The chips are down. At least 551,702 chips are being played in Double Gameweek 32. Five extra fixtures are taking place making this the biggest Gameweek of the season so far, with ten teams playing twice.
As the deadline fast approaches the Fantasy Football Scout Gameweek Guide is here to brighten up your day and ease all those last-minute worries. Not sure about your captain choice? Can’t decide on your third City player? Why Collin Quaner?
You’ve come to the right place.
Manchester City are the headline act with two fixtures against teams in the bottom three of the Premier League table – Fulham and Cardiff. These enticing match-ups coupled with a tricky home encounter for Liverpool against third-placed Spurs, have prompted 129,956 FPL managers to play their Free Hit chip, and a further 75,186 to Wildcard.
However it’s worth keeping in mind that is only a small proportion of the overall number of teams, of which there are more than 6 million. As the FPL General observed in this week’s Question Time – echoing Joe on the Scoutcast:
It’s easy to feel like you have the same team as everyone else when you see other teams posted on social media and in FPL forums but, there won’t be as many managers Free Hitting this week as you think.
Free Hit or not, the armband choice would appear a straight shoot-out between City’s two leading lights – Raheem Sterling and Sergio Agüero. Four goals and three assists for Sterling over the international break have seen his stock soar even higher as he becomes the most transferred-in player ahead of the deadline. Some 412,112 managers making the move so far.
David’s Captain Sensible article examines the two candidates. Agüero is currently favoured by just over 50% in Captain Poll – are the Fantasy Football Scout community making the right choice?
Joe pointed out in this week’s Captaincy video that Sterling has eight double-digit hauls this season to Agüero’s four. While Neale revealed that Sterling has benefited from a shift to the left flank in Gameweek 25.
Perhaps Agüero’s security of starts is the reason behind his popularity. During his research into Pep’s recent line-ups, David discovered that:
Despite being seen as a rotation threat for much of this campaign, since Gameweek 23, only Ederson has recorded a higher percentage of game-time than Agüero’s 91%.
The other burning City question this week is not whether to triple up on their players, but which one to pick?
Unsurprisingly Joe is in the cautious camp. Looking at Points Per Match (PPM) he argues that it isn’t worth paying more for midfielder David Silva (£8.5m), despite his slightly higher PPM of 4.6 compared to Laporte (£5.9m) or Ederson (£5.6m) who both average 4.2 PPM.
The FPL General agrees that defence is the way to go:
Triple City attack does tempt me but there is so much competition in midfield and with players returning to fitness, we can’t predict who will get significant minutes.
However, our community is not so sure. MINUS FOUR in his swashbuckling James Bond style reasons that if you want to make progress up the ranks you need to attack the Gameweek. He also argues that it’s more fun:
I’d so much rather be cheering for goals galore than biting my nails that City don’t win 6-1 not 6-0.
Pep Pig concurs. In his article this week entitled “Will fortune favour the brave?” He points out how well David Silva did in the reverse fixtures against these teams, ultimately he concludes:
With David Silva’s inclusion, it just excites me more.
David Silva is one of the players highlighted in this week’s differentials article.
Az even has Sané in his Free Hit side as he revealed on the Scoutcast. Although there wasn’t much love for Sané as an option when Irbox asked if community members were looking to squeeze him in. Many are still feeling sore after his Double Gameweek 25 exploits.
Looking at the rest of our squad, Double Gameweek players dominate the Scout Picks this week. Crystal Palace’s Jeffrey Schlupp makes the cut. He was one of the defenders highlighted in our members’ article on the best defenders to sign for a Free Hit squad.
For members only, David and Neale also analysed the best forwards, midfielders, and goalkeepers to own.
Kieran Trippier’s positive underlying stats were mentioned on the Scoutcast and he earns a place in the Scout Picks. His position in the Spurs starting line-up has been strengthened by an injury to Serge Aurier.
Neale brought us up-to-date with all the latest team news in his round-up yesterday. The lack of clarity around the status of Manchester United players means Marcus Rashford warms the subs bench in the Scout Picks. Rotation’s Alter Ego once again kindly provided a summary of all the team news.
Amongst all the Double Gameweek shenanigans Collin Quaner reappeared as a bench budget enabler for those looking to play two up front. Priced at a mere £4.3m, the forward is available again despite having joined Ipswich on loan.
Elsewhere on site, G-Whizz provided his regular DS stats, fixtures and clean sheet odds, Greyhead reviewed The Great and The Good – the less said about Gameweek 31 the better – and Chris Kish looked at using the Bench Boost chip for those without their Free Hit or Wildcards.
With Eliteserien Fantasy kicking off today – deadline for Gameweek 1 is 14:30 GMT – David put together a complete guide for those looking to take part. And Joe interviewed TV journalist and Eliteserien expert Jonas Bergh-Johnsen.
Johannes (formerly known as Niemi) has kindly contributed two more articles this week on Eliteserien after looking at price changes and providing a team guide last week. He’s analysed the fixtures and Double Gameweek strategy, and taken a look at some budget options.
Meanwhile Hansel and Meltens have been equally generous in putting together guides to Allsvenskan Fantasy. They take an in-depth look at the goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders, and forwards on offer in Swedish top flight football.
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 third round of the Fantasy Football Scout Cup saw another former winner depart as donnellyc slipped to a narrow 35-34 loss to TwiggsJameson. David brought us all the latest from the competition including the draw for the next round – 64 managers are through to round four. The final is scheduled for Gameweek 37.
In TorresMagic’s Last Man Standing competition the safety score in Gameweek 31 was 25, this saw 63 managers eliminated. 174 teams are through to Gameweek 32, when the threshold for elimination moves up to 30%, a minimum of 53 managers will depart. The final will take place in Gameweek 37.
Finally eliminated from the Last Man Standing competition, but still top in both our main FFS League and our FFS Members League, and Adam Levy is number one in the world for a third Gameweek in a row.
I’ve mentioned recently that the current record points total for an FPL winner is 2,668 set by Jon Reeson (aka Westfield Irons), the first ever member of FFS to win FPL way back in the 2009/10 season.
After taking an eight-point hit in Gameweek 31, Adam needs 578 points to beat Jon’s longstanding mark. He still has his Wildcard, Free Hit, and Bench Boost chips available.
Mark still leads the FFS Mods & Cons but has dropped back out of the overall top thousand after taking a twelve-point hit. He also dropped to second in our Live Hall of Fame as Sean Tobin retook the lead.
G-Whizz is now second in the Mods and Cons after an impressive 65 points with only a four-point hit. This is his fourth FPL season and by far his best.
Andy Sullivan is the new leader in RedLightning’s Top 10k Any Season mini-league. He has been in the overall top thousand since Gameweek 18 and is now up to 62nd, despite having had the misfortune of Triple Captaining Sané in Gameweek 25. This is his 12th FPL season, his best previous finish being 4,190 back in 2007/08.
There’s also a new leader in RedLightning’s January to May League – Vimal Krishnan has had 9 green arrows in 10 Gameweeks, rising from 95k in Gameweek 21 to 7,191 now. He used his Triple Captain chip profitably by captaining Agüero in Gameweek 25. This is his eighth FPL season, with a best previous finish of 7,632 in 2016/17.
Karen Goh remains top of RedLightning’s The Last Ten Gameweeks mini-league and has increased her lead to 20 points. Four successive green arrows have taken her from 112k in Gameweek 28 to 14,819 in the overall standings. She is reaping the benefits of an excellent Wildcard in Gameweek 29.
All of these mini-league leaders fielded 11 players in Gameweek 31, some of them taking hits in order to do so and others not needing to – crucially none of them played a chip then.
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
