“Walk like an Egyptian”
The build up to Gameweek 9 was again dominated by Mo Salah. After his “international break injury” could this Egyptian walk, run, score, and take advantage of what looked like a very appetizing fixture against Huddersfield? In the end he made the game and whilst the majority of managers were put off giving him the armband he did provide a goal and a one bright spot in a very bleak weekend for most of The Great and The Good.
As scientifically proven even better than the Hall of Fame (https://www.fantasyfootballscout.co.uk/2018/10/20/the-great-and-the-good-topmarx-extra-time-special/), The Great and The Good are Jay Egersdorff, Ville Ronka, The Scout-casters (Joe, Andy, Az, David, Granville, and Mark), Eliteserien’s expert Niemi, and the last man standing Torres Magic. These are FPL managers I have handpicked to follow and improve my own performance.
Overall Performance
Ville Ronka GW 51 pts Total 607 pts (rank 5461 )
TorresMagic GW 44 pts Total 596 pts (rank 12133)
Andy GW 42 pts Total 589 pts (rank 18815)
Niemi GW 48 pts Total 585 pts (rank 23998)
David GW 43 pts Total 577 pts (rank 36017)
Joe GW 42 pts Total 572 pts (rank 47378)
Granville GW 45 pts Total 560 pts (rank 83444)
Mark GW 32 pts Total 547 pts (rank 145596)
Az GW 36 pts Total 541 pts (rank 182656)
Jay Egersdorff GW 51 pts Total 511 pts (rank 507017)
Halloween came early for most managers this week with poor gameweeks all round, but it was a good week to have a bad week with little movement overall across the rankings. Top of the pops this week were Jay and Ville with 51 points a piece. Jay can thank Ryan for bringing in the points and the Brighton keeper has now recorded back to back clean sheets, so may tempt further investment. He was also rewarded for showing his patience in Mendy who continued his swashbuckling runs down the flank to great effect against Burnley. Currently it is just Jay and Granville who own Mendy but this weekend may see others to reform the holy trinity. Jay was also the biggest riser and kept the momentum going from the last couple of weeks to move up by approx. 135,000 places to just outside the top 500k. Meanwhile, Ronka stayed top overall of The Great and The Good and benefitted from an all round team performance with Ederson, Trippier, Robertson, Salah, and of course Aguero all chipping in. He has now moved just outside of the top 5,000 and is having a fantastic start to the season. All this without taking one hit, he is the epitome of the patient approach.
At the other end of the spectrum this week we had the boldest of The Great and The Good Mark who took an eight point hit but was punished for this risky strategy and only managed 32 points (-8). None of his team really performed and he was fortunate that his vice-captain Salah was able to salvage his gameweek after his first choice captain Sterling didn’t make the pitch. Perhaps the greatest oddity this week, and I don’t mean this personally, was David. In perhaps a telling sign of how strange this gameweek was, he remained in exactly the same overall position as he did last week (this must be a rarity especially with the huge number of players in the FPL game now). Very spooky!
Transfers and Hits
The final member of The Great and The Good played his wildcard this week with Niemi stepping up to the plate.
In – Jonny, Sigurdsson, Aguero, Balbuena, Robertson, Kennedy, Ederson, TAA
Out – Rico, Mane, Kane, Peltier, Alonso, Billing, Patrício, Wan-Bissaka
He has shown great restraint but finally pulled the trigger and his moves saw him triple up on Liverpool and Wolves assets. Although he will be disappointed that TAA appears to be more of a rotation risk that first suspected. Ederson is his new set and forget and a way to tap into the City defence. Aguero coming in for Kane was a popular move and I think Kennedy could be a smart transfer as the Magpies fixtures improve. The most eyebrow raising move is the arrival of Siggy, not necessarily because of his undoubted quality but the fact he now doubles up on Everton attack as their fixtures become more checkered. The initial results were positive and he continued his good start to the season sitting just outside the top 20k.
This is a summary of the rest of transfers for this week:
Andy – TAA, Vardy, Salah (David Silva, Trippier, Kane)
Az – Aguero (Kane)
David – Fabianski (Hennessey)
Granville – Hazard, Bennett (Moura, TAA)
Jay – Aguero (Kane)
Joe – Aguero (Kane)
Mark – Sterling, Jiménez, Dubravka (Fabri, Kane, Maddison)
Torres Magic – Aguero (Kane)
Ville Ronka – Richarlison (Walcott)
*transfers out are in brackets
The striker shuffle of Kane to Aguero was a popular move this week but Mark and Andy continued their bold transfer policy. Mark took an eight point hit to bring in Sterling, Jiménez, and Dubravka. A hit to bring in a goalkeeper enters new territory of maverick but unfortunately it didn’t pay off in the short term with two blanks and rest on the bench (Sterling) for his new recruits.
