Top 5 Career Hall of Fame – Gameweek 31 Review

Gameweek 31 was a mixed week for our elite quintet in the career Hall of Fame (HoF). Ville Ronka and Peter Kouwenberg both suffered for having captained Arsenal’s usually explosive Chilean Alexis Sanchez, and saw small red arrows as a result.

Yet there were season-high FPL ranks for number four Steve Poulsom, who finally broke into the top 100K, and number five David Meechan, who moved up to 4,767 in the FPL rankings.

However, the two big headlines of the week are – Marlen Rattiner decided to use his Wildcard in Gameweek 31, and we have a new Live Hall of Fame leader.

Huge congratulations to Peter on becoming the number one Fantasy Football manager for the first time ever. A regular poster to the comments section of this article as MyPrettyPony, Peter’s willingness to share his thoughts and opinions is immensely helpful to all.

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. Members can see the latest top five via our Live Hall of Fame update.

To help out I have also deployed Fusen’s FPL Statistico tool to gain an extra insight into their thinking.

Before we look at their teams in more detail, here’s why they are the best FPL managers:

POINTS & RANK

David continues to benefit from the Wildcard he played in Gameweek 30, he was for the second week running the highest scoring manager out of the Top Five. This is despite only getting 6 points from his captain pick. His high score this week was aided by Tottenham duo Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen, and a very welcome 11 points from Southampton defender Maya Yoshida.

*from GW6 onwards

Only one of this quintet qualified for the cup (David #5), he went out in GW19. Marlen and David have played their Wildcards, all apart from David have played their Triple Captain chip, and three have also played their AOA chip.

CAPTAIN

Three of the Top Five HoF managers went for Sanchez and for once he let them down. Instead going against the majority paid off for both Steve and Marlen, who picked Leicester City’s Jamie Vardy and Manchester United’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic respectively.

Over the season Sanchez has been picked as captain 32% of the time, averaging 14.4pts when chosen. Aguero follows in popularity having been handed the armband 26% of the time, averaging 15.9pts as captain or triple captain, with Everton’s Romelu Lukaku chosen 11% of the time averaging a mighty 21.8pts.

In graphic below I’ve displayed this information for the five most popular captain picks. It shows that Lukaku has handsomely returned the faith placed in him when chosen as captain. You could argue that the trolls on this graphic are Tottenham’s Harry Kane and United’s Ibrahimovic. They have not performed as well as expected on the few occasions that they have been chosen as captains, averaging 11.4 and 12.8 points respectively.

CAPTAIN POINTS

Despite the low return from Sanchez, Peter remains the best performing manager out of the Top Five in his ability to pick the right captain. Peter also leads the way in immediate transfer success however the difference is less pronounced (see ‘Transfer Success’ section).

To help you make this crucial decision be sure to read YMA’s Form and Fixture analysis together with the Captain Sensible articles. There’s also a fascinating Hot Topic by CRUZ88 “GW32 Captaincy Stat Attack” that will give you plenty to ponder.

TRANSFERS – Gameweek 31

The popular transfer was the expected transfer – Mané out, Sanchez in. Only Steve decided to bench Mané and instead swapped Swansea’s injured Fernando Llorente for Leicester City’s Jamie Vardy. A wise move as it turned out.

MARLEN’S WILDCARD

Marlen made the bold move of using his Wildcard to remove Aguero, Lukaku and Llorente, which for this Gameweek reads like a fairly fearsome front three. Instead he brought in the in-form Jamie Vardy, Christian Benteke and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. How relieved he must have been at Zlatan’s last minute penalty!

Sanchez remained in his team and was joined by Dele Alli of Spurs and Philippe Coutinho of Liverpool. Both players provided instant rewards.

Interestingly in goal both David last week and Marlen this week opted for Middlesbrough’s Victor Valdés. No doubt they will be hoping for more than nil points from his Double Gameweek 34 fixtures against Bournemouth and Sunderland.

In picking Benteke and teammate Wilfried Zaha, Marlen is going for form over fixtures. Perhaps anticipating an end of season run from Palace to match the great escapes of Leicester, Sunderland, and Wigan in recent seasons. Big Sam has never been relegated from the Premier League.

TRANSFER SUCCESS

Marlen benefited from his Wildcard by gaining a Gameweek high of 28 points. Of those not to use their Wildcard Steve’s transfer and decision to captain the Foxes’ in-form Jamie Vardy brought him 18 points.

Over the course of the season Peter has mustered more immediate transfer points than any of his fellow bosses at the HoF’s top table.

As ever the new Live HoF number one was kind enough to share his transfer plans ahead of the deadline. If you’d followed his advice since I started tracking the crème de la crème of the fantasy football world, you’d be in pretty good shape. Thank you Peter!

The contrasting way the game can be played is highlighted in the table above. Perhaps surprisingly the number of transfers made does not appear to be a significant factor in determining success. If anything Peter’s 84 points in hits compares favourably to Ville’s paltry 8 points, given that he has amassed over 50 points more than the Finn based on immediate transfer success.

FORMATION

The standard 3-4-3 was again popular this week with three managers choosing this formation. However David, who chose 3-5-2, scored the highest weekly score. He averages 62.6 points with this formation over the course of season, more than any manager who has preferred 3-4-3.

In the 2016/17 season 3-4-3 has been favoured 57% of the time by the career HoF Top Five, with 3-5-2 second with 22%. 4-4-2 is the third most popular on 11%.

PLAYERS – Gameweek 31

TEMPLATE – Gameweek 31

Goalkeepers – Heaton, Pickford

Defenders – Valencia, Alonso, McAuley / Davies, (Chambers)

Midfielders – Sanchez, Alli, Eriksen, Coutinho, Sigurdsson

Forwards – Lukaku, Vardy, (Costa / Barnes)

As expected the injured Saido Mané dropped out of the template for GW31, replaced by Alexis Sanchez. However after a disappointing return against West Ham his place in the template must be under threat given his expensive price tag. With fellow premium players Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Sergio Aguero staking a claim for a place in our teams, our limited budgets are coming under pressure. Will the Chilean hold onto his place?