Learning from The Great and The Good: Gameweek 27

“A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline. It’s the end of the world as we know it.”

Chips, chips, and more chips! Strategies, solutions, alternatives and spreadsheets whirled around the FPL world with many pondering the best way to navigate through the choppy or should that be chippy waters ahead.

How would The Great and The Good respond? Would they double down and plan for the bountiful promise of GW32 or just look for ways to survive the bleak blank of GW31.

Yet GW27 proved the folly of the best laid plan with misfortune and injuries hitting several the FPL community and whilst not quite the end of the world it came close.

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

With many looking ahead few could have expected the sheer awfulness of GW27 and The Great and The Good were not exempt.

Mark moved up to his highest position of the season of 1,322 with the top score of the GW with his smart purchase of Rondon added to by Kolasniac returns and the Wolves double act of Jimenez and Doherty.

Az continued his recovery moving up 52,000 places with his 49 points thanks to a strong defensive display with Robertson, Shaw and Doherty all returning plus a shrewd transfer in of Barnes ahead of his fine display against Spurs. Looks like the board’s faith in the lord of the wingbacks of has been rewarded.

Life was not so good for Granville who had the joint lowest score of the week along with Ville Ronka at 32 and suffered the blow of Firmino’s injury.

Things went from bad to worse for Ville Ronka with his 11th red arrow and he only managed to field nine players although I sense this may be preparation for the next couple of game weeks with both Hazard and Ederson kept in his squad.

TRANSFERS AND HITS

This is a summary of the transfers for this week:
Andy – No transfer
Az –   Barnes (Ings)
David – Periera, Anderson (Richarlison, Digne)
Granville – Periera (Danilo)
Jay – Anderson, Periera (Hazard, Alonso)
Joe – Anderson, Periera (Sigurdsson, Digne)
Mark – Anderson, Rondon (Ings, Richarlison)
Niemi – Lejeune, Anderson (Wan-Bissaka, Richarlison)
Torres Magic – Periera, Aubameyang (Alonso, Kamara)
Ville Ronka – Arnautovic, Fraser (Sigurdsson, Kamara)
*transfers out are in brackets

Anderson and Periera were the most popular moves this week with an eye on their fixtures and GW31 planning, unfortunately neither had the best of starts.

Upfront the transfers were more intriguing with a divergence in approach for The Great and The Good with Az and Mark the more successful with Barnes and Rondón proving good picks. Meanwhile, Torres Magic and Ronka both took hits to bring in Aubameyang and Arnautovic who both ended up on the bench but at least the West Ham talisman mustered an assist.

Speaking of hits this is the third the normally patient Ville Ronka has made in the last 5 weeks, remarkable in the fact that he had not made one before GW23.

TEMPLATE

After those transfers the template now looks like this:

Fabianski, Patricio
Wan-Bissaka, Robertson, Doherty, Bednarek, Periera
Richarlison, Anderson, Salah, Pogba, Son
Rashford, Jiménez, Barnes/Aguero/Firmino

The upcoming blanks brought changes to the template with Periera and Anderson joining the squad at the expense of Digne and once essential-ish Hazard. One note of caution for those looking to replicate, the two managers who have kept the Chelsea playmaker are Mark and Ronka who know a thing or two about FPL.

The forward line still appears confused with Jiménez and Rashford looking for a confirmed partner. Kamara made way this week for Barnes, but he is fighting it out with Agüero and Firmino for that final spot.

TEAM INVESTMENT AND VALUE

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

Goalkeeper – 4.5
Defender – 4.7
Midfielder – 8.8
Forward – 7.1
ITB – 1.7

A shift towards the forward line this week with the purchases of Aubameyang, Rondon, Arnie and Barnes having an impact with most of this funded by a reduction in the ITB savings pot.

The race to be the richest of The Great and The Good continues to hot up with TorresMagic now at 107 million with 4.2 of that sitting in the bank. He is a long way ahead of Ville Ronka who sits 3.3 million behind with a TV of 103.7.

FORMATION AND BENCH

It was a case of just trying to put out an eleven this week with the blanks and late Wan-Bissaka injury news causing havoc with 343 just edging it over 442 amongst the managers as the formation of choice.

There were plenty of bench points this week with some claims of benchw…wizardry (PG version) with both Torres Magic and Andy naming non-starting players in their XI. Shame on you. They both saw the seven points from Jiménez come off the bench to give them some good news in a difficult week for most.

CAPTAIN AND DIFFERENTIALS

The Great and The Good were hoping for a Sonny day with seven out of ten going for the Spurs man but unfortunately Burnley clouds gathered leading to a blank for the South Korean.

Those who dared to go different were Mark, David and Torres Magic who went with Salah, Pogba and Aubameyang although the results were the same in a week of captain fails.

Looking at the differentials across the teams it’s in the striker position that there is a difference in opinion with Mark going with Rondón, Torres with Aubameyang and Ronka with Arnie so it will be interesting to see which of these comes good. Mark appears to have the early advantage. Meanwhile, David continues to show in-Sane belief in the City midfielder, will GW28 be the time for him to shine?

CONCLUSION

The last week has been dominated by planning, planning and more planning for the doubles and blanks but the injuries to FPL favourites Wan-Bissaka, Laporte, Firmino, and Rashford, plus the probable rotation of City assets, shows how flexible managers need to be during this time of the season.

These are exciting times and it’s squeaky bum time for these managers as the next few weeks will be telling as to who will be the greatest of The Great and The Good.

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