Learning from the Great and the Good 20/21 – Gameweek 6

“Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse
When you’re chewing on life’s gristle
Don’t grumble, give a whistle
And this’ll help things turn out for the best
And Always look on the bright side of life”

Surreal times for many of us this week as FPL interrupted our normal programming to annoy us and generally make things more irritating with another week of unusual results.

Big returns were expected this weekend from the Premier League flying circus with Salah guaranteed to put the Blades to the sword, Everton and Villa bound to continue their fine form and surely City would inflict more than just a flesh wound on West Ham.

As it happened The Great and The Good suffered another week of hardship with a Salah blank, Digne red card and even a last-minute Palace clean sheet wipe out forcing many of them to focus on the bright side of life.

The Great and The Good are the Scouts Neale Rigg and Joe Lepper, Pro Pundits (Mark Sutherns, Az, Lateriser, Fabio Borges and Tom Freeman ), FPL “celebrities”, FPL General,  Magnus Carlsen and finally from the Hall of Fame we have Ville Ronka, Matthew Jones and Sean Tobin

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

This Gameweek left many of The Great and The Good reminiscing about the good old days, double-digit scores? Luxury! Captain returns? We should be so lucky. Clean sheets? We can only dream of those.

And now for something completely different, a green arrow in Gameweek 6 as Tom Freeman hit 70pts and jumped to the top of the table with Bamford’s Friday night Pat-trick the highlight.

The rest were left wondering what FPL has ever done for them with red arrows across the board apart from Sean’s second green in a row. The full horror is summarized in the table below:-

When it came to the armband, this was the week The Great and The Good realized that Salah is not the Messiah, he’s just a very naughty boy as VAR and a post prevented any captaincy points for the managers.

WEEKLY TRANSFERS

This is a summary of the transfers for this week :

Az – No transfers

Fabio Borges – Calvert-Lewin (Antonio)

Joe Lepper – Salah, Ayling (Alexander-Arnold, Pulisic)

FPL General – Watkins (Davis)

Lateriser – Targett (Taylor)

Magnus Carlsen – No transfers

Mark Sutherns – Kane (Jimenez)

Matthew Jones – Kane (Jimenez)

Neale Rigg – Kane, Kilman (Brewster, Doherty)

Sean Tobin – No transfers

Tom Freeman – Kane (Werner)

Ville Ronka – Sterling (De Bruyne)

*transfers out are in brackets

Let me tell you something my lad it appears that Maverick Joe is here to stay as he was the only one to take a minus four this week to bring in Salah but at the expense of Alexander-Arnold and Pulisic, he joins Magnus and Ronka in going without the Liverpool wing-back.

Elsewhere, Kane was a wanted man with Neale, Mark, Matthew and Tom making a move for the Spurs talisman, you don’t need to understand the migration patterns of a coconut to know this was a smart move but it was just an assist this week.

Fabio will be disappointed that his late arrival to the Calvert-Lewis party coincided with a rare blank and I was surprised it came at the expense of Antonio who looks a strong pick for Gameweek 8 and even for next week against a Van Dijk less Liverpool, subject to his hamstring holding up.

TEMPLATE

The template for The Great and The Good is as follows with the number in brackets showing how many teams in which they appear:-

Steer (7), Martinez (6)

Alexander-Arnold (9), Mitchell (7), Robertson (6), Lamptey (5)/Walker-Peters (5)/Ayling (5)

Salah (12), Son (10), Podence (6), Grealish (6), Soucek (5)

Calvert-Lewin (9), Kane (8), Jimenez (5)

The template saw a shift in the forward line with Kane growing more popular than spam, spam, spam as Werner made way.

At the back we see Ayling compete for the fourth/fifth defender place and with Joe’s latest transfer now everyone has Mo, the Liverpool is now more sought after than Venezuelan beaver cheese.

THE GREAT AND THE GOOD NETWORK

Acting as an anarcho-syndicalism commune, The Great and The Good, after a ratification at a special bi-weekly meeting, have decided that I should shine the spotlight this time round on those former members and Pro Pundits who don’t normally suffer the weekly scrutiny.

Those managers in The Great and The Good network are the Scouts David Munday and Geoff Dance, the Pro Pundits (LTFPL Andy, Sam Bonfield, Zophar, FPL Hints, Luke Williams, Stephen Harrap, Darren Wiles, Simon March, Holly Shand) and Jay Egersdorff from the Hall of Fame.

Their performance is summarized in the table below:-

LEADING THE SEARCH FOR THE HOLY GRAIL 

FPL Hints – Ash leads the way and sits at 31,596 which is higher than any of The Great and The Good, he started well and took an early hit to bring in Richalison which gave him a twin Everton attack for Gameweek 2 and 3, he benefited from a Newcastle double up in Gameweek 4 before a shrewd Son armband in Gameweek 5.

He played his Wildcard this week which sees him go very cheap at the back with three 4.0 defenders, this allows him to afford Kane, Salah, Son, Grealish and the Everton threats of Calvert-Lewin and James Rodriguez.

He may not be a lumberjack but he’s ok, and Geoff Dance is one to watch for captaincy picks with 110 armband points so far thanks to his faith in Salah, but he showed this week he is prepared to gamble as put his trust in Mane who rewarded him with two assists.

BIGGUS TRANSFERS

Holly Shand has been relatively aggressive with 8 transfers and 3 hits but has had mixed success sitting at 2.1 million. Her attitude to the minus four is nothing compared to the high-risk moves of Luke who has already taken 7 hits including a -16 in Gameweek 5 which saw Alexander-Arnold and De Bruyne leave his squad.

Jay Egersdorff sits around the 500,000 mark and has yet to take a hit, although he played an early Wildcard which saw a shrewd investment in Zaha, it also had him surprisingly transfer out Kane after his 21 point in Gameweek 2. He has since restored Sir Harry who sits alongside an Everton double and triple ups on Liverpool and Palace.

THE MEANING OF FPL 

Zophar and Simon March have shown steady improvement, silly walking their way up the ranks, Simon had his loyalty to Ings repaid this week and Zophar’s differential is Barkley so let’s hope he bounces back against Southampton this weekend.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition or indeed City’s lacklustre start to the season and this has impacted Stephen Harrap’s early season form with Mahrez a particular disappointment.

Darren Wiles was in the top 100,000 until this week but was one to suffer from the Digne red card and I wonder whether he will play his Holy hand grenade (Wildcard) this week with Soucek, Ryan and Mitrovic yet to really perform for the Hall of Famer.

And finally, amongst the best of the rest David Munday could do with a cash injection with a team value of 99.9, Andy last gasp Wildcard played last week was done at the death with seven of those moves made in the last five minutes and Sam Bonfield’s loyalty to Kane will surely see her rank improve over the coming weeks.

Lots to consider and nudge nudge wink wink many of this year’s The Great and The Good will be looking over to see whether any of the wider network will take their place.

CONCLUSION

Many of The Great and The Good suffered further setbacks this week as the unpredictability of this season starts to become predictable. Yet, why worry now after all nobody asks for your overall rank in Gameweek 6, it’s how you finish the season that matters.

Notable managers such as FPL Reuser and Yonkers on Twitter has stuck to the principle of not checking their position until later in the season to avoid clouding their judgement and better manage their emotions, making decisions based on logic rather than impulse.

Maybe more of us should consider this approach, at least that way we spare ourselves from not knowing whether, like the Norwegian Blue, this season is dead! No more! Ceased to be! Or whether it’s just pining for the fjords.

For those affected by any of the topics raised in the above article then you can find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Greyhead19