A Good Start in FPL – Lessons Learnt from 2016/17

I don't know about anyone else, but I always have an average start to a FPL season. Last season I got 50 - just about the average. The Scout Picks did even worse.

Next season I'm determined to do better so thought I'd take a look at what went right or wrong at the start of last season via the picks.

Hope you find this useful. the lessons around formation, fixtures and champions so often failing after their success I think could very well carry on into 2017/18.

Great article, Jonty - and amusing! 🙂

I had an even worse start than usual last Season - 24pts!

I compounded that by hanging on, when hits galore were required.

This Season, I am back to my hits budget of 16 over 4GWs.

Ownership, ownership, ownership.

I got 62 points in GW1 for a 190k rank. I didn't actually improve much on that all season!

At least I avoided Leicester 😎

Actually, just checked back and I didn't own a Leicester player all season 😯 Can't imagine I've ever done that with a previous championship winning team!

I've noticed a few people mentioning double or even triple Southampton and double WBA. Southampton's fixtures certainly are tempting, but I can see it all backfiring.

I can see West Ham causing an upset at OT on the opening day as well.

Fascinating article Jonty, thank you for this! Definitely some lessons to be taken from last season 🙂

My own GW1 was quite interesting, I actually had a cracking start to FPL last season, 65 points, but it was the ultimate case of fool's gold! They did well enough to give me faith, but went on to be dreadful players for the rest of the season. It would have been better if they had just bombed to be honest!

The roll call:

Schmeichel - 2 points. He and Leicester were awful until late on in the season.
Amat - 5 points. This was one of 2 clean sheets he got all season!
VVD - 1 point. Covered in Jonty's article
Azpilicueta - 5 points. A rare good, sustainable pick from me there!
Mahrez - His 8 points here included the only goal he scored in the first 11 gameweeks.
Lamela - 9 points. The only goal he scored all season.
Oscar - 2 points. Packaged off the China soon after.
Tadic - 2 points, covered above.
Martial - 11 points. 1 of 3 double digit hauls, the next didn't arrive until gw25, and he spent most of the intervening time on the bench.
Aguero, Gray - 9,2 covered above.

I had Mahrez & Vardy and then Kingsley & Amat, looking for a Leicester haul against Hull and a Swansea clean-sheet against Hull.

*I certainly won't be betting against one team so much at the start of this season.*

It's not all about GW1 either - I got 74 points in GW1 last season, even though I had a defence of Souare, Friend, Kingsley (Amat, Tarkowski) - but it went downhill quickly.

Swansea had two starting 4.0 defenders against bur & HUL, it 'had' to be done - unfortunately Hull started better than expected and those defenders only managed a point each in GW2. GW3 was a disaster (Friend didn't play) and the (albeit planned) wildcard was activated.

Don't underestimate promoted sides...

Normally I have a really bad start but last season I got off to a flyer with GW ranks of ~50k and ~86k
So much so I rolled transfers with first transfer for GW 3 and a my first hit (-4) for a mini refresh in GW 4

Ibra, Aguaro and Hazard helped.

The point The Rumour Mill made about 'Fool's Gold' is a great one - could a great GW1 actually be a 'bad' thing?

Players like Redmond, Martial, Mahrez, Negredo, dare I say Ibrahimovic, looked like decent picks before the season and performed well in GW1 (and some for GW2) but then went weeks without anything. Could a good GW1 put the blinkers on, make you think you were 'right' about their prospects before the season, and then keep those players for much too long and ignore better options as a result?

I scored 64 in GW 1. First season n ol and I Actually started with Firmino Mane Coutinho in the first GW with my one friend calling me are you crazy? they are up against Arsenal. But I just said Liverpool will score 2-3 I dont care they will be in goals.

Firmino (hit the post) But Mane and Delivered brilliantly. Also had redmond. Aguero (C)

Defence was shambles I think. Kane got 2 points but I immediately changed him to Ibra the next gameweek wth FT who got 13 points vs Southampton while kane Floundered.

I'd never turn down the points haha, but you're right; it can easily lead you into thinking you've cracked it, you relax, and that's when the game gets away from you. I think the skill comes in identifying those players whose points are sustainable, blending FPL points with good underlying stats. I did get rid of Martial for example after GW2, after also seeing his 2 assists in GW1 were pure flukes and he wasn't actually creating much!

Of course at the start of the season there is less data to base this on, which is what for me makes the first few weeks of the season so tough imo. It doesn't help when the stats fail you either (e.g. Capoue scoring at an unsustainable rate, Ibra not scoring at an unsustainable rate), or in my case, when 2 of your 3 strikers miss penalties in one gameweek.....

AOA gw1, WC gw2

I started FPL last season so well! Was 12th Overall on the Saturday & Top 400 for that GW, but stupidly played my WC that GW in the hope of going even higher. My plan failed miserably so won't be making the same mistake this season that's for sure

Don't think I have ever finished GW1 inside the top 1m .... One of these days I'll get it right though!~

That said, I suppose a good early score puts a lot more pressure on you, to maintain a high position, than a poor(ish) score but with the knowledge you have plenty of time to make up the points (as you usually do)?

