Scout Notes – Gameweek 4 – Sunday

I think keeping hold of my wildcard will pay huge rewards in a few weeks.

I think it was Bowstring who posted very detailed stats on BAPS distribution, and full backs seem to have led the way for defenders. Cresswell, Shaw, Kolarov etc.

Swans are under priced based on last year I suppose, they could be considered closer to heavy hitters than they are.

Sanchez smashed Stoke last year though so I think he could come good.

Patience.
Hits only when necessary.
3 Citeh - a D, a M and an A.

Stay Calm and not take panic decisions..

Patience is the key.When the big hitters start scoring,there will be a change in the ranking trend. But at the same time it is important to have a few bandwagons who are in top form.

Patience. It is only GW4. Informed players will end up making better decisions than casuals and rise to the upper rankings.

Form and fixtures would mean Ayew next GW

Silva's not a bad idea though. He's normally key to picking the Palace lock.

Play 532 😉

Patience. It paid off for me this week with Sterling, Mane, Cedric and Sakho getting in among the points. Pure chance that they all do it at one but they were all "due". As long as you clear out the dead-weights and get players who at least threaten to score, the points will come - as will a few more home wins.

luckily enough people in my m/l are having same problem, seems most are scared not to have the big hitters or not captaining them for fear of aguero sanchez big game
think patience for me as its still close in m/l,no panic yet !

Rankings are still scewed by the chips that less advanced players will have already squandered. This will be the case for quite a while when then 'pros' make a charge come DGW season. No panic, keep plugging away. Saying that, don't ignore obvious point players even if unfashionable.

Patience for me. I like Ayew but will give him another week.

I'll captain Aguero for a few more weeks yet.

I think people need to look at the way the big teams are performing and all but one have mixed fixtures at best.

City appear to be the only reliable team top 5 team from last year.

Every player from every other top team is now expendable at least for the next few GW's.

Makes sense to captain a Man city player but not necessarily Aguero right now.

I have always thought full backs were the best Defender option (removing rotation risk that is) - they can provide assists and can be a threat from set pieces.

Play your own game, let others do a mistake.

1. I would reccomend drastic action, in week two it took me from below 2.3 million to the top 600K.

2. Going maverick and captaining Ayew in GW3 failed but, giving the duties to Kolarov in GW4 was a success. I think 'maverick' captaincy options could be the way to go until a heavy hitter really starts performing.

Post wildcard very happy with my team. Only beat my old team by 10 points, but TV has gone up 1.2m already, and up from 3.0m to 2.1m overall. Just need a successful captaincy!

Could it not be that more and more people are taking the game more seriously and everyone on here are not as good as they think they are ? I think be humble, don't panic, knuckle down and concentrate hard, lots of early chips have been played skewing the ranks a fair bit, but with added enthusiasm with those in front, it will be hard to pull it back but not impossible

Captain a form player, Aguero isn't in form

Drastic action for me (although I only have a 6 figure rank).

I was staring down the barrel of a 2nd round of price drops on Hazard, Milner, Coates along with some drops on Huth, Cedric, Ruddy and Rudd. I had already dropped 0.1 on Walcott, Ritchie and Deeney.

Wasn't entirely unhappy with my team but can't afford to lose more ground in the value department so plugging all those holes with risers on WC. As long as your team isn't hemorrhaging value like that, you will come good later in the season if you stay patient.

Patience as well, Aguero and Tadic got their hauls in October last season, so still a month and a half off. That was the point that established my rank last season

In the long term the quality injury free players will outscore the rest. It rarely happens that all the best players are on form at once. The trick is guessing the next upwave of form from a team yet to get going. Arsenal cannot get any worse and Chelsea will be playing for pride if they don't immediately stop losing ground on Man city. The points are coming from the Swansea, Southampton, Leicester type teams and probably will for a few weeks. Fantasy league managers are the same in that the best players of the game will outscore long term the rest. But a very bad start is very difficult to catch up.

Patience.. Arsenal/Chelsea/Tot/Pool/Utd are still 5 of the top 7-8 clubs in the country. They've all just happened t ostart poorly at the same time 🙂 .. they will bounce back

Finding myself in the same situation, with Kun, Sanchez brought in for hits and not delivering. To make matters worse, getting 3 Sot'on from the start and failed cheap defender picks meant spending the first few GW's firefighting.
Going ahead, I think the best strategy is to offload the big hitters for cheaper in-form players, but make sure to have the self-discipline to have enough the bank to be able to quickly react. But don't take any hits in this restructuring process - save if large price drops (e.g. Walcott) justifies it. So at thios point, I'd say that the ideal team would be a £90m team with £4.5-7m players, and £11m in the bank!

It's got to be the strangest start to a season i've ever played.

I have two transfers going into this international break and really unsure how to use them. Unless anyone gets injured in the next two weeks, i'm considering 'sideways' moves like Kompany to Kolarov or Darmian to Shaw, but that just doesn't seem like the best use of a transfer.

Hopefully the big hitters will emerge over the next few weeks as teams settle in properly.

Patience will pay off an a top 10K finish is still easy possible (but don't expect it to happen this side of Xmas if your in the + 2m OR). Don't take unnecessary hits, but maybe a captaining the form players rather than whoever is top of the captains poll regardless of form is the clever move.

