The headline in Gameweek 15 is the continued rise of current Live Hall of Fame leader Jay Egersdorff. The Blackburn Rovers fan is up to 57th in the world with a Gameweek score of 76.
Jay was the only top five manager to captain Chelsea’s Eden Hazard, who scored two goals and returned maximum bonus points to reward his faith in him. It was a wise move given that the other four managers all handed the armband to Tottenham’s Harry Kane, who blanked for the eighth time in the 14 Gameweeks he’s appeared this season.
Jay is also the first ever manager to have a HoF rating of over 99, improving his career HoF rating from 98.27.
Matthew Jones (aka Numb) moves out of the wooden spoon spot among this group after hitting 67 in Gameweek 16, despite being the only one not to own Hazard. His failure to jettison Liverpool frontman Roberto Firmino through his long barren spell proved a blessing in disguise this week, as the Brazilian scored two goals and earned three bonus points – his first double digit score since his 12 point haul against Arsenal way back in Gameweek 3.
Replacing Matthew in last is Career Hall of Fame number one Peter Kouwenberg (aka My Pretty Pony). A last minute change of heart saw Peter change his captain from Hazard to Kane, a move which cost him 13 points.
Peter remains in second position in the live Hall of Fame, although his rating has gone down from 98.65 to 97.08. Peter has three top 1,000 finishes in a row so I would certainly expect him to move up significantly from his current overall FPL rank of 399,685 before the end of the season.
Graeme Sumner (aka Gregor) decision to transfer in Hazard and Everton’s Dominic Calvert-Lewin this week paid immediate dividends, with the pair contributing 27 points to his total.
Graeme, Matthew and Peter are only separated by seven points but despite recent rankings rises are struggling to mount a serious challenge to Jay this season.
Mark Sutherns (aka Mark) moved up to 101,075 overall, 30 points ahead of Graeme but is still more than 100 points behind pacesetter Jay. Mark’s 54 points this week was helped by double digit returns from Hazard and Otamendi.
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 | 49 | 51 | 76 | 67 | 54 |
| Total points | 806 | 813 | 958 | 809 | 843 |
| FPL rank | 399,685 | 318,016 | 57 | 357,075 | 101,705 |
| 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 193pts between rank 1 and rank 100k but only 73pts 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 | 56 | 85 | 115 | 149 | 193 | 266 | 307 | 346 |
CAPTAIN
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark | Ave. (c) points | As % of score |
| GW (c) Points | 4 | 4 | 30 | 4 | 4 | 9 | 14 |
| Total (c) Points | 182 | 132 | 214 | 156 | 188 | 174 | 21 |
Graeme has been the worst performing manager at picking his captain out of our elite quintet. His total of 132 is only 16% of his total score. We can expect Graeme to improve on this as the season progresses and reach the average of between 20% and 25%.
So far this season nine different players have been handed the armband by our Top Five.
Kane is the most popular having been chosen 49% of the time, followed by Lukaku on 31%. Lukaku has proved the more reliable choice averaging a 14.2 point return when chosen as captain compared to Kane’s 9.1 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 so far. Salah has been chosen 7% of the time and averages 11.6 points as captain, 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 | Sterling | Hazard, Calvert-Lewin | Hennessey | Hennessey | Pope, Christensen |
| Players Out | D. Silva | Lukaku, Carroll | Elliot | Elliot | Krul, Dann |
TRANSFER SUCCESS
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark | Average |
| Transfers | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| Points Hits | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 |
| Immediate Points Gained from Transfers | -7 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| Minus Points Hits | -7 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
Jay might have not earned any transfer points this week bringing in Crystal Palace’s Wayne Hennessey for Newcastle’s Rob Elliot, however by doubling up on Palace keepers it meant Speroni emerged from his bench with a very welcome 11 points.
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark | Average |
| Total Transfers | 22 | 17 | 15 | 12 | 17 | 17 |
| Total Points Hits | 36 | 16 | 8 | 4 | 16 | 16 |
| Total Immediate Points Gained from Transfers | 31 | 81 | 48 | -30 | 18 | 30 |
| Minus Points Hits | -5 | 65 | 40 | -34 | 2 | 14 |
| £ Value | 102.1 | 103.1 | 103.2 | 102.4 | 103.5 | 102.9 |
| Total Benched Points | 80 | 121 | 118 | 53 | 97 | 94 |
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 might be the worst of the top five at picking captains but he is the best at making successful immediate transfers. His total of 65 in immediate transfer points after hits is 25 points ahead of Jay.
Matthew remains the worst performer of this group in terms of immediate points from transfers.
TEMPLATE – Gameweek 15
Players in Bold are in 3 teams or more
Elliot, Speroni/Hennessey
Christensen, Naughton, Mee, Dunk, Daniels
Salah, Sterling, Hazard, Richarlison, Loftus-Cheek
Kane, Morata, Calvert-Lewin
PLAYERS – Gameweek 15
| Players in 5 teams | Kane, Morata, Salah, Sterling, Loftus-Cheek |
| Players in 4 teams | Hazard, Richarlison |
| Players in 3 teams | Christensen, Mee, Dunk, Daniels, Naughton, Elliot |
| Magic Beans – Attacking players 6m and under | Loftus-Cheek x5, Calvert-Lewin x2, Abraham, Niasse, Groß |
AVERAGE COST PER PLAYER
*based on GW1 prices
Goalkeeper – £4.2m
Defender – £5.0m
Midfielder – £7.5m
Forward – £9.4m
In The Bank (ITB) – £0.2
The Top Five template evolved this week with Raheem Sterling joining Kane, Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah, Chelsea’s Alvaro Morata, and Crystal Palace’s Ruben Loftus-Cheek as players owned by all managers.
There are 13 players in three or more teams, with only the goalkeeper and third striker positions where our managers don’t see eye to eye.
FORMATION
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark |
| Formation | 3-5-2 | 3-4-3 | 3-4-3 | 3-4-3 | 3-4-3 |
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 64% of the time with 4-3-3 second most popular on 16%. 4-3-3 was the canny early season choice as managers looked to take advantage of real world formations favouring wing-backs. Although it hasn’t been used by our Top Five since Graeme played it in Gameweek 9.
Managers are now shifting their attention to the value to be found in midfield as choices emerge across a range of price brackets.
Peter in fact started the week with a 3-4-3 formation but with Niasse not playing, Ruben Loftus-Cheek was subbed in altering his formation to 3-5-2.
GAMEWEEK 15 – FORECAST
After picking Hazard last week, this week Jay seems set on picking “Mr Tottenham” aka Harry Kane. Perhaps favouring players with home fixtures.
It’s a decision Mark agreed with on this week’s Scoutcast. Mark is yet to make a transfer this week and could well bank his transfer unless he decides to sell Bournemouth’s Charlie Daniels. He revealed that his possible replacements include Watford’s £4.6 priced Kiko Femenia.
