With this weekend’s teamsheets looking settled and the press lineups handing me mere morsels to chew on, our wander this morning takes a new route: one of contemplation.
The post-mortem on last night’s Scout Picks has had me pondering whether this is truly a risk averse season. Have we become channeled into deep furrows with our squad selection, resistant of the “risky” alternatives? Is our own blinkered thinking to blame or have the mechanics of the game we love helped dig us into a rut?
I’ve spoken previously about my thoughts on the midfield template: the small pool of a dozen players that offer the main viable selections, outside of which the other 90% of the player list are seemingly redundant. A month on since I raised the concept of adding the second midfield position, we’ve continued to see the likes of Marouane Fellani, Kevin Nolan and Michu maintain their form and cement their status in even more squads.
I’m still convinced that the midfield area is a root cause. Owning a couple of the “out of position” trio looks essential given their value, place them around the inevitable cast of “heavy-hitters” – Juan Mata/Eden Hazard/Santi Cazorla/David Silva/Gareth Bale – and you have a template that still allows big funds to be spent elsewhere. Arguably, when you throw in Raheem Sterling as a fifth midfielder, you have a highly efficient unit built from a pool of ten players. Why would anyone deviate from a path that has proven to be profitable and continues to deliver?
The form of both Robin Van Persie and Luis Suarez has compounded matters. While the Dutchman failed to return for the first time in his ten United starts, Suarez fetched points for the sixth successive game against Wigan. Add the value provided by Dimitar Berbatov or Demba Ba and, again, you have an obvious route up front that has delivered. Carlos Tevez and Sergio Aguero are perhaps an x factor, here, but it’s hardly a gamble to switch one of the pair in for those names mentioned.
With heavy-hitting defenders failing to deliver and Stoke, West Ham, West Brom and Norwich have emerging as obvious mid-price clean sheet fetchers, it doesn’t take long to put together a template defence either. The popular alternative is Leighton Baines and a gang of budget options. While at first it seems that the defence is a breeding ground for differentials and variety, then, that’s perhaps wishful thinking.
Of course, we have to have optimism that all this will be broken up, that gradually the established names in our season so far will shift out of favour. The problem here is that we will need the courage of our convictions to push this through. How many reading this have a host of the names mentioned above and how many would truly be happy losing any of those names for the likes of Antonio Valencia, Stephane Sessegnon or Rickie Lambert in the next few weeks?
These are players who could be on the cusp of strong returns but, for them to make a dent in our squads, not only will the established names have to fail, we will also have to have to risk trading them out. I’m becoming convinced that, more than any other season, it’s become harder to justify taking a gamble.
Where’s the incentive? When you factor in the FPL price losses associated with removing the likes of Michu, Fellaini and now Suarez, it’s clear that the template squad has not only formed easily, it gets firmly cemented into our squads by the mechanics of the prices.
I’m considering a change today that I firmly class as a risk. Dimitar Berbatov is a proven class act but he has three away trips in four, including Stoke and Chelsea up next. I need money to change up my defence, so the trade to Rickie Lambert looks a good option. However, not only am I hesitant about losing such a crown jewel, I also have to contend with spilling 0.4 on the sale due to Berbatov’s recent rapid rise. The game should be all about such transfers and yet I’m resistant to it.
There is incentive. Without taking some risks, my season will likely plateau. Those who recruited the established names early, have, quite rightly reaped the rewards. To catch them, the rest of us have to rely on gambling at the right time and banking on the fact that the leaders will be risk averse: that they are tangled in the deep furrows and reluctant to doubt their proven assets and lose the FPL profits they’ve earned them.
Having thought long and hard on how this week’s Scout Picks were formed, how uncomfortable it felt to consider those excluded from the current recognised “elite”, it’s made me wonder if we’re all too worried to venture “outside the box” and whether, for those giving chase, we need to reconsider.
I’m not sure whether Gameweek 13 is the right time to change policy and start taking risks but I can’t help concluding that Fantasy football is a game and I want to play it, not have it play me.
