The Pre-Match Preamble – Gameweek 38

Today brings that bittersweet mix of excitement that the final day always brings, tinged with the regret that another season has passed.

For some, the end of this campaign and the approach opportunity to start afresh cannot come soon enough.

I don’t feel like that, though I can reflect on a season which has offered few notable highs or lows.

Like a good few managers, I hit a peak and then got stuck in a rut until the Double Gameweeks and chips arrived to give me a jolt.

Looking back, I’d obviously angered the Fantasy Gods when I suggested in my previous preamble that we were edging towards a formulaic method of play.

My Gameweek 37 which followed was nightmarish. Coincidently, others namechecked shared my suffering.

I admit that the tone of the article in question was badly conceived.

Of course, the objective was not to belittle the efforts of those enduring a torrid time or to play down the achievements of those flying higher. It was to acknowledge and question the impact that the Double Gameweek period and how that has changed the game and perhaps even our perception of a good and bad season.

I still believe that – approaching a third term with the chips – we’re going to start craving new variables to shake things up.

We already have some of our plans for 2018/19 – Wildcard early, save the Free Hit for the postponements and the other chips for Double Gameweeks.

Couple that with a cautious strategy that considers Effective Ownership and we begin to see how a proven formula for success can take shape.

It’s convenient, it probably works, but is it going to be fun for another season?

I’m a part of the problem. I write, report and recommend these solutions because they are clearly advised strategies for any player. But I’m just one voice, and they’ll be even more next season, no doubt preaching the same tactics.

I play the game and built this site because of the pure thrill of finding the right player at the right time.

The “Double Gameweek and chips” hasn’t necessarily reduced that pleasure, but it does encourage further rigidity in our thinking and certainly the “end game”.

It’s now a cornerstone of the FPL 101 and to push back against it is to risk missing out on a hike in rank over the final stretch.

But things can change. These strategies and game mechanics remain at the mercy of swings in form and the twists of the season.

There’s no doubt that Mohamed Salah’s incredible debut campaign has been a factor in influencing how we have played over the last nine months.

His consistency created a highly owned asset so powerful that it became a big risk to captain Harry Kane. That is difficult to fathom and, because it took me ages to accept it, I lost out.

Much as I am in awe of Salah’s achievements, performances and goals, in Fantasy terms, I don’t want to see the like again.

I want Alexis Sanchez and Eden Hazard to be reinvented as viable alternatives. For Kane and Sergio Aguero to be joined by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in keeping our choice of heavy-hitting striker and Gameweek captain fluid.

There’s every chance we’ll get just that.

And if we do, then the joys and successes in the game will go back to being a little bit more about inspired player selection and less about the consideration of ownership or the management of chips.