Gameweek 24 – The Mane TC aftermath

My article Experiences of a greenhorn in FPL may have been a nice read based on the feedback it got in the comments (really glad you liked it by the way!), but note of caution – this one might not be. 🙂

Day: Monday, Jan 20th

Anticipation is building after a tiny green arrow in GW23 (bringing me from 431k to 428k) and ahead of a double Liverpool (…ok ok & West Ham!) gameweek 24 things look like a 3-digit score may be on the cards for GW24!
It was not long ago when I dived into stats & tables and put together a plan in order to place my team in what I perceived as an advantageous position to welcome the 2 games that will be played by the league’s best team.

…fast forward 1 week…

Day: Monday, Jan 27th

My first 3-digit score might have to wait a little bit more… as I am currently sitting around 74 points short of it – with a net score of 26 points and a failed TC on Sadio Mane (£12.4m)!

Not great, one might say…

Well, more than a few members of the community have gone into lengths of how to deal with a bad beat (e.g. Lateriser12 in his latest article), so my next step is position consolidation.

Let me now try to stop the ‘post-apocalyptic’ tone of this and try to be more positive.

Gameweek 24 is almost over, however there still is the WHU – LIV game to be played and, with that, hope that its outcome may improve my current 550k rank a bit with Mohamed Salah (£12.5m) & Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.6m) still to play (off course, my TC has also another game in theory, but chances are he will not be fit). In preparation to Saturday’s deadline, I am looking forward to any news that may come regarding Mane’s injury as it will essentially determine my actions going forward.

So, not sure to whom this may be of help, but I will go through potential routes on how I intend to move forward:

Scenario #1: Sadio Mané (£12.5m) is only out for the WHU-LIV game

In this optimistic scenario, Mané will for sure be staying in my team, but will not be captained for the GW25 game against the Saints as I will be afraid he might only feature for a small part of it.

Action: Roll the Free Transfer

Scenario #2: Mané is out for WHU-LIV + GW25

In this scenario, he is again staying and I will have to field one of Diego Rico (£4.3m) or Çaglar Söyüncü (£5.0m) for GW25 with the intention to re-assess before GW26 as a few teams have nice looking fixtures in gameweeks 26 and / or 27 (including MCI vs WHU, WOL vs NOR).

Action: Roll the Free Transfer

Scenario #3: Mané is out for more than 2 gameweeks

This is the most likely scenario, in which case I will be moving him on for a replacement. Options include:

Step 1, would be to go to attacking threat data (FFScout Members Area) and assess which players are in the top10 in terms of xGI and Shots in Box (who have also started at least 3 of the last 4 games):

If we cross-check this info with the ‘Season Ticker’ sorted by ‘Attack’ difficulty, we get the following teams placed higher up:

With this train of thought, players from Liverpool, Sheff Utd, Newcastle, Burnley, Brighton & Southampton may provide opportunities based on upcoming fixtures.

Based on the Teams Attacking Threat data for the last 4 gameweeks (provided above), in a simplistic approach the attacks of the above teams would be sorted as: LIV>BHA>SOU>BUR>SHU>NEW (in bold the teams from which I already have attacking players in my squad).

One name that can be extracted form the above is Chris Wood (£6.2m), who seems like a really nice option in GW26 for either Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£6.1m) or Jamie Vardy (£9.9m), who may eventually need to be moved on if his form does not improve. However, in all honesty, there are not many players I like for Mané’s spot that combine good stats & appealing fixtures. As a result, it seems that waiting this gameweek & replacing Mané next week with 2FTs (and potentially a hit if necessary) may make more sense.

Right now, attacking stats for midfielders do not provide in my eyes options. Main reason is that apart from Salah & Kevin De Bruyne (£10.6m), who I already own – Ayoze Pérez (£6.1m) and Bamidele Alli (£8.5m) are the only ones that have the stats BUT lack the fixtures.

Despite strong stats for the Leicester man, they seem to be boosted from Vardy’s absence and he is not a consistent 90-min player. For Spurs, fixtures are not looking good and as a result they are listed 14th in the Season Ticker for the next 5 fixtures in terms of Attack difficulty.

As a result, my intention is to roll the FT this week (to maximize info on Mané and assess for 1 more week Jamie Vardy) and depending on the scenario that we will have, opt for the respective midfielder to go along Wood!

Let me know what you plan to do with Mané and whether my rationale makes sense from your perspective!

Note: All stats above are extracted from FFScout Members Area.