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Experiences of a greenhorn in FPL

My FPL resume is not extensive (hence a greenhorn):

Currently in my 1st full season in FPL – having joined a bit late last year, but seeing significant improvement once I discovered FFScout (thank you all for that by the way!). Last season’s outcome was decent; managed to claw my way back to 2nd position in my mini-league with 2 games less than my opponents and finished at around 1.7mil OR with 2012 points from 35GWs.

As any Football Manager (Fantasy, CM/FM series or real life!) having a full pre-season to prepare in 2019/20, I started the season well, reaching 100k by GW6 with an average of 63 points per gameweek and continued nicely, finding myself around 150k in GW14! Taking into account that my season’s goal was to achieve a top 100k finish, this was really encouraging.

Season derailed a bit from GW15 to GW22, when I managed an incredible 2 green arrows in 8 weeks (!) and this is clearly illustrated from my current 430k-ish rank. Highlights of this period include my transfer out of De Bruyne’s 19pt haul and captaining Son’s for his dismissal, ‘spending’ few transfers on a failed Leicester defensive double-up, but also and on a more positive note – I enjoyed Trent Alexander-Arnold’s 24pt haul against Leicester!

Moving forward, I still struggle to balance gut vs stats in my transfers’ rationale and would really welcome any advice in the form of experiences / learnings from everyone.

Meantime, to live up to the title, I have made the following conclusions from the immense 58 gameweeks I have managed so far:

1. This is a Game of Skill

Last year, when I saw that certain people did well for a number of years – it really made me keener to improve! Repeated success in any field is hardly ever a coincidence.

So, starting the season with proper planning, meaning creating a team for a minimum of 4 gameweeks & reassessing after the first 2 for the upcoming 3-4 was a good way for me to start.

2. It requires time & commitment

Realizing the use of ‘heavy’ words above, I still think that in part after the first 10-12 games, I lost a bit my focus. Started doing ‘reactive’ transfers rather than basing decisions on pro-active thinking and I paid the price.

3. Community is really helpful

From GW15 to GW22, as I already mentioned, I had only 2 green arrows and the 1st of those came mainly through TAA’s crazy haul.

Thankfully, before GW22 I watched Joe’s interview with Pranil (Lateriser12) for FFS ‘Meet the Manager’ series and I really recommend this to everyone! Pranil’s passion & way of thinking led me back to my stats tables (very handy feature of FFScout’s Members Area).

experiences-of-a-greenhorn-in-fpl 1

4. Element of luck

Elephant in room spotted.

As in many other strategy games, varying from board games (e.g. Risk) to poker and for sure football, luck undeniably plays its part in FPL too. Dealing with this is (maybe) the most difficult part. Pep has in the past been quoted saying (through a Thierry Henry interview in Sky Sports): “My job is to bring you up until the last third. Your job is to finish it!” Unfortunately though, the outcome of this ‘job’ is a matter of both individual skill and luck. So, in a similar fashion, we Fantasy Football Managers, can give ourselves improved probabilities of winning points through our selections, but in the end the outcome is not straightforward.

Moving forward, this brings me to my double gameweek 24 plans and trying to give myself the best chances for (hopefully) the 1st 3-digit score in my short FPL history!

experiences-of-a-greenhorn-in-fpl 2

Getting to the above team required my 3rd hit for the season, in order to swap Adama Traore (£5.7m) and Tammy Abraham (£7.9m) for Mohamed Salah (£12.4m) and Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£6.0m).

Fully realize that each and everyone will base his/her decisions on numerous different combinations of data, history and gut feeling, I decided to base mine on my ‘Basic Attacking Data’ table, which shows that both Salah & Sadio Mane (£12.4m) are right on top for xGI in the past 4 gameweeks.

Off course who to captain or even triple-captain will be a point to think about, but currently armband is on the Senegal international and is likely to stay there.

Next step is eventually addressing my team’s defense, which apart from TAA and Lord John Lundstram (£5.1m), whom I got for £4.0 and would not sell unless he loses his place on the side, is looking fragile to say the least…

Let me know your thoughts, it will be really appreciated! Also, whether you agree / disagree on the way I look at things so far…

Good luck to all for the business end of the season

luv4rotties A Premier League enthusiast, however, very much 'green' when it comes to FPL. 2018-19 was my first season competing and joined a bit late (GW3) :)

12 Comments Post a Comment
  1. Rotation's Alter Ego
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • Has Moderation Rights
    • 12 Years
    4 years, 2 months ago

    Cheers for this luv4rotties

    We always hear from managers that have been doing this thing for years and years, so it's nice to hear something a bit different!

    Hopefully this will be useful to some of the other new managers on the site. Best of luck this season!

    1. luv4rotties
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      4 years, 2 months ago

      Thank you!
      In all honesty, I am reading / listening to a lot of material on FPL and thought writing a piece as a way to 'give something back' 🙂

      Glad you enjoyed it!

    2. Greyhead
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      4 years, 2 months ago

      Great article - well written, good read

      1. luv4rotties
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 5 Years
        4 years, 2 months ago

        Thanks! Glad you liked it 🙂

        Meantime, does not seem like I will get my first 3-digit score though...
        Unless Liverpool delivers in huge ways (did TC in the end)!

  2. Pep Pig
    • 7 Years
    4 years, 2 months ago

    Enjoyable article mate good stuff. Absolutely nothing wrong with your approach and it is much more detailed than most.
    Similar to mine. Stats, eye test and gut all have a big say but no always in the same order

    1. luv4rotties
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      4 years, 2 months ago

      Thanks! Really glad it is an enjoyable read 🙂

      In my eyes, it is essentially a documentation of thoughts I have when I try to reflect a bit on how to approach the game...

  3. Two Popes and a Gazza
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 4 Years
    4 years, 2 months ago

    Excellent first article. (So here is my ever comment). This is basically the same team as mine going in to this GW. I have been playing FPL for 6-7 years now, but I only discovered FFS two years ago and bit the bullet and signed up this month.

    Always been fascinated with the insights and analysis provided here, but after signing up a few weeks ago, I must say I have been blown away by the detailed stats available to members. For someone whose work is dealing with data, I have always relied on a mixture of data and the 'eye test' for my successes. Oh, and asking the wife when I need a tiebreaker (luck). But relying on the form, BPS, and ICT data from the FPL website is nothing compared to what I can access here.

    So yeah I have managed to win most of my MLs through the years, but this year I have been spending more time focusing on achieving the highest possible OR and the tables and the community here are so useful. My favorite regular column would have to be Learning from the Good and the Great. Just trying to figure out why each of them GnG made the decisions they made is very helpful.

    1. luv4rotties
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      4 years, 2 months ago

      Thank you! Glad you liked it 🙂

  4. TiAgoFPL
    • 4 Years
    4 years, 2 months ago

    Nice post ! Cheers
    Its's Also my second season . Good luck !

    1. luv4rotties
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      4 years, 2 months ago

      Good luck to you, too!
      Glad you liked it 😉

  5. Drinkndrive
    • 4 Years
    4 years, 2 months ago

    Aubameyang or augero?

    1. luv4rotties
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      4 years, 2 months ago

      City next 5:
      tot | WHU | lei | ARS | mun
      Arsenal next 5:
      bur | NEW | EVE | mci | WHU

      Add in Pep's rotation..... and Auba it is?