“I Feel The Need… The Need For Speed!”
The FPL season continues to accelerate with swift turnaround times and fast decisions needing to be made by The Great and The Good, with the newly announced doubles in Gamweek 24 and 25 on the horizon we are on the highway to the danger zone.
The midweek fixtures were eventful enough to take our breath away with a new record being broken with poor old Bednarek scoring -7, I doubt he will enjoy being the subject of Fantasy Football Trivia quizzes for years to come, but feel for the FPL manager of Al-AhlySc who triple captained the unlucky Southampton defender.
There was also a retro feel to the week with Jesse Lingard proving that he has not lost that loving feeling with two goals on his West Ham debut, surely, he’s not an option – is he?
For those not following along, The Great and The Good are prominent managers I track to hopefully improve my own performance. They 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
Matthew Jones was top gun this week with 87 points, with Justin, Raphina and Fernandes all contributing and taking him up to 246,000. This is a considerable achievement bearing in mind he was ranked over 4 million in Gameweek 7 and has managed a remarkable 14 green arrows out of 16 in that time.
Joe was the biggest riser this week with a strong score of 84, he was another to benefit from James Justin’s 15 point haul, unlike FPL General who retains top spot but will disappointed to have left the Leicester full back’s score on the bench.
Whilst the top 3 of FPL General, Fabio Borges and Mark Sutherns appear to be on cruise control I see some airstrikes ahead from the likes of Tom Freeman, Lateriser and Ville Ronka who have all their chips in hand.
The captaincy call was dominated by Mo Salah but two brave managers decided to play maverick, with Az putting the armband on Cancelo and Lateriser gambling on Bruno Fernandes. It paid to be dangerous and foolish this week with both of their picks outscoring the Egyptian King.
WEEKLY TRANSFERS
This is a summary of the transfers for this week :
Az – No transfers
Fabio Borges – No Transfers
Joe Lepper – Grealish (Mane)
FPL General – Martinez (Johnstone)
Lateriser – Bamford (Werner)
Magnus Carlsen – No transfers
Mark Sutherns – No transfers
Matthew Jones – Watkins (Rodrigo)
Neale Rigg – No transfers
Sean Tobin – No transfers
Tom Freeman – No transfers
Ville Ronka – No transfers
*transfers out are in brackets
The Great and The Good held their cards close to their chest this week with a limited number of transfers, FPL General even made a goalkeeping switch such was the level of excitement. Joe and Matthew’s move for Villains paid off with immediate returns but there was sense of sorrow over Lateriser’s decision to take out Werner after showing so much faith in him over the season.
TEMPLATE
The template for The Great and The Good is as follows with number in brackets showing how many teams in which they appear:-
Martinez (6), Johnstone (5)
Cancelo (9), Coufal (8), Dias (8), Robertson (7), Stones (7)
Bruno Fernandes (12), Salah (12), Gundogan (9), Soucek (8), Son (5)
Calvert-Lewin (9), Antonio (9), Bamford (9)
The template held firm with no one willing to buzz the tower, with a high degree of similarity across The Great and The Good squads although I can see a shakeup over the next couple of weeks with many holding 2 FTs and the ability to attack the double Gameweeks.
TAKE ME OFF THE BENCH OR LOSE ME FOREVER
Varying degrees of squad depth across the teams due to the different chip strategies and that is reflected in the recent review below of the bench strength of The Great and The Good:-
Matthew Jones has left 171 points on the bench so far this season but Mark is not far behind on 151, the irony won’t be lost on Mr Sutherns that when he played his Bench Boost he only scored 8 compared to the 28 points he left just this last week with Soucek and Justin flying high.
Lateriser has only given up 67 points on the pine but when your substitutes include Mitchell, Davis and Button that is hardly surprising.
Fabio continues to be the most fortunate with his reserves, he has only called on them 5 times and they have averaged 5.6.
CONCLUSION
We speed into Gameweek 23 but thinking ahead will be key if we manage the turbulence of the three Double Gameweeks in the next three weeks, subject to Gameweek 26 being confirmed, this will provide further opportunity to fly high.
Yet, a note of caution, whilst I am sure many of us will be bringing out our spreadsheets and devising devilish equations to maximise the number of plays over this period, remember that this game is more than just a mathematical formula and also involves an ability to read the motivations and form of the real human beings. So, let’s not being Iceman in our calculations and rely on instinct and the eye test as well as numbers to help our decision-making as otherwise our Goose could be cooked.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now and remember don’t have nightmares.
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
3 years, 1 month ago
Cheers GH, did incredibly well to get this turned around so quickly! Best of luck to everyone trying to plan through these doubles.... I need another paracetamol.