It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
– Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Double Gameweek 24 was a game-changer for many. The best of times for those who Triple Captained Salah, but the worst of times for those who awarded it to Mane instead.
Head-to-Head Leagues
Craig Johnson (aka Bouncebackability) restored his six-point advantage at the top of the Head-to-Head Leagues.
Craig beat Owen Walker (aka Zan Scott Talent) by 92 points to 85. He successfully played his Triple Captain chip on Mohamed Salah and moved up to 16,682nd in the overall standings. Craig is the highest-ranked manager in League 1.
A defeat for Ignazio La Rosa sees him drop one place to third as Aleksander Våge Nilsen (aka AleksanderVN) reclaims second spot.
Jørgen Skjånes was the highest scoring manager in the top division. He also Triple Captained Salah and his 106 points meant he easily eclipsed his previous best Gameweek rank this season – 8,871 v 447,456.
His victory took him off the bottom of the table but he remains 16 points adrift of safety with 14 Gameweeks to go.
Meanwhile Harry Vernon (aka Horse) and B.J. McNair, both 22,584th overall, remain 11th and 12th respectively despite having better FPL ranks than the majority of managers above them. Another win for David Meechan keeps him one point ahead of Harry.
Leading Performers
Vladimir Stojiljkovic suffered only his third defeat of the season in Division 77 of League 8. However with 63 points out of a possible 72 he is still one of the highest scoring managers across all 300 divisions, a distinction he now shares with Abdullah Tamin in League 8 Division 1 and Niall Devlin in League 8 Division 143.
Brian Evans has the best rank out of the 5,983 managers taking part in the Head-to-Head Leagues. An impressive 96 points took him up to 106th in the overall standings. Nonetheless the high-flying manager is third in Division 19 of League 6 with just 45 points. He trails leader Bernd Meyer by six.
A fixtures table will be published in the Scout’s Guide to Gameweek 25 ahead of the deadline. However, if you would like to find out who you are playing next before then, follow this link. Use your browser’s find in page function (Ctrl+F) to locate managers. All this information and more is contained in the main Head-to-Head page.
Fantasy Football Scout Mini-Leagues
For the fifth successive Gameweek the Fantasy Football Scout mini-league sits proudly atop the Best Leagues in FPL.
Leagues are ranked using an average score of the top five teams, so congratulations and thanks to the top five managers in the mini-league Chris McGowan, Mark May, Magnum Dong Carlsen, Edward Ridout, and Christopher Berchoux.
Christopher replaces Bill Wilkins in the top five. In the Double Gameweek, 67 of his 100 points came from his Liverpool trio of Triple-Captain Salah, Alexander-Arnold and Robertson.
Overall-leader Chris (aka Queens of the South Age) has not yet deployed his Triple Captain chip, but he still managed an impressive 89 points with Salah as his captain. He has a 41-point cushion over Mark (aka Frankiem) in second and a nine-point lead at the summit of the overall standings.
There are currently 44,005 people participating in the Fantasy Football Scout mini-league, to join them enter code ooyz44 in your Leagues’ section on the FPL site.
Svein Roald L Usken (aka Firminoooo) is monopolising four of our featured mini-leagues.
He is the new leader of our FFS Members mini-league and retains top spot in RedLightning’s Top 10k Any Season mini-league, PDM‘s Top 1k ANY season mini-league and Chaballer’s Top 1,000 HoF League.
Svein was yet another manager to Triple Captain Salah and, despite also owning Mane, he moved up to 202nd overall. It’s an impressive rise from the Norwegian who was 5,124th overall just three Gameweeks ago. At the time that put him at 157th in our Live Hall of Fame but he will surely be much higher after the next update.
In second place in the Members League, following a superb 116 points, is Damjan Rupnik. His Gameweek rank of 885 meant he catapulted up the leaderboard from 3,043 to 227 overall. He is three points behind Svein.
Yet Damjan’s impressive total was bettered by Paul McParland, who takes seventh spot in the Members League. His humongous 121 points consisted of five players with double-digit hauls: Triple Captain Salah, Alexander-Arnold, Perez, Stephens, and Pope.
Gameweek 23 leader Steve Hall dropped from first to sixteenth after scoring a just-above-average 55 points. Although Steve has kept his Triple Captain chip in his pocket.
The code to join the FFS Members League can be found on the Members page.
Fantasy Football Scout Cups
The draw for the semi-finals has taken place for both the FFS Cup and Members Cup.
In the FFS Cup, Mataatti takes on AMEY and stamfordbridge faces seven-time top 10,000 manager Phil Ampleford (aka Philman).
