Boxing Day marks the start of a hat-trick of fixtures in quick succession and navigating squad rotation, injury news and team form will be crucial to success. Luckily our community writers were on hand with some great advice to spreading Fantasy Football joy at this festive time of year. Meanwhile our hot topic writers consider the good value of Leicester’s stars and assess whether pricing is now meaningless, given the surprise good form of the season’s bargain buys. Elsewhere, we catch up on the latest statistics from our Members area and also see who is number one at Christmas in our community leagues.
The Community Articles
Fantasy Football veterans are really struggling this season, according to Kavali’s new series of articles that is tracking the performance of Fantasy Premier League’s most experienced managers. Parts one and two of his look at their poor Gameweek 17 proved sober reading for this formerly elite bunch.
Help could be at hand, though, in the shape of some festive differentials. TM245 was on hand to run the rule over some low-owned forward and midfield stocking fillers.
Meanwhile, three of our other regular community writers were busy sourcing the best advice on getting a green arrow during Gameweek 18. YMA returned with his bookie-based predictions for inspiration, while The Sarjeant presented his latest colour-coded form guide and Bolivian Seaman once again popped into the fans’ forums to see what the latest chatter from the terraces has to offer us.
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 rotation set to loom large over the festive fixtures, Bowstring the Carp offered this analysis of manager Manuel Pellegrini’s typical defensive tinkerings for those holding Man City assets.
Injury concerns are another key factor of the festive period. Merry is among those wondering whether transferring out Jamie Vardy is madness or not, while our resident physio Facer believes the Leicester striker should be fit to start after being subbed off late on against Everton with a minor hamstring problem.
To hammer home the value of Leicester’s assets, those that backed Vardy’s team-mate Riyad Mahrez with the armband in Gameweek 17 were the happiest of managers in our rough with the smooth look back at the community’s best and worst decisions.
There was further analysis of how important Leicester has been to Fantasy managers this season in Abel Xavier’s research into the best possible dead team score, that looks to find the best possible score from a team that is left alone from Gameweek 1.
Arguably backing Leicester for success back in August could be described as a maverick decision. But is it the mavericks or dullards who will emerge victorious in 2015/16? The jury looks to be still out, according to our hot topic on these two sets of managers.
With the year almost at an end, our community has taken time to look at how FPL’s rules around bonus points and pricing have fared. Gargamel is amongst those to praise the current bonus point system that has allocated, in his view, bonus points more fairly than ever in 2015/16. Pricing has also been simpler and more effective this season, according to Bowstring the Carp. Thanks to the consistently good performance from Leicester’s cheap stars, as well as Watford’s budget striker Odion Ighalo, he believes that value is arguably redundant this season.
The end of 2015 has also given the community time to further consider their Fantasy management style, and thanks to Numb’ hot topic, whether they are similar to any of the Premier League’s managers.
Finally, Balders has produced this handy guide to an interesting fixture change where all teams alternate between having two home games in a row followed by two away games after Boxing Day. This will prove crucial reading to those who believe fixtures can still trump form.
The Members Tables
The shooting accuracy of midfielders was the subject of Arvin-ation’s latest table, while Daniel’s latest table also takes a look at accuracy to see which players are the best at converting chances.
My latest goals imminent table offers up some further inspiration for those looking for an under the radar goal scorer and rihscc102 offers up the very latest comparison between two of Arsenal’s in-demand midfield assets, Theo Walcott and Aaron Ramsey.
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
Peter Warren has taken the lead in the Ultimate Fantasy Premier League monthly FFS £1K Heist league, for those in the community looking to win a cash prize in FPL’s sister game. Warren is currently ninth overall and 15 points away from the £1,000 prize.
After a poor Gameweek 17 for many of the FFScout moderators and contributors there was little change in their FPL league. Andy dominates at the summit once again and Granville’s struggles to catch up with his Scoutcast rival Mark continue.
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.
