Scout Scribbles – Townsend Hands Spurs Advantage

What are your thoughts on Kane?

Looking at my WC this week. Sticking with most big guns but looking for a differential defence and 4/5th mid. Currently 27k but chasing a ML deficit of 35 ish.

Im 30k plus and there is no way I will go without Aguero. The reason I am 30K plus is because i have went 20 GWs without Sanchez. OR is a bonus to me, what I care about is winning my MLs and i cannot do that without Aguero

I don't see why anyone in top 1 shouldn't take as much risk as someone in 30k and vice-versa. Everyone is pretty much chasing until you are close to winning the game....even then you are. It's a mythical concept developed because of the lust around ranking.

Nice post. Am in the 1-5k too and have a pretty template team from 2 weeks ago.
That template seems to have changed somewhat as WCs have been used and fixtures shifted.
I am contemplating going without Costa and shifting funds to rest of team... Has a big swing one way or the other 😉

I'm dropping like a stone, been in the top 1k for a while but now I'm quite a way out of it. A lack of Costa is my main issue, I think I'll look to get him in ASAP as when he scores more than one goal (which is inevitable when he's not in my team) it's a guaranteed red arrow for me. It's the boring, conservative move but I think it has to be done to avoid slipping even further behind the top 1k.

I think I can be a good example of what happens when you DON'T follow this tactic. Before Christmas I was around 1.9k and really wanted to push into the top 1k/top 500 or so over Christmas. I decided to try and throw in quite a lot of differentials (inc captains) and purposely avoid the big name players, since then (6Gw's), I have plummeted to around rank 60K.

Moral of this was too many differentials are not worth the risk when you are up in the high ranks. I should have kept a mostly generic team as this article suggests.

Top 1k and might pass on Costa. But I not really decided yet so just a hunch.

No spot for me in top 10k : - )

If you're in the "Look to leave out one of the highly owned stars that may falter" group then leaving out Costa might be a good move.

After all, there were a lot of logical reason for doing so last week and they still remain this week, despite his haul on the weekend. That haul makes it less likely that other will stick to the plan though, with a few people who traded out last week bringing him back in at a loss this week. In that case sticking with your Costa-less side might not be such a bad idea.

Arent it feels boring to go for highly owned players just to keep ur rank?

Dropped to 2.6k now but i am getting the likes of elia kompany carzola defoe falcao kosc

I don't think it's that tricky at all. My team has beaten the top 1000 in 7 out of the last 8 GWs, often by a considerable margin.

Do you want to win or do you want to secure a top 2000/5000 finish, that's the question to ask. If you want to win play with freedom and no fear, trust your judgement and live with it if you end up with a 20k ranking. If you want to stay in the top 2k/5k play safe but don't expect to win, Simple.

Of course as this is my first FPL season and I am just learning how the game works (which I think I'm getting the hang of now) I have less 'investment' in my ranking. But I would never play to preserve a position anything below 1st myself. It's only a game, why not try to win it?

I think you're wrong about the top 1k strategy. The current top10 is very template, which gives a good chance to those who play their own way to climb up the ranks. Instead of comparing to what the others in the top10k own, just decide your own system to pick the players who are likely to score the most and follow it without knee jerking.

If you're in the top 1k then you don't need to take as many risks as someone further back.
There's a lot of misunderstanding about the notion of risk and the point at which you take decisions.

In the top 1k you need a template team and rely on your captain choice as your risk to drive you up.

I'm at 15k so is having a generic wildcard featuring differentials Puncheon and Cazorla wise to try push to top 10k?

On further thought, this probably comes down to the point at which you take your risk.

Putting Costa and Aguero up front is a sensible strategy because they are most likely to score the most points. If you're in the top 1k you can afford to wait and see how others perform. Take Defoe, for instance. If he scores a hat trick in the next match then you might drop Costa to get him in. Very few others near your rank would have had Defoe so you haven't lost anything.

At the same time, you need to use your judgment. If everybody is jumping on a bandwagon that you think will run out of steam then you can sit smugly knowing that you don't have a low scoring, high ownership player. Take ulloa, as another example. Many jumped on this bandwagon early in the season in wildcards which wrecked the balance of their team.

So it really comes down to : a high rank gives you the luxury of time to wait and see how assets perform before jumping on the bandwagon.

Any advice on how to play it if I'm ranked top 50 , chasing no. 1 ?

I`m in top 10k, on wc now.
Will go without Costa, it gives me a strong defence (Terry, Bert, Jones + WBA and Sun cover) and punts like Giroud and Puncheon.

Dropped from 13K to 23K this week by doing Costa > Aguero, but I might still only accommodate one of them on WC. It feels like the best way to maximise value from elsewhere in the squad, especially when I still don't think I'll captain Costa often.