Over in the Members Cup, BeckerCallSaul plays Just-In-Cider and community-writer Pep Pig is up against maxp19907.
Neale previewed the semi-finals yesterday.
Community Mini-Leagues and Competitions
In TorresMagic’s Last Man Standing the safety score in Gameweek 24 was 48 points, this saw a total of 85 managers eliminated.
The threshold for elimination increases to 12% for Gameweek 25, a minimum 92 managers will depart.
4,344 managers have exited the competition so far with 762 left to battle it out for the coveted title of Last Man Standing. Aside from bragging rights, the winner will receive a free Fantasy Football Scout Membership for the 2020/21 season.
The Keane Fifteen got back to winning ways in the Pundit’s Play-Off Community Tournament although the “15” Musketeers cut their lead to seven points following their 13-2 victory over Slaven’s Ball-itch.
Boris Bodega brought us all the latest in his Matchweek 14 review.
Neale Rigg (aka SkontoRigga) was one of 24 managers out of the 30 in the FFS Mods & Cons mini-league to brandish his Triple Captain chip. He moved back into the top 10,000 and has a 27-point lead over Fantasy League supremo Gareth Butler (aka Clouseau) in second.
With Svein Roald L Usken reigning supreme, the current second-placed leaders are Ian Stanley in RedLightning’s Top 10k Any Season mini-league, Rok Krasna in PDM’s Top 1k ANY season mini-league, and Ómar Olgeirsson in Chaballer’s Top 1,000 HoF League. They trail unified champion Svein in their respective mini-leagues by between six to 44 points.
Managers with a top 10,000 finish may join RedLightning’s Top 10k Any Season mini-league using the code m0tq9y. Managers with a top 1,000 finish may join PDM’s Top 1k ANY season mini-league using the code eejnyz. Managers in the top 1,000 of the Career HoF may enter the league using the code beeps2.
Champions and Pro Pundits
It was a difficult week for Everton fan Ben Crabtree, the 2016/17 FPL winner famously doesn’t pick Liverpool players. He was overtaken by Tom Fenley and 2012/13 champion Matthew Martyniak who are tied on 1,339 points behind Pro Pundit Simon March in the FPL Champions League.
Tom called his team Captain Suarez! when he won FPL in the 2013/14 season – the year in which Luis Suarez scored 295 points. This season he has named his side Captain Salah except in Double Gameweek 24 he ignored the Egyptian and left the armband on Raheem Sterling. Might he have been caught out by the midweek deadline?
Simon now has a whopping 97-point gap at the top. Not so much a cushion, more of a bouncy castle.
Eight of our nine Pro Pundits played their Triple Captain chips in Double Gameweek 24, with varying success.
Lateriser12 scored 78. He owned Salah and Alexander-Arnold but Triple Captained Mane and, since he also took an eight-point hit, has slipped out of the top thousand. Sam Bonfield (aka Sam FPLFamily) did better with her 89 points thanks to Firmino Triple Captain, Salah and Alexander-Arnold. She is now only 26 points behind Lateriser12.
Simon March was the highest-scoring Pro Pundit with 102 thanks to Salah Triple Captain, Alexander-Arnold and van Dijk. He overtakes Tom Freeman (aka avfc1982) to become the third highest-ranked Pro Pundit.
But it was a Gameweek to forget for Andy (aka Andy85wsm) who took a four-point hit and Triple Captained Mane for a total of 45 points.
2020 Mini-League
411 teams have signed-up so far to RedLightning’s January to May League, which started scoring in Gameweek 21.
Lars Herman Lokkeberg climbs to first place after mustering 108 points for the second successive Gameweek. He Triple Captained you-know-who and completed his Liverpool quota with Alexander-Arnold and van Dijk.
This is Lars’s 11th FPL season with a best previous finish of 29,106th. His recent triple-digit totals have seen him shoot up the overall rankings from 225k to 3,692nd in just two Gameweeks!
Qian Hao Ong held onto second place as Shirin Nizar (aka Chelsea Guy) slipped from first to third. Vimal Krishnan moves up to fourth after scoring 117.
The league will remain open for any others who wish to track their progress in the second half of the season, the code you need is aafkpq.
Submissions
If you are running a community competition and would like the latest scores included in future Round-ups, please email us a summary of the current leaders and a link to your league, spreadsheet or head-to-head competition to geoff@fantasyfootballscout.co.uk
Thank you to RedLightning for his contribution and for supplying the opening quote to this article.
