“Let me tell ya a little story, Brewster. When I was seven years old, my daddy caught me smoking a cigar. Locked me in a broom closet for two days and two nights with nothing more than a box of cigars and a book of matches. No food, Brewster. No water, just those god damn cigars. Wouldn’t let me out till I finished every last one of them. Taught me one HELL of a lesson! I’m gonna do to you what my daddy did to me. I’m gonna teach you to HATE spending money. I’m gonna make you so sick of spending money that the mere sight of it will make you wanna throw up”
Free Hits dominated the build up to GW32 and for some it did slowly become the plot to Brewster’s millions (look it up it’s a great film) with all that money to spend but so many options and the whole international break to ponder.
Managers were going to extreme lengths to make sure they had the perfect free hit team with one of The Great and The Good resorting to stalking Lindelöf’s wife on Instagram!
Unfortunately, the DGW did not meet the level of hype and expectation with many a manager frustrated by benching, red cards and even own goals.
All The Great and The Good saw green arrows this week apart from Mark but for most they were hardly the huge jumps in overall rank they must have been expecting.
Four of them managed to break the 100 point mark this week so take a bow Torres Magic, Andy, Joe and Jay.
Torres Magic was top score with 113 who had the dream defensive double of Azpilicueta and Laporte along with Son, Hazard, and that man Aguero. It saw him earn a 43,000 increase in the overall standings and achieve his first green arrow in eight weeks.
Jay was the biggest climber this week moving up 135,000 places and finds himself back in the top 500,000.
Congrats also to Joe and Andy who had the Hazard and Laporte combination to thank for their centuries. Andy has also quietly slipped into second place across The Great and The Good, is he set for a late charge to topple Mark?
Speaking of Mark, he was at the bottom end of this week’s scores along with Az as their gamble on Batshuayi didn’t pay off plus suffered from the curse of the United defender.
TEMPLATE
All The Great and The Good pushed the Free Hit button this week and this meant the template for GW32 looked like this:
Unsurprisingly, the fantastic four of Aguero, Sterling, Pogba and Hazard appeared in all the teams but from these it was only Aguero and Hazard who delivered.
In fact, most of them stayed to pretty template midfield with Son being the other popular pick joining Hazard, Pogba and Sterling with the remaining slot a real mix bag of either a thoughtful punt or cheap enabler. This is probably the only time this season we will see Fulham’s Kevin McDonald in the template.
At the back Schlupp was the most popular pick appearing in eight out of ten teams joined by David Luiz and Laporte along with the budget friendly Simpson.
Upfront it was a case of picking Aguero’s strike partners but very few spent big with Kane only in Mark’s team and David/Niemi picking Higuain.
As you would expect all the managers used their full allocation of City players with Chelsea and United averaging at 2.5 and 2.3 representation.
TEAM INVESTMENT AND VALUE
Average Cost of Player looks like this across the teams based on week 1 prices.
Goalkeeper – 4.7
Defender – 5.0
Midfielder – 8.5
Forward – 7.8
ITB – 1.7
In terms of overall funding the Free Hit teams were slightly more expensive upfront than the squads from GW31 with a couple of managers investing big.
FORMATION
A variety of options in terms of formation with the teams split between a 3-5-2 and 3-4-3 as has been the case over most of the season. Mark and Andy were the ones willing to be different with a 4-3-3 allowing them to bring in both Azpilicueta and Smalling.
CAPTAIN AND DIFFERENTIALS
The choice of captain highlighted Brexit like divisions across The Great and The Good with Aguero getting 60% of the vote in this FPL referendum.
Unsurprisingly, Mark went with his favourite Sterling who he has picked for the armband 25% of the time over the season, more than any of the other managers. Whilst Niemi showed his devotion to Aguero who has been his pick 31% of the time during the last 32 weeks.
There were some intriguing differentials amongst the managers. The most noteworthy was Mark who went back to his Harry Kane romance whilst the rest ignored the Spurs striker’s advances despite the lure of a shiny new stadium. They were wise to do so.
Elsewhere, Granville was the only one with Deeney which proved a smart purchase and Niemi had a fine start on Saturday with his differential picks of Bernardo Silva and Luke Shaw both delivering.
David took a shine to Andros Townsend for reasons best to known to himself and Az ignored all the baby talk and went with Lindelöf.
CONCLUSION
So, as we all gathered our thoughts after a double game week of disappointment those with wildcards still intact face the dawning realization that they must go through all that deliberation again in only a week’s time.
All The Great and The Good appear to be pursuing the GW34 wildcard strategy and I wonder whether it will change their approach?
Will they look at the single game week options more carefully?
Will they be so gung ho in picking players from the top teams or will they pick safer options from those teams less likely to rotate?
As always, The Great and The Good will find a way.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now and remember don’t have nightmares.
5 years, 23 days agoGreat read, as usual.
We have another one this week, The Great and The Good compared with the FFS HOF:
https://www.fantasyfootballscout.co.uk/2019/04/05/the-great-and-the-good-vs-hall-of-fame-managers-revenge-of-the-sith/