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Learning from the Great and the Good 20/21 – The Final

“It’s something unpredictable

But in the end it’s right

I hope you had the time of your life”

Good riddance? Or did you have the time of your life? A season of highs and lows for many encapsulated in final day rollercoaster with the unexpected Bamford benching, brave Mane captainers rewarded and of course Aguero was there to finish us off with the emotional sucker punch.

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 SuthernsAzLateriserFabio Borges and Tom Freeman ), FPL “celebrities”, FPL General,  Magnus Carlsen and finally from the Hall of Fame we have Ville RonkaMatthew Jones and Sean Tobin.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

In a dramatic finish to the season Fabio Borges was crowned champion in this mythical mini-league by just three points, thanks to a last day surge by Mark.

Fabio had a 27-point advantage going into the final Sunday, but Mark rolled the dice on Mane and scored 74 points taking him to his highest rank of the season teetering outside the top 2,000.

However, Fabio was a worthy winner and Kane sealed victory for the Portuguese wonder, who was in the top 10,000 from Gameweek 18 and finished in the top 2,000 for the fifth time in a row – massive congratulations to the true no.1!

Magnus continued to confound all with a maverick last day bench boost, he managed 15 from the pine but suffered from no shows from Forster and Greenwood.

Sean Tobin was top scorer this week with Mane, Kane and Coufal providing double digits but Matthew Jones was not far behind him on 71 points.

It was a season of two halves for the Welsh wonder as he was the second highest scorer from Gameweek 19 with only Mark pipping him by three points. If he gets a good start next year Fabio could be in trouble!

TRANSFER TRIUMPH

The table below shows the season stats:-

This turbulent season of fixture chaos meant there was a flurry of transfer activity, to give some context The Great and The Good averaged seven hits last season whilst this year it was eleven.

However, a degree of subtlety is needed here in determining whether an aggressive approach is the right or wrong answer, for example both Az and FPL General led the way in minus fours between Gameweek 19 and 30 with five each but whilst Az’s rank soared as a result, moving up roughly 800,000 places, the General lost ground and never quite recovered to his season-high of 1,621 in Gameweek 20.

Mark wins the awards for the best wheeler dealer over the season with 298 immediate points from transfers, I’ve removed the free hit, but as always this doesn’t consider the longer-term impact of the moves.

This is a summary of the transfers for the final week :

Az – Raphinha (Greenwood)

Fabio Borges – Antonio (Calvert-Lewin)

Joe Lepper – Robertson (Shaw)

FPL General – Robertson (Ward)

Lateriser – Aguero, Mount (Calvert-Lewin, Fernandes)

Magnus Carlsen – Harrison, Robertson (Struijk, Son)

Mark Sutherns – Bamford, Mane (Kane, Jota)

Matthew Jones – Mane, Raphinha (Jota, Fernandes)

Neale Rigg – Mane, Dallas (Son, Lindelöf)

Sean Tobin – Bamford (Calvert-Lewin)

Tom Freeman – Raphinha, Dallas (Jota, Veltman)

Ville Ronka – Raphinha (Zaha)

*transfers out are in brackets

Neale, Mark and Matthew deserve a mention for their Mane manoeuvre but the biggest ovation should be left for Lateriser who let his heart rule his head to dramatic effect with his love of Aguero seeing him rewarded with a brace off the bench.

A word on Lateriser, whilst these articles are a bit of fun, I do appreciate they add a little to the intense spotlight on these more prominent managers. He has not had the best of seasons but throughout it all he has been nothing but kind and supportive of others and I know he will be back with a bang next season!

CAPTAIN CALL

A point worth repeating is stressing the time we should take on our captaincy picks, Fabio topped this metric with 621 points, and this accounted for approx. 25% of his score, so time invested in your armband agony is time well spent.

If we are to learn anything from Fabio is his consistency with Mo Salah getting the nod for 50% of the Gameweeks, he was also the manager who captained Bruno the most at eight times.

His dedication to the heavy hitters meant he had only eight different captains, compare that to Az who went for double that number at sixteen, perhaps when it’s come to captaincy it’s best not to differentiate too much.

CHIP CHAMP

This season provided the most variety when it came to Chip strategies – we had early Wildcards, a Bamford triple captain and even a final day bench boost.

The table below shows the timings and the outcomes from the choppy chip play:-

One learning point here is the negative impact a bench boost can have on your fortunes if played mid-way through the season. Whilst stocking up your substitutes it can mean minimizing investment in your playing eleven and valuable transfers wasted as you try to correct.

One example is Sean who hit a season-high of 35,000 in Gameweek 19 but then three reds came along as he looked to readjust his squad after building to a power fifteen.

Tom Freeman proved to be the champ of the chips overall with a late free hit netting him 57 points above the average and jump of 56,000, his Kane triple captain call scored him 36 and he boosted his bench for an extra 32 points.

A shout out to Ville Ronka who scored the most from his Kevin De Bruyne triple captain, the Fin has had a tough season never entering the top 100,000 but at least it shows even the best have struggled in this tough campaign.

COMMUNITY CLASH

Let’s now have a look at the Community team that dared to challenge The Great and The Good.

Plenty of strong performances but it was Chaballer who led the way with a final place in the top 10,000, his aggressive style with a century of hits paid dividend and there was nothing toxic about his performance.

Pras also deserves a mention with a final day flourish with a Mane captain saw him finish at 11,000 but when it comes to captains, we should all pay attention to Pete Beswick who rivalled even Fabio with his picks.

Swanmoretime clearly likes a hit or ten and took a -4 forty-one times this season making even Lateriser look cautious.

