A bonkers Gameweek 14 with more ups and downs than a rollercoaster, as team selections and goal scoring substitutes leave managers in a spin.
After a couple of weeks of smooth green arrows, Gameweek 14 was anything but – our Top Five got swept up like so many others.
The turbulence is captured no more than with career Hall of Fame number one Peter Kouwenberg (aka My Pretty Pony) who took a 12 point hit, and ended the gameweek with his captain making up over 50% of his score. What this staistict means is that Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah emerging from the bench to score a brace rescued what could have been a truly disastrous week for this elite manager.
In contrast for Graeme Sumner (aka Gregor) his captain score made up only 3% of his total, yet he ended the gameweek as the highest scorer in the Top Five. He was one of two Top Five managers to hand Chelsea’s Alvaro Morata the armband, who picked up a yellow card to bring them a mere two point return.
Graeme owes a pint or two to his defence, with Arsenal’s Hector Bellerin, Chelsea’s Andreas Christensen, and Brighton’s goalkeeper Mathew Ryan helped bolster returns from Salah and Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling.
Peter and Graeme were the only managers to have playing goalkeepers in our Top Five, as one of many unexpected team selections left Newcastle’s Rob Elliot on the bench. With back-ups Crystal Palace’s Julian Speroni and Brighton’s Tim Krul also out of favour, it meant Mark Sutherns (aka Mark), Matthew Jones (aka Numb) and current Live Hall of Fame leader Jay Egersdorff all played with 10 men.
Mark has already transferred in Burnley’s Nick Pope ahead of this week’s deadline in order to get 11 players on the pitch. He’s also taken a hit and removed Crystal Palace’s Scott Dann who seems to have fallen down the pecking order having spent the last two matches on the bench.
Weary of rotation at this time of the year, Mark clearly agrees with Jay about the importance of having a squad composed of 15 active players.
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. 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.
To help out I have also deployed Fusen’s FPL Statistico tool to gain an extra insight into their thinking.
POINTS & RANK
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark |
| GW points | 51 | 62 | 54 | 45 | 48 |
| Total points | 757 | 766 | 882 | 742 | 793 |
| FPL rank | 419,109 | 308,329 | 310 | 642,074 | 104,867 |
| FPL ID | 36298 | 345 | 175574 | 97282 | 370 |
The graph below shows the ranks of the Top Five managers over the eleven Gameweeks so far. The vertical scale is from rank 1 to 3m. The distance between the ranks corresponds to the number of points separating them. For instance there are 187pts between rank 1 and rank 100k but only 70pts between 100k and 1m. The graph gives an idea of how difficult it is to move up the ranks as you near the summit
| Rank | 1 | 10 | 100 | 1,000 | 10,000 | 100k | 1m | 2m | 3m |
| Points Difference to First | 0 | 62 | 86 | 113 | 145 | 187 | 257 | 296 | 334 |
CAPTAIN
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark | Ave. (c) points | As % of score |
| GW (c) Points | 26 | 2 | 12 | 2 | 12 | 11 | 21 |
| Total (c) Points | 178 | 128 | 184 | 152 | 184 | 165 | 21 |
This season seven different players have been handed the armband by our Top Five. Kane is the most popular having been chosen 47% of the time followed by Lukaku on 31%. So far Lukaku has proved the more reliable choice averaging a 14.2 point return when chosen as captain compared to Kane’s 9.7 points.
In the graphic below I’ve displayed this information for the five most popular captain picks.
Salah, Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero and Arsenal’s Alexandre Lacazette complete the most popular captain picks for this season’s Top Five. Salah has been chosen 7% of the time and averages 11.6 points as captain, could this be set to increase as explosive returns from the Egyptian show no sign of abating?
Aguero and Lacazette have both been chosen 4% of the time, averaging 22 and 12 points respectively.
TRANSFERS
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark |
| Players In | Morata, Hazard, Loftus-Cheek, Christensen | Christensen | Hazard, Loftus-Cheek | Morata | Morata |
| Players Out | Lukaku, Sterling, Zaha, Holgate | Jones | David Silva, Ramsey | Lukaku | Lukaku |
TRANSFER SUCCESS
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark | Average |
| Transfers | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Points Hits | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Immediate Points Gained from Transfers | -12 | 6 | -7 | -3 | -4 | -4 |
| Minus Points Hits | -24 | 6 | -7 | -3 | -4 | -6 |
What seemed like a perfectly sensible Chelsea triple up, although brave and bold given the 12 point hit, turned out to be catastrophic. Not only did Peter lose 12 points in hits but thanks to the performance of outgoing players such as Sterling and even Everton’s Mason Holgate, he lost another 12 in immediate transfer points.
