The Complete Guide to our FPL Gameweek 26 tips and advice

The Gameweek 26 deadline approaches after the most tumultuous Gameweek in recent memory. For those who Triple Captained Manchester City’s Sergio Agüero it brought 57 points and unbridled joy, for others, despair – Leroy Sané’s solitary point was way below expectations. You thought triple captaining Andy Carroll was a disaster.

The bad news is that, for those who suffered, it could get worse.

This week’s Meet the Manager guest, former FPL winner Simon March, a recent graduate in behavioural economics, cautioned that managers who lost out in Gameweek 25 could fall victim to the “What the heck? Effect” – where we are more likely to take risks following a loss.

Simon’s advice is to try to be objective about risk and reward values. If you are wondering how to do that then fear not, help is at hand. The writers, contributors, and posters here at Fantasy Football Scout have been busily sorting the wheat from the chaff.

The first step is to clear your head, and what better place to start than last week’s cathartic episode of the Scoutcast. In an open and revealing discussion, J0E, Az and David talked about how a bad gameweek can affect your mental health. This lead to a hot topic on the subject in which FFS members including SuperMane Returns and Pep Pig shared stories about their personal struggles with addiction.

Having put things in perspective, let’s take a look at this week’s opportunities.

Neale (aka Skonto Rigga) has perused the upcoming fixtures to determine which teams are best placed to take advantage. According to Hutch_James, a number of teams are predicted to do well in Gameweek 26 as he revealed in his Wisdom of the Crowd article. Although for G-Whizz Liverpool are the standout option in the latest DS stats, fixtures and clean sheet odds.

David’s Captain Sensible article makes for fascinating reading as ever. After back-to-back blanks, are there serious contenders to take the armband away from Mohamed Salah?

A lot of the discussion this week has centered around what to do with our City players. The FPL General, a victim of Pep’s unpredictable whims, collected his thoughts ahead of Gameweek 26. While Geoff started a conversation about Sané replacements.

If you noticed, during this tempestuous week, the strange sight of a man being pursued by a bear, it was probably old Greyhead. Our community writer’s regular examination of The Great and The Good took on Shakespearean proportions. Mark and Niemi aside, the rest suffered “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”, for Ville it’s now nine red arrows in a row.

The irony is that this season, it is The Great and The Good who should be pursuing Greyhead. He’s doing superbly well and is currently ranked 549 overall. According to FPL Transfer Spy, the high-flying scribe has sold the Belgian Wizard Eden Hazard for the free-scoring South Korean Son Heung-min ahead of the transfer deadline.

The picture ahead of Blank Gameweek 31 became a little clearer with Brighton’s progress in the FA cup. For those planning ahead, Liverpool appear an attractive proposition as they don’t have any Blank Gameweeks this season. It wasn’t so long ago that many managers were considering a defensive double-up, however the Reds have struggled for clean sheets recently. Neale’s looked into what is behind their recent defensive woes.

One reason is perhaps the injuries they’ve had, but could Trent Alexander-Arnold be ready to return to the fold?

Find out in the team news rounded-up in full by Neale, together with a handy hot topic from Rotation’s Alter Ego.

Finally, for players of the Sky Sports game, Luke (aka disable) brought us a breakdown on player ownership for the top 1,000 managers.

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

The finals of the two FFS cup competitions take place this gameweek.

In the semi-finals of the FFS Members Cup Jambo17 was the outstanding performer – a whopping 114 points was easily enough to see off his rival AKÉ MEYER DANN U. Jambo17 had the optimal City combination of Agüero, Sterling, and Laporte, and he used his Triple Captain chip on Sterling. He moves into the top 100 overall and must start as favourite in the final.

Does his opponent stand a chance?

