Captaincy nightmares have blighted many of the community members’ seasons so far, with established heavy hitters failing to deliver. Our community writers and hot topic posters were on hand to offer advice on improving our armband selections, whilst they also assessed the merits of this week’s latest bandwagons. Meanwhile, our latest Members tables look at those who are due a goal or two and we also catch up on those who have had a dream start in our community tournaments.
The Community Articles
Your Mum’s Athletic’s popular look at how the bookmakers are influencing his decisions returned with this analysis of how his betting-based Gameweek 3 predictions fared. He also produced another article on how the odds are helping make his mind up about Gameweek 4.
Last week’s bandwagons, such as Bournemouth’s hat-trick hero Callum Wilson were the focus of Rodellegabomb’s analysis, as he ponders whether Wilson and two other sought-after players are worth our investment.
Captaincy decisions have been a tricky tactic to get right for many this season. Jose’s Magic Omelette is urging a different tact with his collection of alternative armband heroes for Gameweek 4.
Looking further ahead Jarvish has looked in detail at how the FA Cup, and in particular its semi-finalists, look set to define this Fantasy Premier League season through strategic use of the game’s chips. Wingate, however, is among those to think the bench boost chip may be better used during a single Gameweek.
Don’t forget, if you’ve got some analysis, scout reports or features brewing, be sure to visit our community section to submit your article.
The Hottest Topics
With bandwagons continuing to deliver and new recruits settling into the Premier League straight away, there are no shortage of transfer options ahead of Gameweek 4. Chelsea’s Pedro hit the ground running in Gameweek 3 with a goal and assist and is understandably a top transfer target for many. But despite this optimism from many in the community, doubtful Doosra was on hand with his tables to rain on their Pedro parade.
Other impressive new recruits that our hot topic posters are considering include Bournemouth’s Max Gradel and Stoke’s Xherdan Shaqiri, two players that Parm has his eye on.
Established players dominated this week’s Rough with the Smooth hot topic, where we round up the community’s best and worst Fantasy Football decisions. For S Kuqi Aleksander Kolarov’s goal, clean sheet and bonus points gave him much to cheer.
Meanwhile, Spartabhoy regrets keeping faith in Wayne Rooney as a captaincy option. As our hot topic after Manchester United’s Champions League qualifier against Club Brugge showed it takes more than a hat-trick to earn the striker a place back in many other Fantasy managers’ affections.
Other established Premier League players to impress our hot topic posters include Philippe Coutinho, who has attracted the attention of D1sable in his search for the perfect number 10. Scoredelario believes that Swansea’s Kyle Naughton has beaten competition from Ashley Williams to emerge as the best Swansea option in defence.
For those who continue to marvel at the goal scoring prowess of Leicester’s Riyad Mahrez TM245 took us on a trip down memory lane to remember some other great mid-price midfielders who got off to a fine start.
While Mahrez’ ownership has rocketed this season, Ruth NZ has turned his attention to players who offer a potential gold mine of cut price talent after seeing their prices drop. This week has also seen the return of Wakey‘s Falling Stars hot topic, where he creates a team of price fallers and pits them against the Gameweek average.
Amongst those players that are already seeing an ownership fall is Dimitri Payet, who has been ditched by more than 37,000 FPL managers this week. Footballoholic dropped by to express his incredulity at those losing faith in the West Ham midfielder.
The 40,000+ Fantasy managers who have dumped Andre Ayew get similar short shrift from Van Kinkert Delarosa in his hot topic on Swansea’s attacking midfielder.
Many in the community are also losing patience in their captaincy choices, according to Bowstring the Carp’s look back at the popular armband picks so far. This was also covered in our hot topic on why so many Fantasy managers are getting their captaincy strategy wrong.
Could putting our faith in full backs such as Aleksandar Kolarov be the surprise antidote? Bowstring the Carp certainly thinks so in his analysis of how full- backs have been dominating bonus points so far.
One factor in so many botched captaincy moves is the lack of home wins so far this season. The Governor, however, believes that such results are not far around the corner and urges patience with the strategy of favouring those with home advantage.
Another urging patience is Jaffalicious who reckons Fantasy managers should save their transfer in FPL this week, as it may come in handy over the international break.
Catching price changes, however, can make waiting difficult. For those wanting to time their transfers just right, Arbroath has revealed the exact times when FPL price changes happen this season. Meanwhile, Shakhtar Senseless offered a reminder of the importance of playing the market correctly during the first half of the season to build team value.
Such forward thinking doesn’t take into account the fickle hand of fate, though, says Far Queue’s in his look at how the best-laid plans can so easily go array.
The Members Tables
For those on the look out for attacking midfielders Wakey has the latest run down of those who are the most involved in the penalty box. There are more attacking midfielders to consider in my first goals imminent table of the season, looking at those who are arguably due a goal.
If you’re a member and are yet to get to grips with the custom statistics tables, you can view this movie for an explanation of how they work. Also, remember to tag them so that people can find the tables with ease.
The Community Tournaments
In TorresMagic’s Last Man Standing the safety score was 33, which saw 147 players depart and 2,543 remain.
The draw for the qualifying second round of Jaffalicious’s FFS UEFA Champions League themed tournament, which takes place in Gameweek 4, has now been made. Eye catching match ups include Van Kinkert Delarosa against Greenwindmill and Innsie taking on Mata is The Juan.
Euan Thompson leads Red Lightning’s Top 10k Any Season mini-league. Three of this 243 strong league are now in the top 50,000 in FPL.
In AZ’s cash league, Kieran Walsh remains top of the standings. His ‘all out attack’ chip helped him to a reasonable score of 56 in Gameweek 3. Colin Bothwell is in second.
Andy continues to top the FFScout Moderators and Contributors League.
If you are running a community tournament and would like the latest scores included in future Community Round Ups please email me a brief summary of the current leaders and a link to your league, spread sheet or head to head competition, at jonty@fantasyfootballscout.co.uk.