I cannot climb up the rankings.. Should I buy some differentials in WC ??

First season for me. Currently the wrong side of 200k. Can't imagine not playing with freedom for fun though. The herd mentality kills the enjoyment.

My advice is to pick the players you think will score the most points, while remaining under your budget. The optimal team is the same whatever your current rank.

Why people give advice that counters this is beyond me!

my current rank is 16k - but I'm still far more concerned about my cash mini league (current position 3rd) than going further up the rankings

that said, I actually fit snugly into your group given I don't have costa and have placed my faith in Ings (successful to date) and Di Maria (the complete opposite)

The angle I take on this is the prep i do in the first half of the season should mean a healthy team which means I don't really have to look for differentials. The differentials a large team value gives, when the winter wildcard comes along, is that it gives you the chance to add another big hitter that your average Joe can't afford. Therefore my differential tends to be the addition of a Silva or ADM where others have Puncheon whilst maintaining a healthy balanced squad.

My seasons therefore tend to follow the same pattern, slow and steady leading up to the winter wildcard them explosive post wc as I make good gains on those in front. This season I'm currently around the 15k mark and would expect to be top 10k by the end. Team value is 109m.

Top 1K here.

I am probably not going to change my strategy at all - pick the players I think will do well based on the next 3 fixtures and transfer my way into and out of trouble with varying degrees of success after that.

Inevitably most of these players are already part of the template. Therefore, success will have to be based on nailing the captain choice.

I have an additional WC, so have the benefit of being able to structure my Jan WC for a shorter period of time defensively e.g. till maybe week 30ish.

I broke into the top 100 GW17 and have dropped back a little but still maintaining top 200. One of the reasons I'm so high up was ditching Costa in GW9 even though he was highly owned and a big captain choice. Luckily I got him back a couple weeks ago because I thought he was in form again. I don't plan on playing it safe in terms of getting all the highly owned players (I'm probably losing Kane on my WC and might get Puncheon and Pelle) but will stay cognizant of the popular captain choices since those are what would hurt me the most. It's my first full season of non-casual FPL so would be thrilled to finish top 1k. Closer to the end I'd probably play a blocking strategy to close out money leagues.

Can someone help me
What is this 10k and 1k thing you refer to?
Are we all doing fun runs or something?

This is the best thread I've read on here in quite a while!

Most of what I think has been covered above but probably my best tip for climbing the rankings is to hop off early when you think a player will regress. Even one or two GWs without a player who has previously performed really well and has a couple of 2s in a row will greatly benefit you if you choose a canny replacement.

Another one is to get out quickly when you realize you've made a mistake. Don't hold on stubbornly believing he will come good. An example that jumps to mind is Moreno earlier this season. I got him in after his goal at Spurs but dumped him after 2 GWs when I saw how badly Liverpool were defending!

I'm around 18k and have only recently put Sanchez in my team for £11.4m. Should I be risking swapping him for Cazorla and upgrading 4th and 5th mids to try and advance to the top 10k?

Intriguing thread, but I feel there is a certain amount of panic in the whole conversation. Just because roster templates are forming and teams look similar doesn't mean that the rankings will be cemented as well once the overall scores get tighter.

The right captaincy choice, an unlikely CS from a third defender, and a goal from an unsung seventh attacker could give you a massive boost in any given week of 10-15 points over the masses, which is currently worth 2000-3000 spots from my position of 6k.

Lukaku's second half vs United during the 2013 finale let me soar about 1500 places into the top 5k at the end of gw38 alone.

It's all still to play for.

I'm nestled in the top 1k but eff that. I'm shooting from the hip all the way. Gotta dance with the girl I came to the party with.

Captaincy choice will be a big differential in itself. Haven't got one right since Silva V WBA in the rain.

I think that the over riding factor about whether you make the top 1000 is your cpt choice.

This season my choices have been absolutely killing me. I've caught all the blanks of Aguero, Sanchez etc etc. I've not made any outrageous choices, I most often have gone with the cpt articles on here. I'm languishing 30k + with umpteen red arrows recently.

Conversely, my mate is sitting in the top 1k. We have had largely the same players in our teams. I'm about 115 points behind him and his captain choices, most of which I could have made as I had the players have got him just over 115 more than mine.

It doesn't then take a genius to work out why I'm not in the top 1k or at least a lot higher than I am.

Interestingly, in a game where there are no cpt choices, the telegraph game, I have two teams in the top 1k. A strong squad and watching the fixtures and form are required there and what essentially is very often pot luck in the choice of a cpt is not an issue.

So whilst obviously having a strong squad and not taking too many big risks in differentials would be important, I think that cpt choice is the single most important factor as the consequences for getting it wrong are an absolute rank killer.