Welcome to our review of the latest talking points in the Fantasy Football Scout Community ahead of Gameweek 8.
Here we bring to your attention some of the best articles submitted through our Community Trials initiative, which is part of our ongoing mission to support budding contributors and creators.
This piece will also cover the latest in the Community mini-leagues and competitions.
In this week’s secret agent-inspired installment of The Great and The Good, Greyhead reflected as more managers abandoned the beloved double agents of Andrew Robertson (£7.1m) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.4m). With the Englishman failing to justify his premium price tag, Greyhead asked: are we putting more value on his past glories rather than reflect on the fact he is currently the 31st ranked scoring defender?
Fixture swings were the subject of Steven Reinaldo Rusli’s latest piece for those looking to shake up the template. Steven suggests buying Crystal Palace and West Ham United assets in Gameweek 8, followed by the Aston Villa and Manchester United assets in Gameweek 9, and finally Newcastle United and Manchester City assets in Gameweek 10.
Ted Talks FPL produced one of his bite-size videos on the topic with West Ham standing out this Gameweek. Ted also sung the praises of the Chelsea defence in the recent Scout Network article, pointing out how much they improve with the additions of Edouard Mendy (£5.1m), Thiago Silva (£5.5m) and Ben Chilwell (£5.9m).
But others in the group were more cautious of investing in their attack:
Chelsea, rotation still bothers me a little at the moment, although with Christian Pulisic’s (£8.3m) injury probably eases that fear slightly. With a goal and an assist against Burnley, Hakim Ziyech (£8.0m) has been added to my watchlist.
– FPL Nymfria
Mikkel Tokvam, the creator of the Transfer Algorithm agreed:
The big worry for all the relevant attacking Chelsea assets are minutes on the pitch – they are a bit too many serious contenders, and need to fend off too much competition from each other to get enough out there. And despite all sexy metrics to evaluate players, minutes is the single most important one denting their appeal.
– Mikkel Tokvam
FPL Fetish agreed with FPL Nymfria’s assessment that Ziyech is the one to consider. He included the Moroccan in his Fantasy Forgotten selection ahead of Gameweek 8.
However, the player he described as “the ultimate Fantasy Forgotten” was Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£11.7m). The Arsenal talisman was the subject of an entire article by El Estadístico who highlighted a specific weakness in the Aston Villa defence as a reason for owners to be optimistic.
Fantasy Football Scout Mini-Leagues
League code: 5u05vz
Eligibility: Open to all
There are currently 48,483 people participating in the open-to-all Fantasy Football Scout mini-league.
Marcus Jarman made it three weeks at No 1 despite slipping from 31st to 188th overall in that time. The chasing pack is gaining with the top five managers separated by just seven points.
Fantasy Football Scout Community Members
League code: Available on Members page and the Scout Leagues widget when signed in.
Eligibility: Open to all those who have a registered Fantasy Football Scout account – paid or free.
Zou Hir is the new leader of our Fantasy Football Scout Community Members mini-league with a Bench-Boosted 97 points. Last week’s leader Arya Kothari drops to second.
As mentioned on the Scoutcast, Zou triple captained Son in Gameweek 5 (who had been promoted from vice-captain in the absence of Jamie Vardy) for a score of 91, but has not yet used his Wildcard or Free Hit.
The table below, courtesy of Mini-League Mate, shows the top 20 leaderboard.
Zou is clearly the form manager with 381 points over the last 5 Gameweeks, but watch out for ninth-placed Chetan Varsani who’s picked up 361 points over the same time frame.
In the Mini League Mate Dossier, manager names are now hyperlinked to their teams, so you can easily check out your rivals. To receive your own complimentary Dossier for the Community Members mini-league, please go to https://www.minileaguemate.com/membership to sign-up. The League ID is 584. The Dossier will be emailed to you at the end of each Gameweek.
We’re dishing out £2,500-worth of giveaways throughout the season, however only those who have registered a Fantasy Football Scout account (paid or free) will be able to claim a prize. Also, managers must be registered one month in advance of the awarding of a specific prize to be eligible.
The manager of the month for October has been awarded to Emmanuel Oloche, who wins a £50 Amazon voucher. Emmanuel, please contact Geoff (geoff@fantasyfootballscout.co.uk) to claim your prize.
Emmanuel scored 329 points in Gameweeks 4 to 7 without using any chips over that period. He began the month with an outstanding Gameweek 4, when he scored 136 points for a Gameweek rank of 33. Eight of his players that Gameweek (Son, Rodriguez, Wilson, Jorginho, Salah, Zouma, Bellerin and captain Kane) rewarded him with double-digit returns, but his other three all scored zero!
Head-to-Head Leagues
In League 1, wins for Olavi Oja, Aleksander Våge Nilsen (aka AleksanderVN) and Ville Tuominen (aka Santigold) see the trio move onto 18 out of a possible 21 points. Olavi leads by virtue of his superior rank.
