Top 5 Career Hall of Fame – Gameweek 32 Review

The experience of the majority of our  Top Five Career Hall of Fame (HoF) shows that cream really does rise to the top, as three of this elite group attained season best FPL ranks in Gameweek 33.

Peter Kouwenberg (aka MyPrettyPony) broke into the top 1,000 for the first time this season and is now on course for a hat-trick of three-digit finishes in consecutive seasons, with his current 846 overall ranking.

Career HoF number four Steve Poulsom continued his recovery in what has been a below par campaign, and now sits at 80,354 overall. Meanwhile, Career HoF number five David Meechan moved up to 2,433. A seventh top 10,000 finish in seven seasons now looks firmly on the cards for David.

The only red arrow this week belonged to FPL Legend Ville Ronka as he slipped back marginally following a season high rank of 8,637 in Gameweek 29.

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

Peter’s bold move to sell Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez for Chelsea’s Eden Hazard paid off. His front seven all delivered attacking returns helping him to a Gameweek 32 score of 93. That makes three Gameweek ranks in the top 50,000 in the past month.

Impressive as Peter’s run is, he’s pipped to the top of the form table by David who has three top 50,000 gameweek ranks in four. David continues to benefit from the Wildcard he played in Gameweek 30. This week he boosted his score with new signings; in-form Palace winger Wilfried Zaha and fellow popular pick for Double Gameweek 34 – Manchester United’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

*from GW6 onwards
Only David of this quintet qualified for the cup and he went out in Gameweek 19. 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.

The graph below shows the ranks of the Top Five managers over the first 32 Gameweeks. The vertical scale is from rank 1 to 1M. The distance between the ranks corresponds to the amount of points separating them. For instance there are 201pts between rank 1 and rank 10,000, and 263pts between 10,000 and 1M. The graph gives an idea of how difficult it is to move up the ranks as you near the summit.

CAPTAIN

Three of the Top Five HoF managers plumped for Tottenham’s Dele Alli. They were rewarded with a goal and clean sheet against The Hornets. However Ville and Marlen Rattiner did slightly better with their captain picks; Everton’s Romelu Lukaku producing yet another double digit haul at home, with Ibrahimovic doing likewise in the Red Devil’s victory over Sunderland.

Over the season Sanchez has been picked as captain 30% of the time, averaging 14.4pts when chosen. Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero follows in popularity having been handed the armband 24% of the time, averaging 15.9pts as captain or triple captain, with Lukaku chosen 11% of the time averaging a mighty 21.9pts.

In the 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 in 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 trusted with the armband, averaging 11.4 and 13.2 points respectively.

With Kane vs Lukaku leading the captain poll for Gameweek 33, it is worth remembering what happened in Gameweek 24. Both players had attractive fixtures as Spurs hosted Middlesbrough while Everton entertained Bournemouth, and it was the big Belgian who came out on top. He delivered his highest points tally of the season to eclipse his English counterpart. Will recent history repeat itself or will Kane take his revenge? 

CAPTAIN POINTS

Peter remains the best performing manager out of the Top Five in his ability to pick the right captain. Though Ville made ground on him this week thanks to Lukaku.

To make Sanchez owners feel better; I mentioned in the Gameweek 30 review how well then FPL leader Knut Hebæk had done with his captain picks – Knut has amassed an impressive 572 points – well last week the high-flying Norwegian captained Sanchez. Just goes to show you can’t get it right all the time.

TRANSFERS – Gameweek 32

TRANSFER SUCCESS

Sod’s law for Ville; the seemingly sensible transfer of West Ham’s Robert Snodgrass to Swansea’s Gylfi Sigurdsson backfired as the Scott’s assist and clean sheet meant he outscored the Icelander. Similar disappointment for Marlen as Liverpool’s Philippe Coutinho came off the bench to better his new signing Tottenham’s Christian Eriksen.

The most successful moves this week belonged to David. He added Marlen’s Gameweek 31 Wildcard picks Wilfried Zaha and Ibrahimovic to his team. In picking Zaha both David and Marlen are 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 years. Big Sam has never been relegated from the Premier League.

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.

Ville has faltered a little recently with his new signings not immediately out performing his cast-offs. At the moment Ville’s low number of transfers leaves him on average 55 points behind his less hit-averse colleagues in terms of immediate points gained minus hits. Although with his Wildcard still to play he will likely make up ground before the season draws to a close.

Immediate transfer success is not in itself proof of overall success but simply one part of a complex picture. Steve for instance is only 10 points behind Peter in this metric, however he is over 150 points behind overall.

