Learning from the Great and the Good 20/21 – Gameweeks 36 and 37

“Life’s like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending.”

 The final few days of this weird and wonderful season are now upon us, at times it’s made a muppet of us all with rescheduled fixtures and rotation causing havoc as we tried to plot our way through the campaign.

It’s been 37 Gameweeks of highs and lows for me with Mrs Greyhead increasingly confused by my moods and more recently the arrival of Matheus Pereira poster in my study.

Yet, when busy googling for a kickoff quote for this article, the words of Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets rang true, in case you were wondering about the reference in the first paragraph. If you are asking who the Muppets are, well to be frank, there is no hope.

His words remind me that we have the power to write our own ending, so define your own target whether that be getting into the top 100,000 or top 1 million, reaching the summit of a mini-league or just simply wanting to see Rhian Brewster score for Sheffield United.

Enough of these philosophical ramblings let’s cut to the action over the last two weeks as we catch up with The Great and The Good who had to cope with freak occurrences such as Allison heading a last-minute winner, Nathaniel Phillips outscoring Trent and Scott Carson coming out of assumed retirement to save a penalty.

For those of you just catching up and by now it’s probably too late, 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

Matthew Jones was the star of the show over the last couple of weeks hitting 122 over that period with a bench boosted inspired 71 in Gameweek 37 despite the fact that by his own admittance he missed the deadline and ended up with an injured Jota rather than a full fifteen.

He has hit form at the right time with six green arrows, moving up to 38,000 and into fourth amongst The Great and The Good, remarkable as he was outside the top 2 million in Gameweek 13.

He was not the only one to play his chips with Lateriser and Ville Ronka free hitting in Gameweek 36 giving them both healthy green arrows, the mysterious Fin had his differential pick of Che Adams to thank for his rise up the rankings that week.

In truth, it’s been a poor season for Ville by his lofty standards and this looks likely to be the first season he will ever finish outside the top 100,000 but let’s see if he has another trick up his sleeve.

Fabio Borges looks set to take the crown of the greatest of The Great and The Good from Ville this year with his relentless consistency, he sits just outside the top 1,000 for now, but for context he has not ended up outside the top 2,000 in the last 5 years so he will be a worthy winner.

TRANSFERS

This is a summary of the transfers for this week:

Az

GW36 – Antonio, Dallas (Iheanacho, Castagne)

GW37 – Harrison (Jota)

Fabio Borges

GW36 – Kane, Son, Dallas (Vardy, Fernandes, Fofana)

GW37 – Harrison (Jota)

Joe Lepper

GW36 – Pickford, Antonio, Dallas (Mendy, Iheanacho, Maguire)

GW37 – Harrison (Jota)

FPL General

GW36 – Antonio, Son, Pickford (Iheanacho, Fernandes, Mendy)

GW37 – Saint-Maximin (Jota)

Lateriser

GW36 – Free Hit

GW37 – Kane, Smith-Rowe, Alioski (Iheanacho, Maddison, Robertson)

Magnus Carlsen

GW36 – Ayling (Veltman)

GW37 – Greenwood (Jota)

Mark Sutherns

GW36 – Antonio (Iheanacho)

GW37 – None

Matthew Jones

GW36 – Antonio, Dallas (Maguire, Iheanacho)

GW37 – None

Neale Rigg

GW36 – Antonio, Bamford (Vardy, Iheanacho)

GW37 – None

Sean Tobin

GW36 – Antonio, Son (Iheanacho, Fernandes)

GW37 – Raphinha, Mane (Jota, Son)

Tom Freeman

GW36 – Jota (Maddison)

GW37 – Antonio (Iheanacho)

Ville Ronka

GW36 – Free Hit

GW37 – Shaw (Maguire)

*transfers out are in brackets

Plenty of hits flying around in the last couple of weeks mainly in the Gameweek 36 blank with FPL General, Fabio Borges and even Joe forced into a double hit, that man Fabio had the pick of the moves with Kane and Dallas both returning.

Lateriser gambled on Kane in Gameweek 37 with a -8, but a sluggish Spurs performance let him down, unfortunately his mood will not have been enhanced by the fact that he transferred out Robertson as part of the exchange, missing out on his 15 points haul.

Sean Tobin has been busy taking hits, he is now up to 16 for the season, that is double what he took during the 19/20 campaign but I believe he has made a smart move in signing up Mane who now looks to be a popular target as managers double down on a strong home fixture for Liverpool versus Palace on the final day.

TEMPLATE

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

Forster (8), Mendy (6)

Alexander-Arnold (10), Digne (7), Shaw (6), Dallas (5), Holding/Rudiger/Veltman (4)

Salah (12), Lingard (9), Son (8), Raphinha (7), Bruno Fernandes/Greenwood/Smith-Rowe (4)

Kane (11), Antonio (9), Calvert-Lewin (6)

Unsurprisingly, Jota has left the building closely followed by Iheanacho although many could end up regretting that move as he continued his scoring run this week and is up against a Spurs defence which looked like a frightened bunch of gazelles against Villa.

Antonio has come in up front and looks strong for a final game against Southampton who are busy setting up their deck chairs and also Greenwood, championed by FPL Wire, many will be hoping he makes the line up against another team, Wolves, who are planning for their summer holidays.

BUILDING THE TENSION

This is the penultimate article of this campaign and I will be wrapping up matters and handing out awards next week so always good to build a bit of unnecessary tension as we enter the last week as there is much to be decided.

The Great and The Good looks to have been won by Fabio but the real interest lies elsewhere as the battle lines have been drawn between Magus Carlsen and Mark Sutherns, the Chess genius is now only 28 points behind having cut the lead over the last few weeks and has a bench boost in hand with a strong squad including triple Leeds and his favourite Jamie Vardy. Will he put Mark into checkmate in this last week?

Mark will also be keeping an eye on LTFPL Andy, he is a prime candidate for a swift return to The Great and The Good with a fantastic season, he sits just outside the top 2,000, is 13 points ahead of Mr Sutherns and would have given Fabio a run for his money with only 800 places separating them.

Next week I will also catch up on the Community team and there have been some outstanding performances here as well with  Pras United, he of the FPL Wire fame at 16,000 and Chaballer, who has taken time away from listening to Britney Spears to rest just outside the top 10,000.

Finally, we will find out who is going to be the promising new face in next year’s cohort as we crown the inaugural winner of The next The Great and The Good mini-league, there are only 11 points separating Les Caldwell, David Cousins and John Pritchard.

CONCLUSION

The last weekend of the season brings us that rare thing, synchronised fixtures meaning we have all the highs and lows of FPL in a concentrated 90 min period, which will be a blessing after a season of death by a thousand cuts.

As we plan our final moves, let’s remember there is nothing as unpredictable as the final weekend and so let’s enjoy the chaos for one last time before we take a well-deserved break. I’ll leave you with the muppets to play us out, “it’s time to play the music, it’s time to light the lights, it’s time to raise the curtain on the final Gameweek Show tonight…”.

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