Top 5 Career Hall of Fame – Gameweek 1 Review

Welcome back to my weekly look at the moves and strategies employed by the five elite managers who grace the upper echelons of this site’s Career Hall of Fame (HoF).

I started these articles last season to try to improve my own FantasyPremier League game by observing and learning from the best. It worked – I achieved my highest ever FPL rank and first top 10,000 finish. I hope it helped some of you improve your ranks and FPL strategy too.

The big news at the end of last season was a new name at the top of the HoF as Peter Kouwenberg (aka My Pretty Pony) moved from third place to first. When you consider in the past three seasons Peter achieved FPL ranks of 138, 129, and 289 it’s easy to understand why he is number one.

Last season Peter rebuffed the notion that taking hits are bad as he clearly didn’t suffer from a calculated 100 points in extra transfers. However, last season was not typical – he had previously adopted a more cautious hit-averse approach. How will this season unfold and which strategy will he employ?

A regular poster in the comments section last season, Peter is now a welcome contributor to Fantasy Football Scout on a number of articles.

Second in the HoF is Graeme Sumner (aka Gregor) who with an FPL rank of 29 last season was the highest placed FPL manager out of the Top Five. With three top 1,000 finishes in the last four seasons this Liverpool fan is an accomplished FPL manager, and a regular poster to the site.

Third in the HoF is Jay Egersdorff – a champion of the five man midfield last season as he revealed in this interview. Jay briefly held top spot in the rolling Live Hall of Fame (available to members only). The Live HoF will update periodically throughout the season.

Jay is now in his twelfth FPL season and has shown remarkable consistency over the years – in his previous 11 seasons his worst rank is 14,954. Last season he achieved his second best FPL rank finishing 105th, his third time in the top 1,000.

Fourth in the HoF is Matthew Jones (aka Numb), who has achieved top 10,000 finishes for each of the past seven seasons, and in that time has three top 1,000 ranks. Last season he was the lowest ranked of our elite quintet at 367 in the overall FPL standings, which just goes to show the quality of this group.

Finally in fifth place in the HoF is someone called Mark Sutherns (aka Mark). Mark’s FPL record includes four top 1,000 finishes, the most out of the Top Five, and along with Graeme he is the only manager in this select bunch to have a top 100 finish to his name.

A bit of an enigma, not much is known about Mark. Although it is rumoured he likes to make a grand entrance and is quite good at heading a football. Hopefully he will join the others in contributing to the site.

In a few weeks time I will make use of Fusen’s FPL Statistico tool to gain an extra insight into their thinking, but for now with only one gameweek gone there is not enough data to analyse.

CAPTAIN

It was unanimous – Manchester United’s summer signing Romelu Lukaku was chosen by each of the Top Five as their captain choice. The highest owned player in FPL (52%) delivered 26 points for those who trusted him with the armband.

Last year captain points made up about 25% of our Top Five’s total score, an average of 590 points per manager. Lukaku’s 26 point contribution this week is above average (38%) so we shouldn’t expect such high returns every week.

However, the Big Belgian was the most predictable captain choice in 2016/17, averaging a whopping 20.7 points when chosen by last season’s Top Five. This compared favourably to the default captain options – Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez (19.3) and Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero (15.9). It is especially impressive given that their totals included Double Gameweeks and Triple Captain chips, unlike Lukaku’s total.

Part of Lukaku’s reliability is that he was trusted to deliver at home and rarely captained on the road last season. How will he fair now that he is at a club expected to push for the title? Can he be relied upon away from home?

To help you make your crucial captain decision be sure to read the Captain Sensible articles.

POINTS & RANK

It proved to be a high scoring Gameweek 1. For instance my score last year of 66 was enough to put me inside the top 100K but this season my score of 67 leaves me just outside the top 1M. I take comfort in the fact that three of the Top Five also find themselves outside the top 1M. No need to panic yet.

As can be seen from the graph* below – showing the ranks of last year’s HoF Top Five over the course of the season – the first few weeks can be fairly erratic.

*The vertical scale is from rank 1 to 1M. The distance between the ranks corresponds to the number of points separating them. For instance there are 258pts between rank 1 and rank 10,000, and 379pts 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.

Perhaps more instructive at this stage is to take a look at their teams.

TEMPLATE – Gameweek 1

Players in Bold are in 3 teams or more

Foster, Elliot

Bertrand, Dann, Mee, Long, (Valencia, Mbemba)

Carroll, Zaha, De Bruyne, Salah, Willian, Loftus-Cheek

Lukaku, Kane, Jesus

PLAYERS – Gameweek 1

AVERAGE COST PER PLAYER

Goalkeeper – £4.35m

Defender – £4.94m

Midfielder – £6.70m

Forward – £11.03m

What I find remarkable is the consistency between the teams and also the investment in premium strikers.

Romelu Lukaku is joined in all five teams by Tottenham’s Harry Kane. Clearly the Top Five believe a summer rest for Kane will see him score in August for the first time. They are also unperturbed by the ‘Wembley effect’.

I would expect that the Top Five have confidence in the England man as a captain option, although last season he was the least predictable regular captain choice for them; picked 9% of the time he returned an average of 13 points – the lowest out of popular captains Sanchez (19.3), Aguero (15.9), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (13.2) and Lukaku (20.7). Will he become more predictable this season?

Given the high number of premium attacking options it is no surprise to find both Swansea’s Tom Carroll and Chelsea Loanee Ruben Loftus-Cheek in so many teams. Indeed Peter has picked them both along with Bournemouth’s Ryan Fraser (£5.5).

Instead Peter has invested in three players costing £5.5 at the back – Southampton’s Ryan Bertrand, Manchester City’s John Stones, and Manchester United goalkeeper David De Gea. A fan of Manchester United’s Antonio Valencia last season, a player who didn’t perhaps deliver the returns he would have hoped for, this season he turns his attention to the Spaniard, the most popular keeper in the game.

FORMATION

3-4-3 was the most popular formation this week as it was throughout last season.

In 2016/17 Peter averaged 62.9 points with 3-4-3, however 3-5-2 was the most successful formation for him – the seven times he chose or defaulted to 3-5-2 he averaged 69 points.

However formation doesn’t really tell the whole story. Taking into account budget spend we can see that forwards are clearly in vogue. Even though you might expect the average cost of a forward to be greater than that of a midfielder, £11m versus £6.7m is a big difference.

With two £4.5m midfielders in three teams, it wouldn’t surprise me if 4-3-3 ends up being this year’s 3-5-2. Of course with injuries currently to Chelsea’s Eden Hazard and Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez there may be a different picture emerging in a few weeks time.

OTHER TEAMS TO FOLLOW

Along with our Elite Quintet below are links to other notable teams and the FFS Mods league:

Peter Kouwenberg HoF number one

Graeme Sumner HoF number two

Jay Egersdorff HoF number three

Matthew Jones HoF number four

Mark Sutherns HoF number five

Ben Crabtree FPL Winner in 2016/17

Simon March FPL Winner in 2014/15

Tom Fenley FPL Winner in 2013/14

Ville Ronka Former HoF number one.

FFS Mods league

Good luck with your seasons.