Andy signed off from the Scoutcast in style with a hit but again it proved a transfer backfire with David Silva showing he wasn’t happy to be transferred out, putting in a nine point performance. In other news, Granville finally saw sense and brought in Hazard only for the Belgian to blank and pick up a worrying injury, which will no doubt mean more twitter followers for Ben Dinnery to check on his status.
However, the high adrenaline move was left to David: he brought in Fabianski live on the breakfast club.
Template
After the wildcard and those transfers the template now looks like this:
Hennessey, Hamer
Wan-Bissaka, Robertson, Doherty, Alonso, TAA/Bennett
Salah, Hazard, Maddison, Richarlison, Fraser/Hojbjerg
Aguero, Mitrovic, Jiménez
The template reflected the Kanexit with Harry disappearing from all The Great and The Good squads. We saw Jiménez replace him and and Mitrovic remains in for now, although I suspect Arnie will soon emerge as Aguero’s strike partner as the fixtures turn. Elsewhere, we had some surprising exits with Patrício and Trippier moving on and Hazard is now the only one to be in the ten out of ten club due to Niemi’s wildcard moves.
Team Investment and Value
Average Cost of Player looks like this across the teams based on week 1 prices.
Goalkeeper – 4.5
Defender – 5.1
Midfielder – 8.2
Forward – 7.6
ITB – 1.3
As the most popular move this week was to kick out Kane and re-hire Aguero this had an impact on the average cost of the forward line and brought it back in line to the early season mark. The moves leading up to Gameweek 10 could be fascinating with plenty of money in the bank for The Great and The Good – this doubled from last week.
In terms of the overall team value (for those of you following along please note that this is based on value as of GW9 deadline) the new leader on this metric is Joe on 103.8 closely followed by Granville and Ville. The majority of the managers are now in the 103 club with only Jay, Andy and Niemi not quite having enough value to join the gang.
Formation and Bench
The formation of choice remains our trusted friend the 343 which has been used 54% of the time with Andy/Torres Magic being the biggest supporters of this formation having played it 8 out of 9 gameweeks. Ville Ronka continues to reject such an attacking approach and has yet to play 343 or indeed have more than 2 upfront when setting up his squad for the gameweek. Az meanwhile is the biggest supporter of the next favoured formation 352 (utilised 26% of the time overall) having played it 7 out of 9 gameweeks. This week was a test of the bench strength of the squads with a few surprising no shows (hello TAA) but there was no luck this time with most having to make do with an off form Wolves defender or Maddison who promised so much but delivered so little.
Captain and Differentials
The captaincy choice was an overwhelming vote for the dullard approach with all of them happy to take the expected 60 min + goal performance from Sergio. One man went bold (although Az teased it) with Mark being the only one brave enough to put the armband on Sterling. Unfortunately, as we all know, he didn’t turn up but his vice captain Salah did and scored better than the Argentinan; perhaps fortune does favour the brave.
Aguero is now the most popular captaincy choice overall for the season overtaking Salah for the first time with the armband being put on him 47% of the time by The Great and The Good. David remains the king of the captaincy averaging an impressive 18.9 points, so therefore suggesting we should pay more attention to his captain’s choice videos. Surprisingly, Arnie still remains a differential in Az’s team but not for long I suspect. Andy’s bold moves in the transfer market see him bring in Vardy but the jury is out as to whether he can take advantage of very good run of matches for the Foxes. Meanwhile, it’s the ultimate test of patience for Jay with Mané and Zaha only residing in his team now.
Conclusion
As we move into Gameweek 10 most of the managers have money to burn and, with the exception of possibly Jay, have had good starts. They could be poised to climb even further into the upper reaches with only a gap of 114 separating number 1 and number 25,000, so now feels the time to strike with some differentials amongst the established template.
There are some big players like Aubameyang, KDB, and Ozil who have less than 5% ownership amongst the top 10k and others may be tempted by a cheeky punt on Murray, Mahrez, Felipe Anderson, or Murphy who are also underrepresented.
Will the patient still be rewarded or are the next couple of gameweeks the time for the bold to make up ground?
However, that’s all from me for now and remember don’t have nightmares.
