Top 5 Career Hall of Fame – Gameweek 2 Review

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 (HoF). Between them these managers have achieved nine top 1,000 finishes in the past three seasons and have ended up in the top 10,000 a whopping 37 times over the course of their FPL careers.

And in Gameweek 2 they suffered just like the rest of us!

Another fairly short article this week with the season only two gameweeks old, in a few weeks time I will make use of Fusen’s FPL Statistico tool to gain an extra insight into their thinking.

Points and Rank

Career HoF number three Jay Egersdorff was the highest points scorer this week with a paltry 47. His score helped by clean sheets from West Brom’s Ben Foster, Manchester United’s Antonio Valencia, and Huddersfield’s Chris Löwe. His only attacking returns came courtesy of United’s Romelu Lukaku.

Meanwhile, two of this elite group, career number four Matthew Jones (aka Numb) and career number two Graeme Sumner (aka Gregor) find themselves nestling outside the top 2m in the rankings after failing to breach the 100 point barrier mark after two Gameweeks.

CAPTAIN

The United frontman was once again the unanimous captain choice for our Top Five. However, his 12 point contribution to their totals was below average for a Top Five captain pick, and over eight FPL points less than his personal average last season (20.7pts).

Can Lukaku maintain a 20+ point average this season? His home form is not in question but he’ll have to improve slightly upon his solitary away strike this week to keep it up.

Gameweek 3 provides managers with an interesting captain choice with the favourites for the golden boot – Lukaku and Tottenham’s Harry Kane – both enjoying home fixtures.

Last season we found ourselves with a similar captain dilemma going into Gameweek 24 – Kane had a tasty home fixture with Middlesbrough having scored a hat-trick in his previous home encounter against West Brom, while Lukaku was at home to Bournemouth, Everton having won 4-0 against Manchester City in their previous home match.

It proved to be a pivotal week for career HoF number one Peter Kouwenberg as he was the only member of last year’s Top Five to bring in and captain the Big Belgian, Lukaku rewarding him with a four goal haul putting Kane’s solitary strike against Boro in the shade.

It even prompted the famously patient Ville Ronka to make two kneejerk transfers that very Saturday as he sought to add the then Everton striker to his team.

Confidence in Kane appears high, certainly with career number five Mark Sutherns (aka Mark) as he talked up the Spurs man on this week’s Scoutcast. Kane’s stats from the first two matches put him head and shoulders above other forward options. This weekend the North London side play a Burnley team notorious for their poor away form, winning only once on the road last season and conceding 35 goals.

However Lukaku should not be ignored. United have won their first two matches 4-0, with Lukaku scoring three goals. This week the Red Devils face a Leicester team that conceded four goals in their opening match away to Arsenal. Last season the Foxes won only two matches on their travels and conceded more goals than Burnley – 38.  

Will history repeat itself or will Kane turn his stats into points and emerge as a reliable captain option?

TRANSFERS – GAMEWEEK 2

Peter (aka My Pretty Pony) was the only manager last week not to make a transfer, as he dropped by to tell us in last week’s comments section. However, the low scoring start to Gameweek 2 prompted Peter into making two (kneejerk?) transfers last weekend. Hopefully he will be good enough to tell us his moves again.

Another manager who kindly told us his transfer plans ahead of the deadline last week was Graeme , as he opted for Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsey to replace the stricken Palace winger Wilfried Zaha. A move replicated by Jay and Matthew. 

The Welshman was subject to some debate over the summer and it clearly didn’t escape the attention of our Top Five that Ramsey’s attacking stats markedly improved following Arsenal’s change in formation towards the end of last season. As this hot topic pointed out, the former Welsh captain scored three goals and assisted three in the final ten matches (including FA Cup). He was also top of a members table by Giggs Boson for players who should have scored more in 2016/17.

With Chelsea’s Willian already in their teams, Ramsey was considered the next best 7.0 midfielder.

The only manager who didn’t pick Ramsey as his Zaha replacement was Mark. He instead opted to take a hit to bring in Manchester United’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan, downgrading teammate Valencia to Phil Jones. It proved a shrewd move as Mark’s two new signings earned him 16 points, which even after factoring in the cost of the hit bettered Ramsey’s return by 12 points to 2.

The Armenian is now in both Mark’s and Peter’s team.

TEMPLATE – GAMEWEEK 2

Players in Bold are in three teams or more

Foster, Elliot

Bertrand, Dann, Mee, Long, (Mbemba)

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

Lukaku, Kane, Jesus

PLAYERS  – GAMEWEEK 2

AVERAGE COST PER PLAYER*

*based on GW1 prices

Goalkeeper – £4.35m

Defender – £4.88m↓

Midfielder – £6.74m↑

Forward – £11.03m

With three transfers made already this gameweek the template is likely to change a little.

There was a slight change in the average player cost with Mark shifting funds into midfield from defence with his move to buy Mkhitaryan. Otherwise Ramsey replaced Zaha in the template.

Lukaku, Kane and Carroll remain the only players in all five teams.

FORMATION

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

Although, as anticipated in last week’s HoF article, 4-3-3 made an appearance with both Peter and Jay opting for the formation. Given the way funds are spread at the moment with a hefty investment in forwards and the popularity of 4.5 midfielders Carroll and Loftus-Cheek, I expect this formation to appear more often.

Jay scored highest in a low scoring gameweek using the 4-3-3 formation.

GAMEWEEK 3

Looking ahead to Gameweek 3 the big question is surely where to put the armband – will it prove a pivotal Gameweek as Gameweek 24 did last season?