At least Peter will feel well placed for Chelsea’s enticing home fixture against Newcastle. As has been mentioned several times before, transfers aren’t made with only one gameweek in mind, and having three Chelsea players could pay huge dividends over their extended good run of fixtures.
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark | Average |
| Total Transfers | 21 | 15 | 14 | 11 | 15 | 15 |
| Total Points Hits | 36 | 12 | 8 | 4 | 12 | 14 |
| Total Immediate Points Gained from Transfers | 38 | 57 | 48 | -30 | 14 | 25 |
| Minus Points Hits | 2 | 45 | 40 | -34 | 2 | 11 |
| £ Value | 101.4 | 102.5 | 102.8 | 102.1 | 102.7 | 102.3 |
| Total Benched Points | 80 | 116 | 116 | 51 | 94 | 91 |
Caveats to this table – It doesn’t reflect that:
- Transfers aren’t made with only one fixture in mind
- When Patience in an underperforming player finally pays off
- Points from newly transferred in players left on the bench are included.
Graeme becomes the most successful manager in our Top Five for Immediate Transfer Points Gained almost by default, as his fellow managers make a series of short-term blunders.
Matthew’s moves have proved the most disastrous in the short term among this elite group.
TEMPLATE – Gameweek 14
Players in Bold are in 3 teams or more
Elliot, Speroni
Christensen, Naughton, Mee, Dunk, Daniels
Salah, Sterling, Hazard, Richarlison, Loftus-Cheek
Kane, Morata, AN Other
PLAYERS – Gameweek 14
| Players in 5 teams | Kane, Morata, Salah, Loftus-Cheek, Elliot |
| Players in 4 teams | Sterling, Richarlison |
| Players in 3 teams | Hazard, Christensen, Mee, Dunk, Daniels, Naughton |
| Magic Beans – Attacking players 6m and under | Loftus-Cheek x5, Abraham, Calvert-Lewin, Niasse, Groß, Carroll |
AVERAGE COST PER PLAYER
*based on GW1 prices
Goalkeeper – £4.1m
Defender – £4.9m
Midfielder – £7.2m
Forward – £9.9m
In The Bank (ITB) – £0.4
There is definitely a Top Five template – we have five players in all five teams (including two strikers Kane and Morata), and five midfielders and five defenders in three teams or more.
The fact that only Peter and Graeme had goalkeepers playing this week is reflected in the template, with Elliot and Speroni the most selected custodians.
Chelsea’s Andreas Christensen is the only Chelsea defender selected by our elite quintet, with confidence in him enhanced by injury and transfer speculation surrounding David Luiz. Although non-owner Jay points out in his Gameweek 15 preview, that he remains at risk of rotation.
FORMATION
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark |
| Formation | 3-5-2 | 3-4-3 | 3-4-3 | 3-4-3 | 4-4-2 |
A 3-4-3 formation was the most popular choice this week as it has been for the majority of the season. It has been chosen 63% of the time with 4-3-3 second most popular on 17%. 4-3-3 was the canny early season choice as managers looked to take advantage of real world formations favouring wing-backs. It hasn’t been used by our Top Five since Graeme played it in Gameweek 9, although Mark went with four at the back this week. Managers are now shifting their attention to the value to be found in midfield as choices emerge across a range of price brackets.
GAMEWEEK 15 – FORECAST
Another week, another captain dilemma!
Jay‘s assessment in his Gameweek 15 preview video is that a Chelsea player, particularly Eden Hazard, is the safest bet. He suggests confidence in Harry Kane should be tempered by Spurs’s current malaise. If you think Spurs can shake themselves out of it then Kane is your man.
It seems likely based on this that Jay will back the Belgian with the armband, while on last night’s Scoutcast Mark revealed that he currently favours the Tottenham talisman for the captaincy, but is also considering Hazard.
Mohamed Salah’s red hot form meets a Brighton defence that has done very well at home, and while Manchester City’s fixture is appealing, predicting who will start makes choosing a captain very tricky.
Here’s some more highlights from Jay’s Gameweek 15 preview:
- Everton could be a strong source of differentials under new manager Sam Allardyce and Jay sees Wayne Rooney taking a similar role to Kevin Nolan. Gylfi Sigurdsson’s set piece threat will be key in the Big Sam era at Goodison, Jay adds. Jordan Pickford could also benefit from greater defensive resolve. Jay recalls Jussi Jääskeläinen made lots of saves at Bolton due to the way the team set-up, which forced the opposition to shoot from range.
- Chris Wood at Burnley gets most of their goals, and Jay likes Burnley’s upcoming fixtures.
- Arsenal’s Olivier Giroud could be set to benefit from the injury to Alexandre Lacazette, Jay points out that he always does well when he get a run of games.
- Jay backs Crystal Palace’s Christian Benteke as the striker returns to fitness. He sees the team beginning to turn the corner under new manager Roy Hodgson.
