‘Brace’ yourselves, this Gameweek Guide is replete with doubles – the first Double Gameweek of the season has been announced, we ask is doubling up in attack the way to go? And we have not one but two ‘Meet the Manager’ interviews for you to mine for tips and strategies. Finally, if you thought Christmas only came once a year, get your ‘Jaws’ into a double whammy of James Bond infused articles.

Gameweek 24 has become somewhat of a prelude to Double Gameweek 25 as managers begin to gear transfers and planning towards the extra fixture for Manchester City and Everton.  However buyer beware – as David counsels:

Crucially, with Double Gameweek clubs then having a Blank in Gameweek 27, there will have to be careful management from Fantasy managers. They may want to stock up on Double Gameweek players for Gameweek 25, but they will be effectively useless in Blank Gameweek 27.

Inevitably the question of ‘hits’ immediately springs to mind – how much are we willing to risk?

If you listen to our resident hits machine, MINUS FOUR, you’ve probably concluded that hits aren’t particularly risky at all. Currently 54th in the world, it’s a strategy that has paid off handsomely this season for the manager known as the ‘James Bond of FPL’. His insightful and pun-filled delight of an article offered 007 tips for success, including – for your eyes only:

Somewhat counterintuitively, playing a version of hokey-cokey does not automatically mean you’re taking massive risks. In fact, hokey-cokey helps protect you against the biggest risk of all – a high percentage of your rivals scoring points from the players you don’t own when the fixtures are favourable.

It’s a train of thought that current Live HoF number 5 Aleksander Våge Nilsen agrees with. Appearing in the first of this week’s ‘Meet the Manager’ videos, the ice-cool Norwegian has found that being aggressive with big hitters has paid dividends this season. This is not his normal approach but it’s clearly one that has worked, helping him rise to 104th overall.

However, a first hit of the season was not enough to prevent Ville Rönkä slumping to his 007th red arrow in a row, as he descends into skyfall. Reminiscent of the England football team shoehorning song titles into interviews, Greyhead squeezed an inordinate amount of Bond references into his weekly review of The Great and The Good. Shocking, positively shocking.

Unlike Ville, the patient approach is working very well for Sean Tobin – currently first in the Live HoF and 18th overall. In the week’s second ‘Meet the Manager’ video, Sean revealed his hit averse approach.

For example, despite Tottenham’s enticing home fixture against Cardiff in Gameweek 8, he didn’t buy Harry Kane because he was £0.1m short. Crucially, he didn’t think the move was worth a hit. Kane-less, Sean went on to score 93 points and achieved a Gameweek rank of 12,987.

WesMantooth launched hot topics on both of the featured managers. He invited FFS users to discuss what we could learn from Aleksander: his spreadsheet, flexible formation, full playing squad – and from Sean: discussing FPL with knowledgeable friends, paywalled algorithms.

Sean mentioned during his interview that he had doubled up on Liverpool’s attack with both Salah and Firmino. A move which sparked J0E’s interest as it followed on from a discussion on this week’s Scoutcast. Attacking double-ups were also the theme of the recent Watchlist update.

In a similar vein Flapjack’s popular hot topic last week asked who are your differentials?

Keeping on top of the changing schedule and the opportunities presented, David examined how the FA Cup results have shaped our thinking. Leading Gregor to ponder if the Double Gameweek presents us with an option to use our Triple Captain Chip?

Looking further ahead, spmorrison researched how many times teams have to face members of the big six. His article threw up Arsenal and Liverpool as potential teams to target, and with six matches remaining against the big six – Watford, Burnley, Everton, and Leicester could be the teams to avoid.

Two major stories of the week are the signing of Gonzalo Higuain (£9.5m) and the earlier than expected return from the Asia Cup of Son Heung-min (£8.6m). Meltens brought us the lowdown on Chelsea’s new man – could his arrival spell good news for Hazard?

While Neale (aka Skonto Rigga) checked out the latest quotes from Pochettino about Son’s availability, to quote The Magician – will the Son shine after the Kane…?

Another player to return early from international duty is Brighton’s Mat Ryan (£4.4m), as David noted, “Despite a Blank in Gameweek 27, Brighton rank fourth-best for defensive potential between now and Gameweek 29 on the Season Ticker.”

But are we in danger of getting ahead of ourselves?

To bring us back to the here and now, Neale analysed the key stats ahead of Gameweek 24 (members only), and G-Whizz offered up the latest clean sheet odds along with the welcome return of Doosra’s team stats.

