Learning from The Great and The Good : Gameweek 35

“Our hopes and expectations. Black holes and revelations”

Lots of hopes and expectations going into GW35 as many triggered the bench boost but would this chip lead to black holes or green arrows?

Due to the Brighton fiasco in GW34 many were contemplating whether the triple captain was a better strategy but most were content to find painful ways to kick out as many of the Seasiders as possible from their squads, yet there was a sting in that tale.

Whilst others were lurking around the striker bargain bucket with a Deeney replacement needed – Gray, Wilson, Llorente and even Success were names being considered by the down and desperate.

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

The weeks of planning for the bench boost double game week paid off as they all saw green arrows this week with Torres Magic on top with a very impressive 124 points for the week.

It was an all-round performance from his team with his Brighton pair of Ryan and Duffy coming good, a smart transfer of Gray paying off and TAA, Jota also chipping in with double digit scores. All this saw him re-enter the top 20k for the first time since game week 25.

Eight out of ten of The Great and The Good hit the century this week with only Niemi and David missing out, in fact David is now the only one of the group not to hit a hundred over the full season.

Elsewhere, the biggest riser was Jay who hit a strong 115 to move him up 185,000 places and into the top 300,000, he was one of the managers rewarded by Deulofeu for his faith.

TRANSFERS AND HITS

This is a summary of the transfers for this week:

Andy – Koscielny (Dunk)

Az – Masina (Mariappa)

David – No transfer

Granville – No transfer

Jay – Masina, Lacazette (Vardy, Duffy)

Joe – Llorente (Deeney)

Mark – Sterling, Llorente, Jimenez (Eriksen, Murray, Deeney)

Niemi – Robertson, TAA, Llorente (Duffy, Dunk, Deeney)

Torres Magic – Gray (Deeney)

Ville Ronka – Cathcart, Gray (Morrison, Deeney)

*transfers out are in brackets

There was a variety of approaches to the bench boost with David, Granville content to make no changes to their wildcard squad whilst Mark and Niemi took eight-point hits to try and maximize the boost.

As always Mark was prepared to gamble but it didn’t pay off this time as Eriksen punished him for selling him on. Niemi was so desperate to kick out the Dunk/Duffy double act that he was happy to take a double hit to bring in the Liverpool fullbacks, the surprise clean sheet last Saturday meant this wasn’t as rewarding as expected.

The most common transfer out was the suspended Deeney with Gray and Llorente being the preferred options. Torres Magic and Ronka were the ones to go with Gray and he thanked them with a goal, Ville taking a rare hit to bring in the Watford striker.

TEMPLATE

After those transfers the template now looks like this:

Ryan, Foster

Duffy, Doherty, Valery, Robertson, Alexander-Arnold/Vertonghen/Laporte

Son, Eriksen, Mane, Sterling, Jota

Aguero, Jimenez, Llorente

The suspension of Deeney meant his time in the template was short lived but another new face replaced him with the evergreen Llorente joining. Elsewhere, the lack of faith in the Brighton rear-guard meant Dunk moved on with TAA and Vertonghen fighting out with Mr DGW Laporte for the fifth spot.

TEAM INVESTMENT AND VALUE 

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

Goalkeeper – 4.5

Defender – 4.9

Midfielder – 8.6

Forward – 7.9

ITB – 0.5

The managers reduced the funds in the bank this week as you expect as they tried to capitalize on the bench boost. The team value of all the teams continues to less important it has reduced by an average of 1.3m in the last 5 weeks alone.

BENCH BOOST 

So, who won the battle of the boost?

Az was the winner here with a massive 38 points coming off the side-lines thanks to Duffy, Deulofeu and Ryan.

In fact, the average was at 29 points which highlighted the benefits of playing this week, only Granville didn’t fully capitalize with a meagre 12 points.

CAPTAIN AND DIFFERENTIALS 

The captain curse continues to haunt David as he was the only one to go with De Bruyne who was so cruelly injured in the Spurs game. The rest went with Sterling with only Joe and Andy going with the other City prized asset of Aguero.

The key differential across the teams is Salah as he now finds himself in only Mark’s team with Huddersfield coming up will this prove another genius move especially if he plays his triple captain chip.

CONCLUSION 

The only chip in town for most of The Great and The Good is the triple captain chip with only Andy and Niemi having played that back in GW27. I would imagine most would be happy to match Niemi’s 57 points from Aguero that week.

Will it be played this week with the enticing Liverpool vs Huddersfield game or will they gamble and hold until the last two weeks?

It would wrong of me not to finish by joining all the FPL community to say a few words on Joe as I know we wish him all the best for his recovery.

He has always been so supportive of The Great and The Good articles and always willing to give advice so let’s hope for a speedy return and our thoughts are with him and his loved ones.

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