Peter Tind in League 2 Division 2 and David Stanton (aka Captain Wales) in League 3 Division 2 have won all seven of their matches so far. They are the only managers in the top four Leagues to have done so.
There are just two managers in the Head-to-Head Leagues in the top 1,000 overall.
Volodymyr Klyuka in Division 15 of League 6 lost his perfect record in Gameweek 7 with a narrow two-point defeat to Stephen Kearney. Volodymyr retains top spot despite Stephen moving level on points thanks to his impressive rank of 318.
And Shahen Withana, who’s second in our main Fantasy Football Scout mini-league and 262nd overall, remains third in Division 14 of League 8 on 15 points.
A fixtures table will be published in the Scout’s Guide to Gameweek 8 ahead of the deadline. However, if you can’t wait to find out who you are playing next, 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.
Last Man Standing
League code: 48n69x
Deadline: Open now until Gameweek 18*
*entrants must pass all previous safety scores to qualify
In TorresMagic’s Last Man Standing the safety score for Gameweek 7 was 41 points. This saw a total of 221 managers eliminated.
The threshold for elimination remains at 6% for Gameweek 8.
4,302 managers have entered the competition to date and it is possible to join up until Gameweek 18 – although you must pass all previous safety scores to qualify.
Aside from bragging rights, the winner will receive a free Fantasy Football Scout Membership for the 2021/22 season.
You are able to keep tabs on the action throughout the season via Ragabolly’s website Live FPL.
Elite Community Mini-Leagues
Alaa Khaled Mokhtar is the new leader of RedLightning’s Top 10k Any Season mini-league (league code 8kcvzq) one point ahead of Peter Tind. Currently 5,026th overall, this is Alaa’s sixth season playing FPL, his one top 10,000 rank (1,759th) came in 2018/19.
Last week’s leader Rich Booth has slipped to third but he still heads PDM‘s Top 1k ANY season mini-league (league code 2agvvx).
It’s now three weeks at the top for Benjamin Teo in Chaballer’s Hall of Fame >Top 1k (league code mr8dyh). A decent 64 points saw him move up to 28,952nd overall. Mike Varcoe moves into second, six points behind. Benjamin is 547th in our Hall of Fame (HoF) and Mike is 360th.
Elias Kharma (aka @FPLMason) held onto the No 1 spot in RedLightning’s Multiple Top 10k Finishes mini-league (league code 8t42p6) after entering the league last week. Linda Parkes is breathing down his neck just four points behind.
2017/18 FPL winner Yusuf Sheikh has a 23-point advantage in the exclusive FPL Champions League as Simon March moved back into second with a solid 81 points, although he has Danny Ings (£8.4m) and Kai Havertz (£8.4m) red flagged for Gameweek 8.
Pros and Cons
The Fantasy Football Scout Network mini-league is for the Scout Network and includes the Pro Pundits. Christos Tsaras Sui (aka FPL Greece) has had his lead cut to five points, with three managers all gathered behind on 454 points.
One of that trio, Mat Williams (aka Matzi11a), increased his lead in the FFS Mods & Cons mini-league to eight points. Chris Atkinson (aka RMT’s Professor) remains in second with Lee Cowen (aka Granville) up to third.
Elsewhere, Sng Jungyang remains top of Skooldaze’s FPL Vets 2006 or before mini-league having led since Gameweek 4. While six successive green arrows has helped Tom Pemberton become the new leader of Greyhead’s The Next Great and The Good mini-league. Ranked 11,701st overall, this is his first season.
Stephen Kearney is level with Tom on points but has made a greater number of transfers.
It’s the Final Countdown
With just four Gameweeks to go in Fantasy Allsvenskan Love Hallersby continues to occupy the No 1 spot in the Fantasy Football Scout league and is second overall.
The amorously-named manager got 59 points in Gameweek 26 with Stefano Vecchia as captain scoring him 14 points. He went heavy on Malmö with Ola Toivonen, Jo Inge Berget and Anders Christiansen, however, they only managed 10 points between them despite their premium price tags. Love is 29 points behind the overall leader.
Movement below as Jonathan Fletcher overtook Niklas Tysander in second with 67 points. Jonathan is ranked 14th overall and is 38 points behind Love.
But Niklas is not going down without a fight: he got 66 points in the Gameweek and trails Jonathan by a measly point! Both Niklas and Jonathan captained Sebastian Larsson and it looks like being a very close race between the top three managers.
Thank you to Meltens for the update.
Get involved
To join a featured mini-league that you are eligible for, simply enter the League code in the ‘Join private league‘ section on the FPL site. Any questions relating to community competitions please email geoff@fantasyfootballscout.co.uk or comment below this article.
Thank you very much to RedLightning for his contribution to this article.