The International Break could be a blessing in disguise for both FPL managers and real players since its a great opportunity to start fresh again after the break. With the addition of new faces, we might see a major turn around in form players.

stay patient.
Wildcarded GW3 and jumped nearly 2 million places.
A disappointing score of 43 this week still sees me up another 80k places.
currently 538k ranking but only 24 points of top 100k.
a lot of people in the top 100k seem to have played chips which seem to be the difference of those 24 points.
plus TV is up about 1.5 million so not too concerned at present.

I think that at a time like this all you can really focus on is what you can control, which is essentially embracing price rises through taking hits and retaining a WC in such volatility.

I think everyone agrees that the Chelseas/ Arsenals/ Liverpools and Man Utds are going to join Man C in the top 5 shortly, the season will become a lot more predictable in a few weeks. And there are 2 major differences that I think are important this season:

1. For the first season in a long time the top players from last season, Hazard, Sanchez, Ageuro, Rooney and Costa together with the likes of Silva, Benteke, Kane, Sterling and the Arsenal MF are in their prime and staying and playing at top clubs, with no real risk of leaving the FPL. We’ve got so used to the top players leaving (Bale/ Suarez/ Ronaldo/ Fab/ Tevez/ Berbatov), ageing (RVP/Lampard/ Gerard/ Drogba), picking up injuries (Sturridge/ Walcott) or settling into new teams/ managers/ formations (Rooney/Lallana/ Mata) that we’ve lost a number of the priciest players before the season really starts and had the luxury of having the top scorers being affordable. I think for the first time in a long time, notwithstanding transfers and the possible exception of Pedro the top 10 players this year will be close to the top 10 players last year and that’s going to mean the top FPL managers are going to need a huge amount of cash to get ahead.

2. WCs have changed. I’ve been a fan of playing a WC in the international break in GW4 knowing that I will have to play a WC at Xmas, and each year that WC at Xmas has been important to my team. This year to save a WC until the end of the year is going to be extremely important to make the most out of chips for DGW’s – but to do that I would have to go 30 weeks without a Wild Card, missing the important Xmas WC and seemingly inevitably being forced into hits. So what price a WC this year? Previously 30 points boosts for one GW have been achieved with many more points gained in subsequent weeks, with the Chips this year a WC value surely rises? Are people playing a WC at this stage really gaining 50 points + over the coming weeks? I heavily doubt it and though the WC may help gain player values I don’t think its nearly preferable to take some hits over previous and upcoming weeks to achieve the same if not more.

So what I’ve done is taken 24 points in hits up to this point, and I wouldn’t shy away from anouther 12 points this international break. Taking hits instead of a WC has allowed me take advantage of price rises far faster than a WC over a single week and has left me with a team value of £102m and a position of 2.1 million.

My plan for the next few weeks is to take a few more soft hits while languishing around the bottom of my leagues until things settle down and then hope to be in a far better position to buy in the big players for the rest of the season.

So essentially the questions I have asked myself was/ is, are those 24 points in hits over 4 weeks sufficient to justify retaining a wild card (while achieving my wild card team)… and my answer is yes because that wild card around Xmas or later in the season will likely be worth 24 points + to me, the extra money I’ve made from being decisive in transfers should get me far more than 24 points + over the course of the season with such high player values and I’ve also been gaining points from being decisive over the likes of Mahrez/ Kompany/ Gomis and Toure.

I think following the above path will see you out of this weak opening in good stead for the rest of the season.

patience remains key, but I'm not sure us "experts" have got more than one really bad week in us

the people who finished 1st to 5th in my 40 strong mini league last year, all in the top 20k overall are currently between 18th and 37th! Myself included. We are all members of this site and know what we're doing but have been killed 3 out of 4 weeks.

chelsea, the arsenal midfield and aguero have to come good next week or the gap will be too big to make up on the top 10k - there will be plenty of experts still in there who have got lucky and been shrewd and can now sit back and play safe until christmas

You already used your WC so my suggestion of using it on Deadline Day transfers is redundant. Can't see myself using mine until Christmas.

It is tricky. It is far too early to be in "chasing mode". But at the same time, how long do you stick to a script that is not working?
I would say to start with a strategy tweak rather than a complete overhaul. Switching formation can be accomplished without many hits.
For me, with my 1.1m rank, I'm okay to stick to the strategy for now. But who knows how long I'll be able to hold my nerve?

Patience. And no panic. I ha(d)ve a horor start, my rank was 2,513,138 in gameweek 2. Just 2 gameweeks after I am at 524,514 and 4 (C) blanks in a row. But the most important thing is that I believed im my team. My only punt before the season was Walcott. I sold him before GW2 for Payet. After that I made 1 more transfer in GW2 and took a -4 hit in GW3. For now, all of my new players are doing well, except Aguero, but it is Aguero at 13.2 already, if I missed him at 13 and Rooney 10.5 I would be in big, big problems. It was extremely hard not to activate my wildcard after GW2 or 3, but I knew that my wildcard will be worth as gold in november/december. I have all of my chips too, all of that will be useful when many other players will have no more some of their chips and first wildcard. Make smart transfers and don't make hits every gameweek. Better option is to save a transfer and have 2 FT. Good luck to all of us.