Just one of the Top 5 of the Career Hall of Fame, Graeme Sumner (aka Gregor), secured a green arrow in Gameweek 28 and even then his ranking boost was minimal.
Graeme’s score of 54 saw him move up a mere two thousand places to 352,190 thanks to a solid rather than spectacular returns from Tottenham’s Harry Kane and his Liverpool trio, which includes Andrew Robertson instead of last week’s popular choice – Virgil Van Dijk.
Graeme’s small green arrow was not enough to hand the wooden spoon back to career Hall of Fame number one Peter Kouwenberg (aka My Pretty Pony). The organiser of the inaugural Simon Humber Charity Cup and member of undefeated side Benevento, scored 52 points which resulted in a drop of ten thousand places to 315,890. He will have been disappointed with only seven points from a defence that includes Van Dijk, Chelsea’s Marcos Alonso, Burnley’s Ben Mee, and his former pupil – Leicester City’s Ben Chilwell.
However, his biggest frustration will have been his decision to put Stoke’s Eric Choupo-Moting ahead of Manchester United’s Jesse Lingard on his bench. With injury preventing Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling playing on Thursday, Peter gained Choupo-Moting’s two points instead of Lingard’s six from his bench.
For Gameweek 29 Peter tells me he is considering swapping Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero for Tottenham’s Harry Kane. Certainly fixture wise that appears a sensible move with Spurs at home to Huddersfield and City facing Chelsea.
The best performing member of our Elite Quintet remains Live Hall of Fame leader Jay Egersdorff. Jay decided to sell Aguero in Gameweek 28 for Leicester City’s Jamie Vardy, a move that allowed him to triple up on Liverpool’s attack with Sadio Mané joining Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino. Therefore there’s no room for Van Dijk or Robertson in Jay’s squad.
A Vardy blank and only four points in total from his four defenders, meant Jay finished the week with 53 points and slipped to 1,972 overall – his fifth red arrow in a row.
In his preview video this week Jay highlighted a few players for Gameweek 31, none of whom he currently owns; Stoke’s Xherdan Shaqiri, Huddersfield’s Steve Mounie or midfielder Alex Pritchard, and a forgotten man from last season – Bournemouth’s Josh King. A man who could end up as a better option than teammate Callum Wilson, reasons Jay.
Current Wilson owner, Matthew Jones (aka Numb), will be hoping Jay is wrong. Wilson’s 12 point returns against Arsenal and Chelsea still linger in the memory. This week, Matthew’s score of 52 saw him slip slightly to 47,957. Matthew managed only three points from his four defenders including two zero scores from Bournemouth’s Charlie Daniels and Brighton’s Lewis Dunk.
However both Matthew and Mark Sutherns (aka Mark) already own Jay’s pick for Gameweek 31 – Xherdan Shaqiri. Despite owning the Stoke maestro Mark could only muster 49 points, which takes into account a hit.
Mark would have netted four points more had he not decided to switch the armband to Tottenham’s Harry Kane from the otherwise unanimous Top Five captain pick of Mohamed Salah. Kane had chances to score more than his solitary goal against Crystal Palace, a pattern that was highlighted in this week’s member article comparing the two highest point scorers in FPL. Mark would seem certain to captain Salah, for only the second time this season, in Gameweek 29.
Mark made three transfers in Gameweek 28 as part of his hit. Like Jay he also brought in Mané, along with Everton’s Theo Walcott and, bizarrely, West Brom’s Ahmed Hegazi. He made the startling admission on this week’s Scoutcast that his account hadn’t been hacked and he made the transfer of his own volition. Perhaps as a result of these transfers, Mark slipped slightly to 34,503.
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 | 52 | 54 | 53 | 52 | 53 |
| Total points | 1,574 | 1,568 | 1,736 | 1,651 | 1,662 |
| FPL rank | 315,890 | 352,190 | 1972 | 47,957 | 34,503 |
| FPL ID | 36298 | 345 | 175574 | 97282 | 370 |
The graph below shows the ranks of the top five managers over the season 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 255pts between rank 1 and rank 100k but only 128pts between 100k and 1m. The graph gives an idea of how difficult it is to move up the ranks as you near the summit.
