Learning from the Great and the Good 20/21 – Magnus Special

“I love the game, and I love to compete, but I am not obsessed with the struggle.”

I have written The Great and The Good articles for a couple of years now and several questions come up when I am asked about the series. “Why?” is the most popular as you can imagine. “Do you have Ville Ronka’s contact details?” is another.

However, this year it has all been about Magnus Carlsen and asking how he is so successful? Firstly, let’s confess I don’t know but I thought it useful to have a little dig into his stats to find out more.

The opening quote above is from the Chess Grandmaster himself talking about his day job, but it’s his dalliance with FPL that has caught so many people’s attention with even the likes of Mark Sutherns and Az going gooey-eyed over his success.

He clearly loves the FPL game and you can not deny how competitive he has been over the last few years and has two top 5,000 finishes, but it was his exploits last time round when he ended up at number 10 overall that brought Magnus Mania to the FPL world.

In this special, I will take a closer look at this year’s performance and try to understand what makes Magnus tick and whether there is anything we can learn and use in our own strategies, although I suspect he will remain one or possibly several moves ahead.

The Story so far…

Magnus currently sits within the top 10,000 after a run of green arrows, apart from a minor blip this last weekend this has seen him move from 144,000 to 9,899 since Gameweek 27.

This run has coincided with his Wildcard which he surprisingly played during the Gameweek 29 blank, rather than the Free Hit chip which so many used to cover the sudden rush for Brighton players that week.

Although he has not fallen out of the top 150,000 since Gameweek 6 it has been a season of peaks and troughs, he was as high as 39,000 in Gameweek 10 before dipping back down to 113,000 in Gameweek 12 and similarly in his worst run dropped from 20,000 in Gameweek 20 down to 144,000 in Gameweek 27

The conclusion we can draw from this is that rather than a steady grind approach employed by other successful managers, he is one to take calculated risks throughout the season, some of which pay off and some that don’t, he appears quick to forget the errors and move on.

Checkmate Captains?

Success last season was driven by his captaincy picks and he scored a massive 608 points from his armband calls in the 19/20 season, this year has not been as profitable, he sits on 468 points.

However, it is noticeable is that his surge in the last 6 weeks has been triggered by an improvement in this metric, his 134,000 places gain has coincided with his captaincy average return moving up to 16.3 against the remainder of the season which was 13.7.

The table below shows his captaincy picks and highlights that he is a big Salah fan, he has gone Mo 39% of the time, with the remainder of his choices spread across 12 other players. The intriguing tactic here is that at several points during the season he has chosen differential picks even though he has held the most popular choice for that week.

An example of when this has worked is Gameweek 28 when he went with Vardy even though he had Salah and Kane, the most popular captain choices that week, which boosted him to a Gameweek rank of 23,000.

Other occasions include Gameweek 25 when he went Raphinha over Bamford and in Gameweek 20 when his gamble on Sterling earned him 22 points despite owning Bruno Fernandes.

The logic of this approach is that whilst you have the cover of the most popular captain pick you can get an advantage by going with a differential that week. One to ponder for us all.

Chessy Chips

His approach to the deployment of his Chips also makes him stand out, whilst he followed a straightforward path of an early Wildcard in Gameweek 5 and a Triple Captain on that man Mo again in Gameweek 19, it was his Wildcard in Gameweek 29 that made the headlines.

There was confusion amongst many when he played his Wildcard but looking back it was a smart move, he only made nine changes to his squad and used the cheaper options in his new fifteen to help him navigate the blank with Veltman, Dunk, Sanchez, Lookman coming in.

There was also the inspired choice of Lingard, who has helped many a manager surge up the rankings despite his xG inconsistencies, but rather than just the players he brought in, it was also the players he kept faith with that made the difference. The likes of Salah, Raphinha and most noticeably Alexander-Arnold all stayed and have helped him to his recent batch of green arrows.

All this means that he is one of a few managers who have both the Free Hit and the Bench Boost as we enter the final weeks. Interesting to note that it is only Magnus and Ville Ronka amongst The Great and The Good who hold both ahead of the closing run, so he is in strong company.

Tactical Trades

He has not been particularly aggressive when it comes to transfers with 36 taken and 6 hits which is relatively average especially when you consider a more cautious manager such as Joe Lepper has taken 8 so far.

Magnus does however have the eye for the opportunity highlighted by his 258 immediate returns from his moves and two ways he has achieved this are through the double and triple up on clubs with good fixtures plus his willingness to rapidly bring in and out players over a period of 2-3 weeks.

Starting on the doubles and triples, he has regularly had two or three players from one club to help get an advantage from favourable fixtures. In Gameweeks 9 to 10 he had three United players which saw him make gains, he also did the double up on Ole’s men in Gameweek 24 to 25 and was one of many to triple up on City between Gameweeks 15 to 25. Whilst they have not always worked, they show a willingness to take a calculated bet to gain bigger point swings.

Perhaps more impressive is his ruthless decision-making – whilst he will gamble, if the move does not pay off then he will quickly correct. Examples of this are Mahrez who was only given two weeks back in Gameweek 11 and Cavani who came in during Gameweek 24 but was shown the door in Gameweek 26.

This is even the case for players who provide returns, most notably Vardy who was transferred in and captained on Gameweek 28 then Wildcarded out the following week before being returned in Gameweek 31.

Picking the right Pieces

The table below highlights his most selected players this season:-

So whilst he is quick to make changes he does show strong loyalty to his core group of players, Mo Salah being exhibit A who has never left his squad but similarly the likes of Martinez, Calvert-Lewin and possibly surprisingly Robertson have remained central to his plans. I should point out it was his early season faith in the flying Scottish Liverpool wingback that gave him a ranking boost back in Gameweek 14, so his trust paid off.

So, my point is that whilst he is ruthless with the edges of this squad, he does show remarkable trust in what Lateriser has previously called the “glue” guys.

Conclusion

There is no doubt Magnus is a great FPL manager, indeed not a bad Chess player, and if nothing else I hope this article has provided a few talking points for us all to consider. It will certainly make me think twice about differential captaincy picks, whether I am putting faith in the right players and whether I need to be more ruthless in my transfers.

As for the man himself, it will be interesting to see where he finishes up this season. Can he use his Free Hit and Bench Boost advantage to topple Mark Sutherns and Fabio Borges from top of The Great and The Good? Who knows but I wouldn’t bet against him.

To finish I thought it useful to quote Magnus one last time, “I feel sorry for players who are always lying awake at night, brooding over their games”. Maybe this is the biggest lesson of all, learning not to overthink.

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