Learning from The Great and The Good: Gameweek 22

“You should never, never doubt something that no one is sure of”

The words of Willy Wonka, not Ville Ronka, rang true for many a FPL manager leading up to GW22 with no one sure who were the best premium players to pick. With an abundance of heavy hitters available The Great and The Good were like kids in a chocolate factory. Again, the performance of these heavy hitters proved to be a mixed bag with Salah continuing to be an everlasting gobstopper, Kane being left at the bottom of the packet and Aubameyang, the Squelchy Snorter, leaving a nasty taste in the mouth.

So, who are The Great and The Good? They 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.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

We have a new leader in the race to be the Greatest of The Great and The Good! Mark, the original Willy Wonka of the FPL world has handed the keys to the factory over to Charlie. Sorry, David. After just two weeks at the top Mark has lost the lead to David who has moved into the top 5,000 and reached a season high of 4,411.

David was the top scorer for the week with 80 points, he captained Salah and has a strong defensive display with Digne, Robertson, David Luiz, and Fabianski combining to give him 38 points from just his backline alone. Mark also had a strong performance from his defence thanks to an audacious double down on Cardiff players.

This must be the stuff of dreams for David, but I would advise him to keep an eye on Slugworth aka Joe who achieved his 8th green arrow out of nine game weeks to move him up to 16,455. Good news for Az who achieved the biggest rise of 83,000 places this week.

Elsewhere, Ville Ronka continues to stumble a little with his sixth red arrow in a row, Jay can’t seem to catch a break, now at 359,000 and Niemi slumped again now having lost 84,000 places since his season high in GW15 of 17,000.

TRANSFERS AND HITS

This is a summary of the transfers for this week:

Andy – Salah, Rashford (Kane, Anderson)

Az –  No transfer

David – Barnes (Ings)

Granville – Arnautovic, Guaita (Wilson, Speroni)

Jay – Redmond, Barnes (Snodgrass, Ings)

Joe – Guaita (Hart)

Mark – Etheridge (Fabianski)

Niemi – Sané (Martial)

Torres Magic – Salah (Son)

Ville Ronka – No transfer

*transfers out are in brackets

Salah was the big move by Andy and Torres Magic this week which paid off immediately, it is only Niemi now who is resisting the Egyptian charms of Mo. Andy was also the first of The Great and The Good to bring Rashford in and is ahead of the stampede we can expect this week with form/fixtures looking good.

We entered the high-octane world of the keeper transfer this week with Mark, Joe, and Granville all making adrenaline drenched moves. Joe and Granville were unlucky with Guaita who picked up an injury, but Mark’s Etheridge buy proved more successful.

Granville had a bad week all round in the transfer market: he took a hit to bring in Guaita and made the slightly strange move of bringing in China-bound Arnautovic.

Talking of unusual moves, Jay’s transfer of Redmond may raise an eyebrow or two.

TEMPLATE

After those transfers the template now looks like this:

Fabianski, Hamer/Patricio

Wan-Bissaka, Robertson, Doherty, Alonso, Digne

Richarlison, Hazard, Salah, Pogba, Sane

Kane, Jiménez, Kamara

More tinkering around the edges in terms of the template with Sane pushing Anderson out of the squad. The West Ham winger passes the eye test but needs to start converting this into FPL points with such a competitive number of midfield choices available.

Upfront, Ings leaves the template due to injury and I wonder how long Kamara will stay in the team after rumours of trainings ground bust ups. No sign of Jason Puncheon yet but I am sure Joe will be campaigning hard for his inclusion over the coming weeks.

TEAM INVESTMENT AND VALUE 

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

Goalkeeper –  4.4

Defender – 4.9

Midfielder – 8.8

Forward – 7.6

ITB – 0.4

A move of funds back into midfield with Salah returning into most of the squads and the managers using their Christmas savings in the bank to fund.

In terms of overall value Torres Magic leads the way at 105.5 but we see Az, David, Granville and Mark all over the 105m mark.

FORMATION AND BENCH 

3-5-2 remains flavour of the month with six of them deploying the formation this week. Since GW12 it has overtaken 3-4-3 as the most popular set up selected 39% of the time by The Great and The Good.

CAPTAIN AND DIFFERENTIALS 

Salah was the captain of choice this week with seven out of the ten managers giving him the armband and he delivered again. David was one to pick him and as result regains his crown as king of captains averaging 20.2 points for the season.

The former leader of that particular stat was Mark but his dalliance with Hazard continued as he showed bravery to go with the Belgian troll again. Although he provided an assist Mark would have been safer to go with Salah. Classing him as a safety pick perhaps demonstrates why Ronka has chosen him 59% over the last 22 weeks.

As a differential pick, Granville captained Sané, and Niemi who plumped for Kane against a rejuvenated United – a bold choice.

Talking of the key differentials between the teams, Andy was the first to pick Rashford, but I suggest this won’t last long as his stock rockets. Under the radar David’s choice of David Luiz over Alonso has proved wise with the Brazilian outscoring the Spaniard by 11pts over the last 3 weeks.

CONCLUSION 

The last couple of weeks have seen several The Great and The Good try to get ahead of a bandwagon but with mixed success.

Mark’s spider sense was, for once, slightly off: he went for Arnautovic in GW21 but he has proven to be more like cheap Chinese takeaway.

Andy has been more successful this week with his Rash move, David/Jay will hope that the Austrian superstar Ashley Barnes will give them an edge, and if Redmond proves successful for Jay then we will all be ready to eat our collective hats.

Who will be the next bandwagon buster?

Maybe Alli, Eriksen, or Firmino? Only The Great and The Good will have the answer.

Anyway, that’s all from me for now and remember don’t have nightmares