Gameweek 33 arrives with a quick turnaround, a reduced fixture list, and a Friday evening deadline – 19:00 UK Time. The action kicks-off with Liverpool travelling to Southampton, and while it would be inadvisable to go without at least two of their players, perhaps the bigger concern is who to captain?
Wind the clock back 12 months and the obvious answer would be Salah. However the Egytian is without a goal since Gameweek 26 and without a double-digit return since Gameweek 23 – not the form you would expect of a £13.2m player who managed 303 FPL points last year.
There is no clear standout option in our captaincy poll, with Salah narrowly in third place:
- Hazard 25.37% (1,447 votes)
- Mané 23.06% (1,315 votes)
- Salah 22.97% (1,310 votes)
- Vardy 13.38% (763 votes)
As J0E noted in this week’s captaincy video:
This is a really good week for playing a differential captaincy.
In the same video J0E highlighted that in addition to Salah’s dip, what is putting him off captaining a Liverpool player is Southampton’s upturn in form – the Saints have only conceded four goals in their last four matches.
Topping the captain poll by whisker is Chelsea’s Eden Hazard, who two days ago scored, assisted, and collected all three bonus points at home to Brighton. On Monday Chelsea face a West Ham side who have conceded more Big Chances than any other team over the last four away matches.
However, Neale (aka Skonto Rigga) had a few words of caution in his Scout Notes article:
Much like in the Gameweek 30 draw with Wolves, Hazard had to produce a piece of individual brilliance to get on the scoresheet and his expected goals (xG) tally from Gameweek 26 onwards is inferior to 39 other FPL midfielders.
Although if there’s one player who has a history of exceeding his expected goals it’s Hazard.
The fourth option in the captaincy poll this week is the 12.3% owned Jamie Vardy.
Away from the captaincy debate, Leicester players were spoken highly of on the Scoutcast by both Az and Andy – Maddison and Tielemans are considered good options. Although the only attacking Leicester player to make the Scout Picks is Vardy.
In this week’s captaincy video, David revealed that he thinks Vardy is a better choice for the armband than Hazard, while on the Scoutcast, Az mentioned reports of the Huddersfield players falling out with their manager.
David has been a Jedi Knight when it comes to picking captains this season – he’s used the force to gain 540 captain points so far. If you are struggling to make up your mind on who to trust with the armband, David’s Captain Sensible is here to help.
David’s recent performance, along with those of his fellow managers in The Great and The Good, was analyzed by Grey Head in his weekly feature. The importance of making the right captaincy decision was reinforced in a ‘Star Wars’ themed article by myself and Grey Head. I discovered that Career Hall of Fame number four Marlen Rattiner would be in the top ten overall had he matched Mark’s captaincy score.
What this implies, however, is that Marlen must be very good at making transfers to compensate for his below average captain score. According to FPL Transfer Spy, this week the veteran manager has brought in Maddison for Manchester United’s Paul Pogba. A move that will have repercussions should Marlen be thinking about playing his Wildcard soon – Pogba is player Marlen has owned since Gameweek 20 and has gained a lot of value on.
Many FPL managers will be activating their Wildcards this evening once the deadline has passed, that includes Joe, Az, and Andy, who discussed their Wildcard teams for Gameweek 34 on the
However, with transfers for Gameweek 33 in mind, Neale and David prepared two excellent articles delving into the stats. Fantasy Football Scout members can discover who are the best attacking players and the best defensive players to sign for one week only.
You may also want to consult two hot topics from regular contributors: Rotation’s Alter Ego has once again kindly provided a summary of all the team news, and G-Whizz bring us his regular DS stats, fixtures and clean sheet odds. Perhaps unsurprisingly Liverpool and Chelsea are the teams expected to do well.
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
There will be a new name on the Fantasy Football Scout Cup after the last surviving former champion, 2EyedTurk, suffered a shock fourth round defeat to the lowest-ranked manager in the competition, Vulken. Neale brought us all the latest from the competition including the draw for the next round – 32 managers are through to round five. The final is scheduled for Gameweek 37.
In TorresMagic’s Last Man Standing competition the safety score in Gameweek 32 was 91, this saw me and 55 other managers eliminated. 119 teams are through to Gameweek 33, when the threshold for elimination moves up to 36%, a minimum of 43 managers will depart. The final will take place in Gameweek 37.
Adam Levy remains top of both our main FFS League and our FFS Members League, and for the fourth Gameweek in a row is number one in the world. Adam used his Free Hit chip and scored 102 points in Gameweek 32, he’s now got 2,193 points – 42 points more than Hossam CheLSawy in second place.
Adam needs 474 points to beat the record points total set by FFS member Jon Reeson (aka Westfield Irons) in the 2009/10 season. That’s an average of 79 points per Gameweek. He still has his Wildcard and Bench Boost chips available.
Mark was the only one of our mini-league leaders not to score at least 100 points in Gameweek 32. Mark, who still leads the FFS Mods & Cons, played his Free Hit chip and scored 86 points. Rotation’s Alter Ego is now in second place after his Free Hit scored 115 points. He trails Mark by 23 points.
Andy Sullivan held onto his lead in RedLightning’s Top 10k Any Season mini-league. After playing his Free Hit chip for 100 points and has risen another 4 places to 58th overall.
The mysterious No one is the new leader in RedLightning’s January to May League following a successful Free Hit chip score of 119 points. 15 green arrows in the past 16 Gameweeks have taken this manager from 4.6m in Gameweek 16 to 796k now. This rather begs the question – why did this team perform so badly before playing its First Wildcard in Gameweek 16?
Karen Goh increased her lead to 22 points in RedLightning’s The Last Ten Gameweeks mini-league. Five successive green arrows have taken her from 112k in Gameweek 28 to 10,583 now, with the help of an excellent Wildcard in GW29.
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.
