The Community Round-Up

Temperatures across the UK plummeted this week, and so too has interest in the limited number of players taking to the field in Gameweek 31.

Our Hot Topic posters take in the falling stock of those featuring in the forthcoming set of blanks as well as the declining interest in Arsenal assets after the Gunners were twice beaten 3-0 by Manchester City this week.

Advice on combating Fantasy fatigue is also discussed, but there’s no such malaise among our community scribes, who are full of enthusiasm for the imminent start of Norwegian top-flight game Eliteserien.

Attacking defenders and creative midfielders come under scrutiny in our Members table catch-up, and we finish our weekly round-up by checking in with those managers looking over their shoulder at the top of our community leagues.

The Community Articles

Mr Klin of Norway and Niemi delivered two more instalments in their Fantasy Eliteserien season preview. Part two of this Norwegian to- flight game series takes a look at last season’s high fliers, while part three looks at the also-rans and the newly promoted sides.

Meanwhile, the crowd being tracked by Hutch_James are backing a hatful of goals for Liverpool and Spurs during their respective weekend encounters with Newcastle and Huddersfield.

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

Interest in the small pool of players who have a fixture in Gameweek 31 dropped off markedly after a series of lacklustre displays last weekend.

The decreasing number of credible options at the back in Gameweek 31 was lamented in Duffy Duck’s Hot Topic, while our lessons learned discussion was similarly dismissive of their prospects, as was Doosra‘s latest number crunching, delivered via G-Whizz.

Everton’s Theo Walcott and Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk were among the blank fixture villains, having failed to deliver points to early adopters last weekend. Their new owners joined the aggrieved to take part in our rough with the smooth round-up of your latest scores.

Whether targeting those escaping the blanks or simply following form, WASP 3000 is among those finding it hard to catch a break, with seemingly every decision going wrong. There was no shortage of down-in-the-dumps managers to join in his discussion. This sense of dissatisfaction continued in Maximus Bonimis Pointimus’ discussion on whether FPL is getting boring.

Backing Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah with the armband is one simple strategy to put a smile back on Fantasy managers faces, according to Pierce34.

Viper is another to advocate captaining the Egyptian in his discussion comparing the winger’s captaincy credentials with those of Spurs striker Harry Kane.

Ludo’s research into why Spurs are now performing far better at home certainly strengthens the case for handing the armband to Kane.

But while both Kane and Salah have been prolific goal scorers this season, they have been less successful in gaining bonus, with both failing to earn extra points despite finding the net at the weekend. Emyoueffsee was particularly aggrieved at the lack of recognition for Salah in his Hot Topic on FPL’s Bonus Point System.

There is further rank climbing advice covering  the skills needed to do well in FPL in NevertrustBony’s Hot Topic.

One potentially risky tactic for success that many of the community are considering is to dump Manchester City players, who face a tough spell of fixtures and a heightened threat of rotation as they progress in the Champions League. Raheem Sterling’s recent injury woes make him a prime target for the chop, according to Flynny‘s Hot Topic.

But Pjomara is against replacing them with Arsenal assets, even though they have a strong run of upcoming fixtures. He believes their recent poor form makes them too much of a risk. Since the start of the year they have lost to Swansea, Bournemouth, their North London rivals Spurs and twice to Manchester City.

Finally, with snow storms battering much of the UK, there are fears that some fixtures may be postponed.  This prompted us to ask for your memories of blizzard-hit fixtures over the years.

To view all our discussions please visit our Hot Topics page.

The Members Tables

Vkux has been taking a look at attacking defenders, while the most creative midfielders come under scrutiny in one of my recent tables.

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

I’ve taken the lead in the FFScout moderators and contributors league from Jack Wain by a slender margin of just two points.

But there’s no change at the top of two of Red Lightning’s competitions. Elvarus still leads his Top 10K Any Season league and Shirin Nizar continues to dominate his January to May league. Shirin has had eight successive green arrows and is now up to 516^th in the overall rankings.

Paul Gee has cemented his position at the summit of the FFS Members league and now sits in 17^th place overall. Damir Te Nay is another to retain star billing at the top of the main FFScout league. He is also now up to fourth overall.

In TorresMagic’s Last Man Standing competition, Kenneth Tang hit the top score in Gameweek 28 with 71. There are 385 teams left after 74 were eliminated when the safety score was set at 47.

Finally, the Community Watch tournament has reached the semi-finals stage, according to Speedyboyz latest update from the organising committee.

If you are running a community tournament and would like the latest scores included in future Community Round-Ups, please email us summary of the current leaders and a link to your league, spreadsheet or head-to-head competition, at jonty@fantasyfootballscout.co.uk.