“Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”
The last few days before GW6 were certainly eventful but ultimately it proved a rewarding week for The Great and The Good. In the turbulent build up we had a tricky captaincy decision to make, pictures of Lemsip, water bottles being thrown, and a manic Mendy crisis. All of this meant 3 of the managers pulled out their wildcards. Joe and David went early but Torres Magic left it late to press the 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 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
It was a strong week for the majority of the managers this week with green arrows all round apart from Niemi who suffered a very very minor red and Jay who continues to struggle at the wrong end of the rankings. For the remaining managers it was nothing but good news with all the players in the evolving “template” performing well and therefore consistent scores between 63 and 79 points. The wildcarders (Joe, David and Torres Magic) all received a healthy bump in the rankings as you expect and Joe found himself in the top 100k for the first time since GW1. Granville has now had 5 green arrows in a row and both he and Mark benefitted from the differential of Terence Trent D’Arby (sorry Trent Alexander-Arnold) who again made a strong case for his inclusion in our squads over the more expensive Robertson. Mark’s performance continues to impress and he has soared up the rankings in the last couple of weeks after being outside the top million for the first few weeks of the season. Ville Ronka now sits at the top of The Great and The Good mountain and he has steadily climbed up the rankings to find himself in the top 30k. At the other end Jay Egersdorff continues to struggle and he dropped again to the mid 900k mark. Unfortunately his decision to take out Salah for a hit whilst brave was not successful in the short term. If it was not for Wan-Bissaka coming off the bench for him then his score of 50 could have been a lot worse, as it was he ended up below the average of 52 this week. There is no doubt he will climb the rankings due to his pedigree but it was fascinating to see what tactics he uses to stop the rot having already played his wildcard.
Ville Ronka GW 65 pts Total 413 pts (rank 27869 )
Granville GW 79 pts Total 412 pts (rank 30059)
TorresMagic GW 69 pts Total 412 pts (rank 30612)
Niemi GW 63 pts Total 410 pts (rank 36322)
Joe GW 77 pts Total 403 pts (rank 55285)
Andy GW 63 pts Total 400 pts (rank 65305)
Az GW 69 pts Total 389 pts (rank 123442)
Mark GW 79 pts Total 388 pts (rank 125621)
David GW 72 pts Total 387 pts (rank 131977)
Jay Egersdorff GW 50 pts Total 337 pts (rank 944231)
Wildcards
Let’s start with the wildcards
Torres Magic
In – Hojbjerg, Richarlison, Yedlin, Patricio, Hazard, Doherty, Hennessey, Mitrovic, Fraser
Out – Gunnarsson, Pedro, Tomkins, Foster, Mane, Mendy, Fabianski, Ings, Walcott
TorresMagic left it late to play his wildcard so lost some value as a result but used his moves to good effect to take out the non-certainties of Mendy/Pedro and bring in Hazard. The structure of the team remained unchanged but he had a bit of a spring clean changing his keepers and bringing some of the form players in (Mitrovic, Fraser and Richarlison) to set him up for the coming weeks. Interestingly he has triple Palace; we shall see if this remains the case when their fixtures turn.
Joe
In – Trippier, Doherty, Hennessey, Hojbjerg, Hart, Maddison, Mitrovic, Hazard, Fraser
Out – Mendy, Boly, Foster, Stephens, Fabianski, David Silva, Arnautovic, Pedro, Mkhitaryan
Joe (the artist formerly known as Jonty) got a nice boost from his wildcard and his moves followed a similar pattern to Torres Magic with Mendy/Pedro shown the door and Hazard/Fraser/Mitrovic welcomed onboard. He also replaced his rotating keepers but perhaps surprisingly bought in Joe Hart. He appeared to wrestle with which Wolves defender to go for before plumping for the attacking Doherty. In the Maddison v Richarlison debate he cast his vote for the Leicester man.
David
In – Jimenez, Hojbjerg, Yedlin, Mitrovic, David Silva, Hennessey, Patricio, Doherty, Hazard, Fraser
Out – Ings, Mane, Mendy, Deeney, Mkhitaryan, Foster, Fabianski, Peltier, Stephens, Bernardo Silva
David went down a well trodden path with the terrific trio of Fraser, Mitrovic, and Hazard also joining his squad. He also stuck with the new template with his goalkeepers of Hennessey and Patricio. The new found love of Wolves amongst The Great and The Good was also in evidence as he followed Andy’s canny move of Jimenez. In midfield he picked the Silva bullet only to be disappointed when he didn’t make the team and the other Silva (Bernardo) punished his lack of faith with a double digit score.
