Learning from the Great and the Good 20/21 – Gameweek 8

“What’s Next?”

A seismic shift is on the way as we see the end of an era and the beginning of a new one, no not the minor events in the US but the GW10 fixture swing. Are you ready for the blue wave?

Before we get ourselves ready for the next challenge, we had to get past what appeared to be a tricky Gameweek for The Great and The Good with last year’s top two battling it out, a tough captaincy call and the realization that we were investing in West Ham players.

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

FPL General was our President-elect with the top score in Gameweek 8, his canny moves for Grealish and Chilwell gave him an instant boost in the polls, plus he had Watkins and Walker-Peters to thank for his landslide victory.

He was not the only one to see a surge at the ballot box as both Lateriser and Joe hit green arrows of 740,000 plus. There was something beautiful about Soucek finally scoring for Joe whilst Lateriser may consider himself a little fortunate as he had Targett’s eleven points come off the bench for Foden.

Matthew Jones will be blaming the postal vote as he missed out on the 21 points combined of Watkins and Taylor sat on his woodwork, despite this he still saw a huge surge in support for his rankings with a move up of 630,000 places.

The captain call was a straight choice between a couple of hot Spurs with Kane just edging out Son as the top nominee for The Great and The Good, he came good with a late goal. I wonder how many will be brave enough to move on Harry despite the tough fixtures ahead.

WEEKLY TRANSFERS

This is a summary of the transfers for this week :

Az – Ziyech (Pulisic)

Fabio Borges – No transfers

Joe Lepper – Chilwell (Robertson)

FPL General – Grealish, Chilwell (Podence, Alexander-Arnold)

Lateriser – No transfers

Magnus Carlsen – Rashford (Pulisic)

Mark Sutherns – Chilwell (Robertson)

Matthew Jones – Grealish, Chilwell (Havertz, Alexander-Arnold)

Neale Rigg – Bowen (Podence)

Sean Tobin – Coulfal (Saiss)

Tom Freeman – No transfers

Ville Ronka – Coulfal (Mitchell)

*transfers out are in brackets

Chilwell was the top transfer target this week rewarding his new owners with a goal after prospering from one of Ziyech’s sublime crosses from the west wing.

Talking of the new Wizard of West London he was Az’s recruit this week and looks a fine choice, his double-digit score puts him as front runner for the international break major bandwagon.

Whilst I have this platform the less glamorous pick of Coufal made by Sean and Ville looks a bargain, he is averaging 5 points per game over the five matches and has those lovely fixtures ahead.

TEMPLATE

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

Steer (7), Martinez (6)

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

Salah (12), Son (11), Grealish (8), Soucek (5), Rashford/Sterling/Burke/Podence (3)

Kane (10), Calvert-Lewin (9), Werner/Mitrovic/Bamford/Brewster (3)

A messy transition of power as there is little to no consensus on the template with a variety of options being considered in every position, the only safe Senator looks to be Salah as I suspect more changes over the international break with Wildcards to be played.

One certainty is that building a wall of Liverpool defenders is no longer a viable option as Robertson has left the squad and Alexander-Arnold is clinging on with a slim minority. Interesting to note our leader Fabio is only one to stay loyal to the double up.

CAPTAIN CALLS

Picking the correct Commander-in-chief has never as important with this weekend being a good example of the colour of your arrow being dictated by your armband call.

So, I took a straw poll of The Great and The Good to see who led the way in this debate with the results below:-

Salah has dominated the vote once again with 35% of the nominations, his nearest rival is Aubameyang with 17% thanks to some early success in the primaries.

Looking at the success or otherwise of the managers, Tom is the lead candidate with 138 points and what’s interesting here is that he is a firm Salah supporter, only moving away from him for the big games against Chelsea and this last week versus City.

This has been a trend for the most successful of the managers in this metric, the value of consistency in your captain choice in this season of inconsistency has never been so important.

This latest bulletin also highlights the importance of captaincy in our race to the FPL White House as most have secured well over a fifth of their total score from this key decision. It’s not fake news to say every armband counts!

CONCLUSION

The international break is upon us and we are need of a rest and a period of reflection after a torrid start for many of us including many of The Great and The Good.

I was curious to see comments that some of my loyal readers (yes, both of you) can take a perverse pleasure in seeing some of these prominent managers suffer the odd red arrow. Why is this?

I stumbled across this quote by University of Liverpool anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who or may not have been talking about these articles, “We need to keep an eye on the great-and-the-good because they create a sense of community for us, but also because we need to make sure that they are holding to their side of the bargain.”

For me, I believe seeing a few ranks in the millions is reassuring for us and shows that maybe the grass isn’t always greener on the other side when these well-known managers find themselves struggling just the same.

Whatever the reason, let’s hope the break gives us all chance to recharge our batteries and make FPL great again!

Anyway, that’s all from me for now and remember don’t have nightmares.

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