Looking at the graph it’s interesting that the biggest gains were made from Gameweeks 6 to 16. Logic would normally tell us that the more information you have the better decisions you make, therefore you might expect Gameweeks 16 to 28 to have seen the biggest improvements. That ranks have either decreased or slowed their rate of improvement over the latter period, perhaps tells us something about how tricky this season has been.
| Rank | 1 | 10 | 100 | 1,000 | 10,000 | 100k | 1m | 2m | 3m |
| Points Difference to First | 0 | 33 | 86 | 131 | 183 | 255 | 383 | 464 | 549 |
CAPTAIN
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark | Ave. (c) points | As % of score |
| GW (c) Points | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 12 | 18 | 35 |
| Total (c) Points | 391 | 347 | 440 | 424 | 384 | 397 | 24 |
So far this season ten different players have been handed the armband by our Top Five.
Kane is the most popular having been chosen 45% of the time followed by Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah on 17%. However it is the Egyptian who has proven a more reliable captain choice than the erratic Englishman – his 18.5 point return compares favourably to Kane’s 11.9 points.
In the graphic below I’ve displayed this information for the five most popular captain picks.
Manchester United’s Romelu Lukaku, Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling and Chelsea’s Eden Hazard complete the most popular captain picks. Lukaku has been chosen 16% of the time and averages 14.2 points as captain, Sterling has been chosen 6% of the time and Hazard 5%. Hazard averages 14.5 points, while Sterling averages an impressive 24.9 points.
TRANSFERS
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark |
| Players In | Eriksen, Van Dijk | Deulofeu | Vardy, Mané | Van Dijk | Mané, Walcott, Hegazi |
| Players Out | Hazard, Jones | Lingard | Aguero, Lingard | Otamendi | Sterling, Lingard, Otamendi |
TRANSFER SUCCESS – GAMEWEEK 28
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark | Average |
| Transfers | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| Points Hits | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 |
| Immediate Points Gained from Transfers | 2 | -3 | -2 | -3 | -1 | -1 |
| Minus Points Hits | 2 | -3 | -2 | -3 | -5 | -2 |
TRANSFER SUCCESS – SEASON SO FAR
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark | Average |
| Total Transfers | 44 | 33 | 34 | 28 | 36 | 35 |
| Total Points Hits | 72 | 28 | 32 | 16 | 40 | 38 |
| Total Immediate Points Gained from Transfers | 91 | 93 | 51 | 11 | 68 | 63 |
| Minus Points Hits | 19 | 65 | 19 | -5 | 28 | 25 |
| £ Value GW28 | 103.8 | 104.2 | 104.5 | 104.2 | 104.7 | 104.3 |
| Total Benched Points | 142 | 170 | 169 | 107 | 183 | 154 |
Caveats to this table:
- It doesn’t reflect that Transfers aren’t made with only one fixture in mind
- It doesn’t reflect when Patience in an underperforming player finally pays off
- Points from newly transferred in players left on the bench are included.
- Players transferred in and captained have their points counted double.
The odd thing about the Transfer Success table for the Season so far is that it is wooden spoon holder Graeme who leads the way. Does this prove that immediate transfer points aren’t that important? Why are managers so bad at timing their transfers this season?
TEMPLATE – Gameweek 28
Players in Bold are in 3 teams or more
Speroni, AN Other
Alonso, Ogbonna, Van Dijk, Mee, Dunk
Salah, Sterling, Lingard, Shaqiri, Walcott
Kane, Firmino, Wilson
PLAYERS – Gameweek 27
| Players in 5 teams | Salah, Alonso, |
| Players in 4 teams | Kane, Firmino, Sterling, Ogbonna, Speroni |
| Players in 3 teams | Wilson, Otamendi |
| Magic Beans – Attacking players 6m and under | Wilson x3, Shaqiri x2, Lingard x2, Quaner, Deulofeu, Choupo-Moting, Allen, McArthur |
AVERAGE COST PER PLAYER
*based on GW1 prices
Goalkeeper – £4.4m
Defender – £5.2m
Midfielder – £7.7m
Forward – £9.0m
In The Bank (ITB) – £0.8
FORMATION
| Manager | Peter | Graeme | Jay | Matthew | Mark |
| Formation | 4-3-3 | 3-4-3 | 4-3-3 | 4-3-3 | 3-5-2 |
A popular four man back line strategy failed to deliver points for our Top Five managers this week. The set-up has been favoured only 12% of the time this season, perhaps for good reason. A set of up 3-4-3 is the most frequently used and has been chosen 48% of the time, while 3-5-2 is the second most frequently chosen formation over the course of season on 28%.