Gregor picked out two players who have been taken out of the limelight slightly following the Double Gameweek announcement. Could Jota (£6.0m) prove better value than Richarlison (£6.8m) despite Everton’s extra fixture? Afterall it is a fixture against Manchester City.

This week’s Captain Sensible article isn’t quite the forgone conclusion you might expect. The clear captain poll favourite is, unsurprisingly, Mo Salah, however, with 20% of the vote, many managers are tempted by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Have a read to find out who the stats and the RMT tool suggest you should trust with the armband.

To view all our discussions please visit our Hot Topics page, and if you’ve got some analysis, scout reports or features brewing, be sure to visit our community section to submit your article.

If you’re a member and are yet to get to grips with the custom statistics tables, you can view this movie for an explanation of how they work. Also, remember to tag them so that people can find the tables with ease.

COMMUNITY TOURNAMENTS

In the semi finals of both the FFS Cup and the FFS Members Cup there isn’t one manager in the top 10,000. In the biggest upset of the quarter finals, the lowest ranked manager in either competition Fine_Skyline (current OR 221,522) overcame the highest ranked manager Jambo17 (current OR 413) by 60 points to 57.

In the other quarter final matches in the FFS Member Cup there were victories for AKÉ MEYER DANN U (22,294 OR) and Andyw (13,530 OR) – now the highest ranked manager left in the FFS cups. Completing the semi-final line-up is Jay # (56,001 OR), who was given a helping hand in his quarter final thanks to his opponent Chenku taking a bold 12 point hit that didn’t pay off.

There were two upsets in the quarter finals of the FFS Cup as Man-Chest-Heir F.C. (current OR 131,728) scored an impressive 87 points to beat 749 ranked Starkers, and Get It Inter Ya (931 OR) succumbed to a fearsome Viking in the shape of Booyakasha (18,393) from Norway.

We all know you need a slice of luck in FPL cup competitions, so it’s no surprise to find two managers from the Emerald Isle in this year’s last four – alextcooper (137,970) and Tibbles (27,489). Tibbles remains on course for a cup double having formed part of the winning ‘Scout B’ team in the FFS Charity Cup last November. Will the luck of the Irish prevail?

The final of the FFS Manager Melee Community Tournament will feature American Dycho against The Godfather: Pardew.

Following their two victories in the group stages, The Godfather: Pardew triumphed for a third time in this year’s tournament over the toothless Howe to Train Your Dragon. While in their semi-final American Dycho overcame former group rivals Claudio With A Chance of Modballs despite their captain Le God losing to J0E.

In TorresMagic’s Last Man Standing the safety score in Gameweek 23 was 58, this saw 114 managers eliminated. This means 769 survive out of the 4,614 managers to have taken part. The final will take place in Gameweek 37.

Matthieu Raoux has regained the lead from Miroslav Pujic in our main FFS League and moves up to fifth overall. Impressively, he has been in the overall top ten for all but one gameweek since Gameweek 14. Ahead of the Gameweek 23 deadline he made a double transfer selling Alexander-Arnold and Son for Bednarek and Sané. He will no doubt be delighted at the news of a Double Gameweek for City.

Tore Bjørheim extended his lead at the top of the FFS Members League to 19 points, and moved up one spot to 14th in the overall rankings. Last gameweek he transferred in Pogba as part of a double transfer that involved selling Alonso. He already has Sterling in place for the Double Gameweek.

David increased his lead in the FFS Mods & Cons to 10 points. As Greyhead revealed, David continued his fine captaincy run in Gameweek 23. He was also thankful to Sané for bagging a double digit return having kept faith in him since Gameweek 15.

Luke Aiello maintained his 18 point lead at the top of RedLightning’s Top 10k Any Season although he’s slipped to 72nd in the overall standings. Hailing from Australia, Luke has shown remarkable consistency this season and has been in the top 100 since Gameweek 7. He’s made one transfer this gameweek, which FPL Transfer Spy predicts with 100% certainty is Fraser to Pogba.

Having played his second wildcard in Gameweek 22, Lesego Maforah is the new leader in RedLightning’s January to May League. Four successive green arrows have seen Lesego rise from 578k to 171k overall. He already has Sané and Aguero in place for the Double Gameweek along with Everton duo Richarlison and Digne. This is his ninth FPL season.

If you are running a community tournament and would like the latest scores included in future Community Round-Ups, please email us a summary of the current leaders and a link to your league, spreadsheet or head-to-head competition at geoff@fantasyfootballscout.co.uk