Learning from The Great and The Good: Gameweek 5

“Wherever you go. Whatever you do. I will be right here waiting for you”

There seemed to be a lot of waiting after what seemed a very long international break. However, FPL returned with a bang and provided a week with some high scoring returns and some not so high scoring. One of The Great and The Good also made us wait as it wasn’t until a couple of days before the deadline that Andy “Lets Talk FPL” decided to press the Wildcard button.

For those of you who haven’t been following along I have selected a variety of managers to track in order to improve and hone my own FPL skills. The Great and The Good are Jay Egersdorff, Ville Ronka, The Scoutcasters (Joe, Andy, Az, David, Granville and Mark), Eliteserien’s expert Niemi and the last man standing Torres Magic.

Overall Performance 

There were definite highs and lows this week with 49 points separating the best (Andy) and worst (Az) scores. Andy’s wildcard plus Mark/Ville Ronka’s decision to bring in Hazard proved significant as they all moved up the rankings. In fact Mark moved up a massive 739,502 spaces to get the most green of arrows. Andy’s new signings delivered from all over the pitch with Doherty, Hazard, Maddison, Jimenez, and Silva all contributing, whilst Ronka continued to move up the ranks thanks to the additional contribution of Fraser. However, now Niemi tops the pile of the great and good thanks to a solid 59 points. On the flip side of fortune Az, David, Torres Magic, and Jay had poor weeks. In fact Az didn’t even hit the average score of 47 this week and dropped down to the 180k mark.

Will they stay patient or will a few of them reach for their wildcards? Spare a thought for the FPL legend Jay who just can’t seem to get out of a run of mediocre scores and achieved his 3rd red arrow in a row. I am sure he will be back but it will be interesting to see if he takes a more  aggressive approach going forward as he has yet to take a hit this season.

Niemi GW 59 pts Total 351 pts (rank 34298)

Ville Ronka GW 76 pts Total 348 pts (rank 41346)

TorresMagic GW 49 pts Total 343 pts (rank 60846)

Andy GW 91 pts Total 337 pts (rank 85234)

Granville GW 63 pts Total 333 pts (rank 107768)

Joe GW 63 pts Total 326 pts (rank 162810)

Az GW 42 pts Total 324 pts (rank 180115)

David GW 47 pts Total 315 pts (rank 273144)

Mark GW 86 pts Total 309 pts (rank 351998)

Jay Egersdorff GW 53 pts Total 291 pts (rank 711052)

Transfers and Hits

Let’s start with Andy’s wildcard:

In – Jimenez, Ward, Ryan, Button, David Silva, Maddison, Doherty, Bennett, Wilson, Hazard, Alonso

Out – Zaha, Walcott, Fabianski, Foster, Mkhitaryan, Stephens, Robertson, Peltier, King, Mane, Bailly

The initial results would say that Andy’s wildcard was a huge success and he had a fantastic week. He made 11 changes to his team and managed to keep the big hitters of Salah, and Aguero but also cram in Hazard, David Silva, and Alonso. He has made a few bets on some cheaper options and notably has tripled up on Wolves which after this weekend may prove to be a wise decision. He also brought in Maddison but perhaps his decision not to pick Lingard was the best one (although that probably reveals how the writer of this article was burnt last year). He obviously debated his strike force a great deal with Ings and Mitrovic being considered before he went for the outside choice of Jimenez. He was rewarded immediately with a goal.

This is a summary of the transfers in from the remaining managers:

Az – Pedro (Mkhitaryan)

David – No transfer

Granville – Lingard (Groß)

Jay – No transfer

Joe – David Silva (Bernardo Silva)

Mark – Hazard, Mitrovic (Aubameyang, Mkhitaryan)

Niemi – No transfer

Torres Magic – Pedro (Mkhitaryan)

Ville Ronka – Hazard (Mane)

*transfers out are in brackets

A mixture of approaches to transfers this week with some holding (Niemi, Jay, and David) whilst Mark took a hit to great effect as it allowed him to bring in Hazard and reverse his decision to exclude him from his wildcard team. Ronka was also predictably smart enough to bring in the Belgian. Joe’s swop of Bernardo to David also had a Silva lining with handsome returns for that switch. The initial returns on Pedro and Lingard were more disappointing for Az, TM, and Granville. As it stands Joe/Az/Torres Magic/Niemi have got their wildcards to play with David already pressing the button this week according to the twitter jungle drums.

Team Selection 

After Andy’s wildcard and those transfers the template now looks like this:

Foster, Fab

Mendy, Wan-Bissaka, Robertson, Bennett, Alonso

Salah, Walcott/Mane/Hazard/Pedro/Mkhitaryan/David Silva

Aguero, Ings/Mitrovic/Wilson

The template is in a state of flux particularly in midfield with Hazard, David Silva and Pedro coming to the fore. Salah is the only certainty for now. Stephens no longer makes the template as the preferred bench filler and I am sure Mkhitaryan is soon to disappear. There is still a question of whether Mane will be moved on to make room for Hazard in more teams and may we even see some dare to go “No Salah” (gasp). In defence Alonso now joins the ten out ten club (Aguero, Salah, Wan-Bissaka, Mendy) with a place in all of The Great and The Good’s teams. Bennett has also replaced Peltier as the cheap makeweight at the back. Up front the template is now Aguero with two other cheaper options. The field has been narrowed to three preferred options (Mitro, Wilson and Ings) with Zaha/Kamara making way.

Team Investment and Formation

Average Cost of Player looks like this across the teams based on week 1 prices:

Goalkeeper –  4.5

Defender – 5.3

Midfielder – 8.3

Forward – 7.6

ITB – 0.5

This week saw the continued movement of funds into midfield/defence and out of the forward line, no doubt prompted by the quality selection of cheap/mid price forwards. There are slightly more funds in the bank this week but this is driven by David’s 2.3m which he may regret not spending last week on a certain Chelsea player. Looking at overall value of the teams Ronka leads the way on this metric with a total value of 102.4m, but Niemi and Granville are not far behind.

In terms of formations all of them were disrupted by the sudden disappearance of Mendy but 343 remained the most popular this week as well as over the season. However, five out of the ten managers opted for 4 at the back this week which shows the high performance we have seen from the defensive line over the last 5 GWs from the holy trinity (Alonso, Robbo, Mendy) and others.

The Mendy absence factor played a big part this week and tested the bench strength of the great and good’s team plus also showing the importance of bench order. Some (Mark, Andy and David) were lucky or wise enough to have Wan-Bissaka’s points come off the bench to take a starring role. Meanwhile others had to make do with Mkhitaryan’s cameo (Ronka and Joe).

Captain and Differentials

First of all the differentials, we now have to take Maddison off the list as Andy brought him with his wildcard and can now join Az in his hero worship of the Leicester midfielder. I wouldn’t bet against Az having a poster of the Foxes playermaker on his bedroom wall such is his level of admiration.

Of the remaining differentials, the key ones this week were Fraser (Ronka) and Arnie (Joe). Ville Ronka’s decision to show patience with Bournemouth’s Fraser paid huge dividends with a great performance against Leicester. Did he have some insider knowledge on the status of his injury? This FPL enigma continues to be one step ahead.

However let’s move onto the headline this week: they say fortune favours the brave and Mark rolled the dice this week and was the only one to captain Hazard. His decision to transfer in and hand the armband to the Belgian was a masterstroke and landed him 40 points. The rest followed the crowd with Aguero and were rewarded with 14 points. Is this the beginnings of a comeback for Mark?

Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see how The Great and The Good handle Mendy in their sides.

Anyway that’s all for now and don’t have nightmares.