The wait for new FPL season is intolerable, hurry up and start already!

Good stuff. A good start is essential before the template kicks in if you're to achieve a great end of season rank. Unfortunately I never seem to get one!
One thing I'm considering this season is not to stat with anyone with a poor history that may have had a good pre season and convinced myself he's worth a punt. The likes of Lamela or Townsend spring to mind. Instead I might go for something I've been against in the past and punt on a new foreign import. Who that's going to be I've no idea as yet. 🙂

Mulling over defensive stats I decided to look at how many clean sheets were recorded during the first 3 game weeks over the last 5 years. At the top of the heap, Arsenal, recording 7 CS out of 15 games. Just a single CS in each of the last 4 years during the first games weeks. Need to go back to the 2012/13 season when they started the year with 3 CS in a row.

Tied with 6 CS a piece we have six teams; Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Man United and West Ham. Man United has been the most consistent over the last 2 years recording 5 CS out of a possible 6 fixtures. Liverpool had no CS to start last term, but in 2015/16 started on 3 CS. West Ham hasn't been too solid the last 2 years, just 2 CS to start the season.

Man City, Swansea City and West Brom all had 5 CS over that same period, while Newcastle had 4 CS.

I scored 53 in GW1, and my squad wasn't too bad really apart from the absence of Heaton, Zlatan and Capoue.

But I looked at the teams leading the Top 10k Any Season mini-league after GW1 and thought that they had somehow struck on the ideal formation for the season, whereas in reality they had merely had better luck in GW1 than other equally good teams lower down the league.

So I panicked and played my Wildcard in GW2, which soon led to a long downward spiral.

Instead I should have stayed calm and just taken a 4 point hit in GW2 to bring in Zlatan and Capoue.

So one of the lessons I re-learnt last season was the advice given in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Universe: DON'T PANIC!

I started the season ranked 300k, then consistently dropped until GW17 where I hit 662K. I managed to finish 20,188 after a good second half. I want to improve on that this season and it is obvious that a good first 5-10 weeks is vital. My issue last season was that I payed too much attention on pre season form (Tadic, Oscar and Gray) and not enough on fixtures. Hopefully that is the key....

My opening punt for the first few GWs was to rotate formations between 3-5-2 and 3-4-3, and as I felt it was a strong opening team I played 2-5-3 with my AOA chip, leaving Stones, Amat and Smith on the bench.

GK - Forster (2 pts) - I liked the initial SOT fixtures and thought he would be a cheap way in. Rotated well with Jakupovic (3 pts), who I benched.
DF 1&2 - Valencia (2 pts) and Shaw (2 pts) almost got the CS, but were great over the next few weeks.
MF 1&2&3 - Sanchez (2 pts), Eriksen (2 pts) and Firmino (2 pts) - transferred out Sanchez and Eriksen in GW3 (ouch....).
MF 4&5 - Hazard (10 pts) & Redmond (10 pts), who would have been benched had I not played AOA, so lucked out.
FD 1&2&3 - Gray (2 pts), Vardy as Captain (4 pts) and Carroll (2 pts) - Vardy as captain turned out to be a mistake but the fixture was too tempting.
Total 40 points

After the first two GWs I felt that 3-5-2 just wouldn't work and I transferred out Sanchez and Eriksen in order to finance getting Aguero and Zlatan....which proved to be a complete disaster! I should have stuck to my guns, lesson learned hopefully for this season.

Hopefully adding to the theme of 'A good start in FPL' and considering Jonty’s earlier comment that lots of players Wildcard in GWs 4-6, I think I’ve found a reason why this makes sense. As you know, one transfer a week, carried over means two transfers every two weeks – a good way to play if you can wait a week and someone isn’t bright red and tumbling in price.

So no transfers before GW2 is two transfers before GW3. Now if you WC in the International break before GW4, you’d do no transfers before GW5, two before GW6, none before GW7, and (importantly) two in the International break before GW8; and following that trend you’d also get two transfers in the next International break before GW12. Perfect.

But, if you tried to hang on and not play the WC before GW4, it plays out as: two before GW3, none (importantly) in the International break before GW4, two before GW5, none before GW6, two before GW7, and (importantly) none in the International break before GW8; unless you play your WC. But you still lost out on the max two transfers in the 1st International break, and if you hang on to the WC until the 3rd International break, you’re out of sequence for maximum transfers in the International breaks before the 4th and 8th GW’s.

The only way out of this conundrum as I see it is passing over the two transfers before GW3 to the International break in GW4 – this would allow you a single transfer before GW2 – might not be a bad thing… but you’d lose out on a transfer. Please advise if my reasoning is flawed.

Top article Jonty! Essential reading before the start of the season and really shows how tricky it is to get points in GW1.

I have started poorly for the last 3 years and have wildcarded twice before GW3 in that time. Really hoping to avoid a repeat of that this time around!