Jay # scraped through his semi-final against Eedee by 62 points to 56 and is ranked 59,782 overall, so on the surface you would say probably not. However, he looks well positioned to have a good gameweek with Arsenal’s Aubameyang and Kolasinac already in place along with Jiménez up front. He’s also helped by the fact his opponent has already taken a hit. So an upset isn’t out of the question.

In the semi-finals of the FFS Cup Get It Inter Ya overcame Justmatt, and Man-Chest-Heir F.C. saw off the challenge of Tibbles.

Get It Inter Ya did very well to score 75 points despite captaining Sané, double digit returns from De Gea and Chelsea pair David Luiz and Eden Hazard bailed him out. He remains in the top 1,000 overall. Heading into the final, he owns Kolasinac although not his teammate Aubameyang. Instead he has a cheap front line, but with two free transfers available we could see funds shifted forward to buy the Gabonese international.

Man-Chest-Heir F.C had Laporte to thank for his semi-final victory as he was another to captain Sané. The lowest ranked of the finalists at 124,414 overall, he has one free transfer and £2.4m in the bank to bolster his squad. With a cheap front line, including Josh King away to Liverpool, and an injured David Brooks, he has an important decision to make on how to invest those funds.

In the final of the FFS Manager Melee Community Tournament American Dycho have triumphed over The Godfather: Pardew with a 7-2 victory. An official match report will follow shortly.

In TorresMagic’s Last Man Standing the safety score in Gameweek 25 was 49, this saw 70 managers eliminated. 616 managers are through to Gameweek 26, when the threshold for elimination increases to 12%. The final will take place in Gameweek 37.

It’s all change at the top of the featured mini-leagues after the divisive double gameweek.

There’s a new leader in our main FFS League with Omer Weisberg taking top spot as Miroslav Pujic drops to eighth after only managing 52 points. Omer ignored the clamour to captain a City player and plumped instead for Chelsea’s Eden Hazard. The diminutive Belgian, along with Laporte and Higuain, helped Omer to a gameweek score of 100. He is now sixth overall in only his second FPL season.

Tore Bjørheim has lost his 15 point lead at the head of the FFS Members League as Adam Levy surged past him. Adam triple captained Agüero for a gameweek score of 126 and moves up to 17th overall. This is his sixth season, his best finish of 10,847 came last year.

David’s reign atop the FFS Mods & Cons is at an end. Overthrown by his boss, Mark stormed past David with a stupendous 102 points to leave his employee floundering in his wake. Am I making this sound more dramatic than it actually is? Possibly. Mark had a decent gameweek with Sterling, Hazard, and Laporte contributing to his total. I’m sure David will bounce back.

Mark moves up to second in the FFS Live Hall of Fame behind Sean Tobin. Sean managed an impressive 93 points in Gameweek 25 and now finds himself in the top 10 overall. Yet to make a transfer this week, Sean could be doing the Auba to Agüero hokey-cokey. Sean featured recently in one of J0E’s Meet the Manager videos.

James Wells is the new leader in RedLightning’s Top 10k Any Season mini-league, as long-time leader Luke Aiello drops to third. James is a new entry to this mini-league and is perhaps lucky to be top after triple captaining Sané. He dropped from eighth to 39th overall. This is his 13th FPL season, he has two previous top 10,000 finishes, the highest one being 2,330 back in 2006/07.

JOZ V moves into first place in RedLightning’s January to May League as previous leader Lesego Maforah drops out of the top ten. JOZ V triple captained Agüero on his way to a mighty 125 points. This is his sixth FPL season, his best finish being 2,799 in 2014/15.

Finally, some managers may have noticed a new mini-league appear – RedLightning has reactivated and renamed his Doubles Blanks & Chips mini-league from last season to Last Ten GWs. The code for others who may like to join is 1637-1351886. The league will begin scoring in Gameweek 29.

The reason for the name change is that having just had a pivotal double gameweek, the January to May League is a perhaps a better way of seeing which chip strategies are proving to be the most effective in dealing with this season’s Double and Blank gameweeks.

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