Transfers and Hits
This is a summary of the transfers in from the remaining managers:
Andy – Trippier (Mendy)
Az – Richarlison, Fraser (Pedro, Gundogan)
Granville – Maddison (Pedro)
Jay – Mane, Hazard, Hojbjerg (Salah, Neves, Mkhitaryan)
Mark – Maddison (Sessegnon)
Niemi – Patricio, Rico, Richarlison (Mendy, Brooks, Pickford)
Ville Ronka – Maddison (Mkhitaryan)
*transfers out are in brackets
The non-wildcarding managers displayed a variety of approaches to their transfers. Ville Ronka, Mark, and Granville all bought in Az’s favourite of Maddison who immediately repaid them. Andy showed little patience with Mendy and bought in Trippier ahead a good run of fixtures. Az, Niemi, and Jay all took hits to make some running repairs to their team. Pedro didn’t even get chance to introduce himself to Az’s team before he was given his marching orders after only one week. Fraser and Richarlison joined but Az must be kicking himself that his maverick transfer of Gundogan a couple of weeks ago only bore fruit after he moved him on. Niemi continued to go his own way and brought in Rico along with the more conventional Richarlison transfer. However, the headline was Jay who after leading the way on Kanexit last season has again made a big call and instigated Salah-out. The Egyptian gave him an FPL bloody nose by scoring as he headed for the door. It will be fascinating to see if this pays off as he looks to redistribute those funds across his team.
Template
After the wildcard and those transfers the template now looks like this:
Hennessey, Patricio
Mendy, Wan-Bissaka, Robertson, Doherty, Alonso
Salah, Fraser, Hazard, Maddison, David Silva/Hojbjerg
Aguero, Mitrovic, Wilson
The template is much more settled this week after last week’s uncertainty. The area of most interest is the approach to Mendy. His injury was always going to mean he would drop out the exclusive ten out of ten club but the managers are split in terms of whether to stick or twist. The wildcarders predictably kicked him out while Niemi and Andy also showed him the door. However, the more patient Ronka, Mark, Jay, Granville, and Az are keeping faith. Out of these only Az has his wildcard intact so it will be interesting to see if he keeps him when he finally pulls the trigger. There is a new template goalkeeping double act in town with Patricio and Hennessey replacing Foster and Fabianski. The West Ham keeper may feel a little hard done by after a good display against Chelsea. Wolves appear to be fighting between themselves as to who will be the fifth defender with Doherty edging it over Bennett this week. Hazard’s haul from Gameweek 5 sees him in eight of the teams although his blank against the Hammers may just deter further investors for a while longer. Fraser and Maddison now find themselves in the template with David Silva or Hojbjerg still being a point of debate as the fifth man in midfield. Upfront the decision has been made as to who will join Aguero with Wilson and Mitrovic now firm favourites amongst the great and good.
Team Investment and Formation
Average Cost of Player looks like this across the teams based on week 1 prices.
Goalkeeper – 4.4
Defender – 5.2
Midfielder – 8.3
Forward – 7.6
ITB – 0.5
Despite the wildcards there has been little change in the structures of the teams with the investment in the teams remaining consistent. 3-4-3 still remains the formation of choice with now being deployed 47% of the time by the teams. 3-5-2 is still the most popular alternative at 32% but is with growing confidence in the defence we are seeing 4-4-2 and 4-3-3 growing in popularity. Ville Ronka even deployed a 5-4-1 this week before Mendy’s injury meant he just played four at the back. Ominously for everyone else he also has the highest team value of 102.9.
Captain and Differentials
So there was plenty of discussion as to who the captain pick would be with three good looking options in Salah, Aguero and Hazard. However, it appeared to be a straightforward choice for The Great and The Good as all of them went for Salah, except for Mr Egersdorff who had already transferred him out so was left with giving the armband to Aguero. In the end it was all a bit of an anticlimax with both options provided returns for the managers. Salah still remains the most popular captain over the season chosen 60% of the time and we will see if this is challenged over the next few game weeks with some testing matches for the Reds. With a pretty consistent template coming into play there are very few differentials of note. If Lucas can avoid rotation then I think with his fixtures over the coming weeks he could help Granville continue his surge up the rankings. Joe’s pick of Joe Hart also deserves a mention with a strong performance already against Bournemouth even if he was on his bench.
Anyway, there are plenty of questions to be answered over the coming weeks: when will Az and Niemi wildcard? Will we ever get a clear answer on Mendy’s injury? Will Jay’s tactics pay off ? Are any of the other managers brave enough to go without Salah? Will anyone invest in Kane?
What are your predictions for the coming week for these managers? Whose team looks best set up?
However, that’s all from me for now and remember don’t have nightmares.