One of the aims in FPL is to own players for their best periods and sell them when they are underperforming. With that in mind I’ve put together a couple of tables looking at how our managers have fared with getting the best out of their charges.

EXPENSIVE AND MID PRICED PLAYER RETURNS

*average points per appearance for each player (number of gameweeks)

I’ve highlighted both the best and worst performing averages for each player. A few observations:

• Peter has no players in which he has their lowest points average out of the five managers. Demonstrating that he has generally known when is the right time to sell premium assets and invest funds elsewhere.
• Ville’s tendency to hold onto players is reflected in that he has a number of poorly performing premium players. Though only two he has owned for 10 gameweeks or more.
• Marlen has shown too much faith in Sanchez, Aguero and Lukaku, not maximising his use of these players. The pricey trio have not delivered for him compared to the other five managers.
• Steve is the anomaly. Currently the lowest ranked elite manager he has made the best use of five players. Though the longest serving player in his team, Liverpool’s Roberto Firmino, has delivered a relatively disappointing five points per appearance over the 27 gameweeks Steve has owned him.

Players with low points returns over 10+matches

*defenders with 4 points or less per appearance, midfielders and forwards with 5 points or less per appearance

Ville has six players who have underperformed for him over a period of ten matches or more. Again not surprising given the patient way he plays the game.

With both of these tables you might expect Ville to be the worst performing manager and yet he is not. In fact he only recently dropped outside the top 10,000. Clearly there is more to success than can be measured with these stats. 

FORMATION

The standard 3-4-3 was again popular this week with three managers choosing this formation. Midfielder Coutinho replaced injured forward Andy Carroll in Peter’s line-up, meaning he ended the week with a 3-5-2 formation.

Over the season Ville and Marlen have been strong advocates of 3-4-3, Marlen opting for the formation 26 times. Yet it is David, favouring 3-5-2, who has scored the highest average points with 64.3. It has also been the most successful formation for Peter, the seven times he has chosen or defaulted to 3-5-2 he has average 69 points.

However with the likes of Lukaku, Kane, Ibrahimovic and Aguero all performing well, coupled with Sanchez’s current malaise – will it continue to be the most rewarding formation?

This season 3-4-3 has been favoured 57% of the time by the career HoF Top Five, with 3-5-2 second with 23%. 4-4-2 is the third most popular on 11%.

PLAYERS – Gameweek 32

TEMPLATE – Gameweek 32

Goalkeepers – Heaton, Pickford

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

Midfielders – Eriksen, Alli, Sanchez, Sigurdsson, Zaha

Forwards – Lukaku, Ibrahimovic, Vardy

Bournemouth’s Josh King has a rival in the sub 6.0 category in the shape of Palace’s Wilfried Zaha. Both players currently provide excellent value for their owners.

Spurs assets remain popular, and the dilemma facing all of us is what to do about the return of Harry Kane? Triple Spurs must be tempting for our Top Five managers.

Jamie Vardy to Harry Kane looks the sensible move with Leicester having one eye on the Champions League.

THE KEYS TO SUCCESS IN FANTASY FOOTBALL

I wonder how useful ‘Captain Points’ and ‘Immediate Transfer Points’ are as measures for gauging FPL success. There are managers such as The Rumour Mill who are performing better than most of the Top Five for these two metrics and yet find themselves with a comparatively low rank.

There must be other ways to analyse FPL performance.

The season isn’t over yet but so far it seems a high points scoring season. With six gameweeks to go including three double gameweeks, it’s not impossible that we will see a record winning score. The current marker is 2,668 points set in the 2009/2010 season.

With so many points on offer from a wide number of players an aggressive transfer approach is paying off for Peter. This is no doubt why he currently leads the way in Immediate Transfer Points.

Yet Peter tells us this is not the norm for him – in previous seasons he’s been much more cautious. However perhaps it is his ability to adapt to what this season has thrown up that truly marks him out; an ability to re-assess his options and assumptions from gameweek to gameweek.

For instance removing Sanchez after only one week. A premium asset and the leading FPL points scorer, this was a move many others baulked at. If getting Sanchez in the first place was an error of judgement (I would argue against that), it wasn’t one he was willing to prolong. Suddenly Aguero emerged as a premium alternative up front and funds were shifted to the Argentine.

The game is about making good decisions. We can devour stats, watch matches and highlights, and read analyses to inform ourselves, but there’s no magic formula. As Peter would say ‘trust your gut’. At the end of the day Peter’s gut is working better than most – I feel Yakult are missing a sponsorship opportunity here!

One of the helpful things to come out of these articles is Peter’s willingness to offer insights around transfers and strategy in the comment section below. Hopefully, he will once again be able to share his thoughts.