101.9 |
| Total Benched Points | 71 | 95 | 92 | 46 | 84 | 78 |
It’s probably not much comfort to Peter to know that although Niasse’s ten points may mock him from his bench, they actually count towards his Immediate Transfer Points total.
In recent weeks I’ve pointed out a couple of caveats to this table – it doesn’t reflect that Transfers aren’t made with only one fixture in mind or the reward when Patience in an underperforming player finally pays off. Add to that list – points from newly transferred in players left on the bench are included.
Nevertheless Jay’s exceptional start to the season is reflected in the table. Not only does he lead the way with Mark in making the best captain picks out of our Elite Quintet but he leads outright in Immediate Transfers Points Gained.
Having saved a transfer last week, I feel we may well see him roll one of those transfers to Gameweek 14. Potentially allowing him a little reshuffle to bring in Hazard, although with a plethora of in-form midfielders it’s certainly not a given.
Mark, who already owns Hazard, may well make teammate Morata a transfer in the coming weeks. He will be closely looking at the threat posed to Lukaku by the returning Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
TEMPLATE – Gameweek 11
Players in Bold are in 3 teams or more
Elliot, (A.N. Other)
Naughton, Jones, Mee, Dunk, Daniels
Sterling, Salah, Richarlison, David Silva, Loftus-Cheek
Kane, Lukaku, Abraham
PLAYERS – Gameweek 11
| Players in 5 teams | Kane, Salah, Sterling, Elliot |
| Players in 4 teams | Lukaku, Richarlison, Naughton |
| Players in 3 teams | David Silva, Loftus-Cheek, Jones, Mee, Dunk, Daniels |
| Magic Beans – Attacking players 6m and under | Loftus-Cheek x3, Abraham x2, Calvert-Lewin, Niasse, Gross, Carroll |
AVERAGE COST PER PLAYER
*based on GW1 prices
Goalkeeper – £4.2m
Defender – £4.8m
Midfielder – £7.2m
Forward – £9.9m
In The Bank (ITB) – £0.5
For the first time this season the average cost of a forward has dipped below £10m highlighting the trend of money being invested in midfield.
As Jay pointed out in his Gameweek 12 review with so many players on form at the moment he feels we will move away from a template. He highlighted Salah and Morata as the only two he felt were essential, while also describing a Burnley defender as a ‘set and forget’ option. Ben Mee and James Tarkowski are the two players chosen by our Top Five.
Jay also mentioned the importance of owning 15 active players in your squad – 15 players that will play every week. This might be something our managers consider as we move into the busy festive period when all teams, not just Manchester City, will be expected to rotate players.
Currently Peter still owns Everton’s Mason Holgate, injured but not a certain starter when fit, while Matthew owns the now out-of-favour Newcastle defender Chancel Mbemba. Will these two disappear from their squads over the next few gameweeks?
FORMATION
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark |
| Formation | 3-5-2 | 3-4-3 | 3-5-2 | 3-4-3 | 4-4-2 |
A 3-5-2 formation continues to prove a popular choice since first being used in Gameweek 10.
So far this season 3-4-3 has been chosen 63% of the time with 4-3-3 second most popular on 20%. A 4-3-3 set up was the canny early season choice as managers looked to take advantage of real world formations favouring wing-backs, but it hasn’t been used by our Top Five since Graeme played it in Gameweek 9.
Managers are now shifting their attention to the value to be found in midfield as choices emerge across a range of price brackets.
GAMEWEEK 13 FORECAST
Another Gameweek another captaincy dilemma, only this week it’s not only Kane vs Lukaku with City players and possibly in form Salah options too.
Jay appears to favour Harry Kane again this week – highlighting Spurs’s improved second half performance against Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League as well as the need to put on a good show for the fans after the defeat in the North London derby.
Will Peter be brave enough to follow suit?
With Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling the only City player the likely alternative remains the Manchester United forward despite the possible threat to his position from Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