There were also some great ending surges, Sepp Blattered had eight of ten greens in the last weeks, the newly named Lighthouse Keeper shone brightly as he managed eleven out of thirteen but Darth Krid’s rise from 1.1 million to 148,000 from Gameweek 22 has to be mentioned, and he does frequently.

Unfortunately, all this wasn’t enough as The Great and The Good out scored the Community team by 900 points but a big thanks to everyone for getting involved.

CONCLUSION

Before I get onto the thank you’s a special mention to Les Caldwell who won The Next Great and The Good mini-league and so will be battling it out with these big names next year. He finished with 73 points and a place in the top 1,000 for the first time in his career, Fabio and Magnus best beware there is a new champ in town!

A massive thank you to Rotation’s Alter Ego who has put up with my misspelling of Coufal all season and continues to edit these ramblings into a reasonable form.

Thanks also to The Great and The Good for not calling for a restraining order as I have tracked their performance and poked a little fun along the way.

Finally, thank you to those who have read along, as mentioned before I enjoy my early morning routine of writing these updates and I hope they have helped or at least amused at some point during this year when life has been anything but routine.

The Great and The Good will return next year with some new faces and some old ones, Mr Slippers aka Andy deserves a return after his stunning finish, and there is even talk of a cross over with the return of the Community tournament, but I have already said too much.

So, for now and for one last time, 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

22 Comments Post a Comment
  1. Rotation's Alter Ego
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • Has Moderation Rights
    • 12 Years
    2 years, 10 months ago

    Thank you Greyhead - editing these has never been a chore, been fantastic to read each week. Really really appreciate your work on the series and look forward to what you have planned next!

    I think we've got Coufal nailed down, next season we'll move on to Raphinha 😉

    1. Greyhead
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      2 years, 10 months ago

      Thanks again RAE. I am sure there should be an extra h in there somewhere. 🙂

  2. Lateriser 12
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 12 Years
    2 years, 10 months ago

    Thanks for the articles throughout the season!

  3. Je suis le chat
    • 10 Years
    2 years, 10 months ago

    Thanks greyhead, handy link to some legends. Shows how tough the game is when none of these great players came top 1000. Hopefully next season will be more fun.

  4. Baines on Toast...
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 13 Years
    2 years, 10 months ago

    Beat them all bar Fabio. He is too good.

    1. Greyhead
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      2 years, 10 months ago

      Well done on a great season Baines !

  5. shuddahaddum
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 8 Years
    2 years, 10 months ago

    Thanks for the opportunity to join the Great and the Good. Looking forward to next year.

    1. Greyhead
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      2 years, 10 months ago

      Great stuff and well done on a fantastic season. Please can you drop me a email at fplgreyhead@gmail.com when you get a moment. Need to ask you something for next season.

  6. FPL Virgin
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 7 Years
    2 years, 10 months ago

    How does Fabio do it, GH? His pro pundit articles reveal nothing.

    1. mixology
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 11 Years
      2 years, 10 months ago

      Pretty sure he’s stated that he has his own stats tables and models, which I’m assuming go beyond the data that is widely available/understood by most (including myself)

      1. FPL Theorist
        • 4 Years
        2 years, 10 months ago

        Whichever model he used, it seems to have given him the courage of his convictions to brush off the early goal glut, recognise it as "noise" (seeing as teams' attacks were wildly outperforming xG numbers), and stick with his 4-3-3 for the first 9 GWs. He didn't waste any transfers shuffling around cheap mids until we actually saw some good ones emerge.

        His transfers were mostly like-for-like in terms of price points, except in GW5 when he could afford to use 2 FT to perform a slight restructuring.

        He hardly owned any Man City or Man Utd until they had actually shown form.

    2. FPL Theorist
      • 4 Years
      2 years, 10 months ago

      660 points in the first 10 GWs, without using WC (18k OR after GW10), has to be a big part of it. He got the team right early when most did not.

      If you were to exclude the first 10 GWs, Andy would have beaten Fabio by 57 points, without even having a GW16 WC available. But Fabio got the early advantage. He captured the entire Son purple patch at the start -- which other Pro Pundits did? Even Sam Bonfield, usually somewhat partial to her Spurs assets, sold Son in GW2.

    3. Greyhead
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      2 years, 10 months ago

      If I knew that Virg I would do it myself 🙂 He’s quite fixture based and loyal to those he thinks represent good value eg Son.

  7. Jerse
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 4 Years
    2 years, 10 months ago

    If you had Salah for his week 1 haul and then lucky enough to have Kane and Son for those first 6 freak weeks ( which after the wk 1 Everton poor performance, were completely unpredictable), then you were off to a flier, but the amount of luck in landing on those freak weeks was exactly that with a capital L.

    1. Greyhead
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      2 years, 10 months ago

      We all need a bit a luck

  8. Casual Player
    • 3 Years
    2 years, 10 months ago

    Enjoyed these articles every week. Cheers!

    1. Greyhead
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      2 years, 10 months ago

      Thank you

  9. Saubi
    • 3 Years
    2 years, 10 months ago

    Thank you for the articles throughout the season! A great read everytime 🙂

    1. Greyhead
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      2 years, 10 months ago

      Thank you reading along all season

  10. BRKFCTrueRover
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 11 Years
    2 years, 10 months ago

    Thanks for the articles greyhead I actually think it's my favourite segment on the whole site!

    1. Greyhead
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 5 Years
      2 years, 10 months ago

      Thank you - very kind! Back bigger and better (well bigger at least) next season

  11. JoeJitzu +42
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 10 Years
    2 years, 9 months ago

    I love these articles they’re an addictive read. Thanks for taking the time to do them, it’s really appreciated