The Pre-Match Preamble – Gameweek 30

This season will go down as one of my most unremarkable of an 11-campaign Fantasy Premier League career.

Ironically, it has been my own ambition and arrogance that has inflicted the damage and prompted frustration.

Slow and steady could have given me the opportunity to creep into the top 10,000 several Gameweeks ago. Instead, once I’d hit the top 20,000 off the back of a triumphant run of green arrows, I tried to ride the momentum.

I reached for the stars and overstretched.

A couple of transfer errors along with a captain policy that has seen me overlook Salah during his dominant spell (Gameweeks 25-29), have ensured a gradual decline.

But it’s not too late to rescue a credible achievement from the Gameweeks that remain. This, after all, is a period where planning and study can translate to a real advantage.

The revelation that 40% of those managers above me are without the Free Hit chip is also sobering. Clearly, there is the opportunity for me to close ground, aim for the top 10,000 and see what can be achieved.

But perhaps I should learn my lesson and forgo such a target.

I believe the real problem with my season lies with the fact that I’ve forgotten how my best ranks have been achieved.

Having threatened the top 100 twice in three seasons, an unhealthy self-belief and arrogance has crept in.

I’ve convinced myself that I can find the decisions to inspire another similar campaign when actually, I should have just revisited the methods that achieved those finishes.

Granville’s rise up the ranks to go 15 points above me is perhaps the biggest wake-up call. It’s a reminder that, back in the day, my season was built around our duel.

I was never pre-occupied with rank, the top 10,000 and certainly not the top 100. Those targets seemed unachievable and, as a result, ambition to hit them never influenced my decisions.

A high-rank was a by-product of our mini-league tussle. I’d achieve it almost by accident by simply pursuing the prize that really mattered – beating Granville.

Somewhere along the line I lost sight of that, and perhaps a desire and pressure to try a live up to increased expectations took over.

Over the remaining Gameweeks, I will relax that ambition. Granville will become my new target, and in attempting to close that gap, I’ll hopefully be content with how my season ends.

Then come 2018/19, I’ll make efforts to remain humble and, in doing so, perhaps end up touching those stars without trying.